Court to hear compensation claims after landmark ruling lifts statute of limitationsThe relatives of five men summarily executed during the final years of Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia will have their case heard in court after a ground-breaking decision to lift the statute of limitations.The court of appeal in The Hague found there was sufficient evidence that language differences and social disadvantage had stood in the way of claims being made against the state. Continue reading...

Violent protests break out across Hong Kong, overshadowing celebrations in Beijing to mark 70 years of Communist party rule

One man sentenced to death and others receive long sentences in further blow to efforts to calm US-Iranian tensionsIranian courts have sentenced one man to death for spying for the US and jailed two others for 10 years for the same crime, as well as imprisoning a fourth person for six years for spying for Britain, an Iranian judiciary spokesman has said.“One person has been sentenced to death for spying for America … but the ruling has been appealed,” Gholamhossein Esmaili told the judiciary’s news website, Mizan, on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Offences include repeatedly asking for a date or sending explicit texts, survey showsOne in five doctors has been sexually harassed or witnessed it at work, with offences including explicit text messages or emails or being groped, propositioned or repeatedly asked to go on a date, a survey has found.The perpetrators are mostly patients but sometimes they are fellow medics or nurses, according to a survey of 1,378 hospital doctors and GPs across the UK. Continue reading...

Family pays tribute to internationally celebrated medal of arts recipientJessye Norman, the renowned international opera star whose passionate soprano voice won her four Grammy awards and the national medal of arts, has died, according to a family spokesperson, Gwendolyn Quinn. She was 74.Related: Jessye Norman: a powerful voice joins America’s race debate | Observer profile Continue reading...

Critics say Hajar Raissouni’s one-year sentence is a crackdown on criticism governmentA Moroccan journalist has been sentenced to a year in prison on charges of having an illegal abortion and premarital sex, in a trial observers say was concocted to crack down on criticism of the government.A Rabat court sentenced journalist Hajar Raissouni to one year in prison, on charges of “having an illegal abortion and sexual relations outside marriage”. Her fiancee, Prof Rifaat al-Amin was given a one-year sentence for alleged complicity. Continue reading...

Chris Ling was first investigated in 1990 after abuse allegations but case was dropped due to supposed lack of evidenceThe Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) could and should have extradited a paedophile music teacher suspected of grooming and sexually abusing a string of girls at a school in Manchester, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse has heard.In 1990, detectives began investigating Chris Ling, a violin teacher at Chetham’s School of Music. He had moved to the US with some sixth form pupils – one of whom he married – promising to make them classical music stars. Continue reading...

Brazil’s president accused of ‘drinking from the sewers of history’ by recommending The Suffocated TruthBrazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been accused of “drinking from the sewer of history” after urging teenage students to read a book by a notorious dictatorship-era torturer accused of directing interrogation sessions where victims were were whipped, given electric shocks and pounded with vine wood canes.Bolsonaro, an outspoken fan of the 1964-1985 military regime during which hundreds of political opponents were murdered and thousands more tortured, met with students at the gates of the presidential palace in the capital, Brasília, on Monday. Continue reading...

Greens leader says ALP will lose again if it retreats from climate action, and coal workers deserve ‘honest conversation’ about transition from fossil fuelsGreens leader Richard Di Natale says Labor has learned “all the wrong lessons” from its election defeat, warning that a retreat from action on climate change will see it lose the next election.Ahead of a new parliamentary inquiry into future employment for regional areas that begins hearings on Tuesday, Di Natale said neither major party had been prepared to have an “honest conversation” with workers in the coal industry who would be affected by the transition away from fossil fuels. Continue reading...

Song Moujiang, jailed for people trafficking, escaped prison in 2002Chinese police reportedly used drones to track down a convicted human trafficker who had been on the run for 17 years and was living in a cave.Song Moujiang, 63, who was jailed for trafficking women and children, had evaded police capture after escaping a prison camp, Yilaochang Farm in Sichuan province, in March 2002, the BBC reported. Continue reading...

Emotionally powerful exhibition of Iraqi Kurdish artists will include paintings peppered by bulletsKurdish artworks that survived Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons as well as Islamic State’s cultural vandalism will go on display at a London gallery this week.Iraqi Kurdish artists have made paintings and art installations from artefacts including Assyrian reliefs from 700 BC peppered by Isis bullet holes and the farewell “death” notes of a charity worker smuggling aid to Isis-controlled Mosul. Continue reading...

Emergency services search for person feared swept away by River Severn waveA threat-to-life warning has been issued as parts of Britain brace for two more days of heavy rain, ahead of some snowfall and the leftovers of a hurricane later this week.On Monday, emergency services were searching for a person apparently swept away by the River Severn, after a yellow weather warning was issued for parts of Wales and the Midlands. Continue reading...

Italian capital’s waste management problems compounded by inefficiency and corruptionDemand for pest control services in apartment buildings in Rome has boomed in recent months as authorities in the Italian capital struggle to overcome its rubbish crisis.Rats, cockroaches and other insects have been infiltrating apartment buildings in areas, mostly beyond the centre, where rubbish had piled up on the streets for days before collection. Continue reading...

Freedom party’s vote collapses to 16%, as others stall in Italy, Spain, France and elsewhereThe slump in support for the nationalist Freedom party (FPÖ) in Austria’s elections on Sunday is the latest indication that if the tide has not turned against Europe’s far-right populists, it does seem – for the time being, at least – to have stopped rising.Sebastian Kurz’s conservative People’s party (ÖVP) won 37.1% of the vote, its best score since 2002, while the share held by FPÖ, until May his junior coalition partner in government, collapsed to 16.1%, down a full 10 percentage points. Continue reading...

Many in China may prefer to forget the chaotic and bloody decades under the rule of Chairman Mao Zedong, but 70 years after he founded the People’s Republic his face is on memorabilia in shops across the country. The Great Helmsman has had a kitsch makeover, appearing on everything from posters, fans and ornaments to mugs and plates Continue reading...

Military police have launched only 35 probes into racially aggravated crimes in five yearsMilitary police have launched 35 investigations into racially aggravated crimes over the past five years, prompting warnings that many service personnel from BAME backgrounds are “suffering in silence”.The number of military police investigations – which the Ministry of Defence has admitted is low – was revealed following a Freedom of Information Act by the Guardian and cover those conducted in the army, navy and air force since 2015. Continue reading...

Crackdown begins on high-profile activists in Hong Kong and the mainland ahead of 70th anniversaryAuthorities have arrested at least two high-profile activists as Hong Kong prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Tuesday.A large demonstration organised by the group Civil Human Rights Front, which has organised previous mass protests, has been banned by the police, but protesters have vowed to turn out on 1 October to show their anger and frustration at the erosion of rights under Chinese rule. Continue reading...

Helena Broadbent died in hospital after delivering a baby via C-section

Monday: A legal loophole is depriving people of unpaid wages. Plus, Boris Johnson could bypass a law preventing a no-deal BrexitGood morning, this is Stephen Smiley bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 30 September. Continue reading...

Alice Springs woman warned she could lose her wages and her house by debt collectorsAn Alice Springs woman says she was pursued by an external debt collector who warned they could seize her wages or stop her travelling overseas over a $3,700 Centrelink overpayment that a tribunal later found was entirely caused by the agency’s mistakes.But Emma Delahunty, a single mother of a one-year-old, will be forced to pay back the money due to what she called a “loophole” in the rules for people receiving paid parental leave. Continue reading...

‘They are shorting the pound and the country’ warns Nick Macpherson of Boris Johnson’s hedge fund supportersFormer chancellor Philip Hammond’s attack on Boris Johnson’s hedge fund backers has been supported by a former top Treasury civil servant, as financial experts raise concerns over the PM’s links to the City.Nick Macpherson, former permanent secretary to the Treasury, said Hammond was right to question the political connections of some of the hedge funds with a financial interest in no deal. Continue reading...

Despite agreeing ‘in principle’ to include them in employee protections, the federal government has done nothing in six months

Rolling coverage of Tory conference in Manchester, as PM defends use of the term ‘surrender act’ and says ‘nothing to declare’ over Jennifer Arcuri

Activists from diverse political movements assemble in Moscow in sanctioned rallyTens of thousands of activists have rallied in Moscow to call for an end to prosecutions tied to this summer’s mass protests, as Russia’s opposition seeks to maintain its momentum after the largest anti-Kremlin demonstrations in years.Russian police estimated at least 20,000 demonstrators – and organisers said the numbers were higher – joined the sanctioned rally on a drizzly autumn Sunday to listen to speeches attacking the political crackdown amid chants of “let them go”. Continue reading...

Yemen militant group says it captured further 2,000 troops in operation in Saudi ArabiaHouthi rebels in Yemen say they have killed 500 Saudi soldiers, captured a further 2,000 and seized a convoy of Saudi military vehicles.The extraordinary claims at a press conference on Sunday, involving still photographs and inconclusive videos of captured soldiers, many not in uniform, could not be corroborated, and there was no independent confirmation from Saudi Arabia. Continue reading...

Worsening relations between the two countries now affecting trade, security, tourism and day-to-day lifeLong lunchtime queues form outside restaurants serving samgyeopsal (barbecued pork belly) and sundubu jjigae (a tofu stew). Groups of teenage girls brave the drizzle and eat Korean-style hotdogs on street corners after shopping for cosmetics and K-pop merchandise.This is not Seoul, but Shin-ÅŒkubo, a little slice of Korea in central Tokyo. It is home to a large ethnic Korean community, some the descendants of people at the heart of a dispute between Japan and South Korea that local business owners fear is turning them into collateral victims. Continue reading...

PM says UK can still leave with no deal and fails to deny asking EU nations to block extensionBoris Johnson has ramped up speculation that he is planning to bypass a law that stops the UK from crashing out of the EU without a deal.The prime minister told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show that Britain can still leave the bloc on 31 October despite the passing of the Benn Act, which aims to prevent a no-deal Brexit by forcing him to ask Brussels for a delay. Continue reading...

Riot officers confront crowds gathered in Causeway Bay shopping districtPolice have used teargas and pepper spray on thousands of protesters in Hong Kong as demonstrations enter their 17th week in the city’s most serious political crisis for decades.The protest, which was not sanctioned by the police, was scheduled to start at 3pm local time (0800 BST) in the Causeway Bay shopping district, but dozens of riot police began guarding the area hours before. They stopped and searched a number of young people dressed in black. Continue reading...

Detective identifies gangster Billy Hill as mastermind of 1963 crime that still fascinates the publicWho was the mastermind? Who were the ones who got away? And why do we still want to know? Nearly 60 years after the Great Train Robbery, fresh claims are being made about who planned it and who were the robbers who were never caught. Never mind whodunnits; there’s now a genre of whoreallydunnits.A book published this week, written by a former British Transport police detective with the help of one of the robbers, will claim that the mastermind of the heist was the late gangster Billy Hill, and that one of the team who got away with it was a relative of an Arsenal and England football player. It will also suggest that the person named recently as the “real” inside man was, in fact, a blameless postman. Already some of the new claims are being challenged by relatives of the men named. Continue reading...

The prime minister and his poisonous sidekick react to accusations of ‘dangerous language’•You can buy your own print of this cartoon Continue reading...

During the first world war and the ensuing economic crisis, many German towns issued notgeld, or emergency money, to combat cash shortages.The designs range from local fairytales and legends to political messages. “The nicer a note, the more it drew collectors, so towns tried to make them as ornate, funny or clever as possible,” says Johannes Hartmann, curator of an exhibition of the notes at the British Museum.

Former staff waiting for pay plan to take protests to Tory conference, and Greek hoteliers face a €500m hitStaff from Thomas Cook are to hold protests at this week’s Tory party conference in Manchester and later at Downing Street over the government’s decision not to step in and save the company from liquidation.Staff were due to get their monthly salaries on 30 September but are instead among Thomas Cook’s creditors, and it is now unclear when they will be paid. Some 150,000 UK holidaymakers are being repatriated at taxpayers’ expense following the demise of the world’s oldest tour operator. On 28 September, a further 16,700 customers were set to be flown home. Continue reading...

Police register hundreds of men and boys found in Kaduna school bearing signs of abuse

Former minister says party is no longer his and joins calls for PM to moderate his rhetoricPhilip Hammond has called for Boris Johnson to “moderate his language”, and described the current Tory government of radicals who seek Brexit by any means as unrecognisable from the party he joined.The former chancellor said he would not attend the Conservative party conference – due to begin on Sunday in Manchester – for the first time in 35 years. Continue reading...

Yellow weather warning and 25 flood alerts issued for western England and Wales

Connor Marsden, 23, faces several charges relating to death of Melissa Tate in Kenton, NewcastleA man has appeared in court charged with causing death by dangerous driving after a 10-year-old girl died in an alleged hit-and-run.Melissa Tate was hit by a vehicle in Kenton, Newcastle, at about 6.40pm on Wednesday. She died in hospital the next day. Continue reading...

After a breakup with Robert Pattinson and emergency surgery, the queen of art pop has written her most personal album yet – and come out fightingFKA twigs lives in a real house, in the real world, though this seems hard to believe. She appears so alien, in her music and her performances, in the way she presents herself, that you’d be forgiven for believing that she lived in a cryo chamber alongside bejewelled hip-hop robots, or a martial arts monastery surrounded by an enchanted thicket of thorns.Twigs’ art is not of the stripped-back, real me, acoustics-and-grubby-jeans variety. She arrived on the scene in 2012, whispering like Tricky, clattering like the xx, romancing like Prince, singing like Kate Bush, yet not actually quite like anyone else. A polymath – she is a beautiful dancer and has directed pop videos and immersive theatre – she works in experimental hinterlands, creating atmospheres rather than singalong stories. For example: the sparse and sad track Cellophane, released in April as the opening single for her new album, was accompanied by a video that featured twigs athletically pole-dancing in a sparkly bikini before being eaten by a lookalike insect, falling into watery depths and being covered in orange mud by caring tortoise creatures. Twigs is about intensity, beauty, sexuality and freakiness. Continue reading...

Case involves possible conflict of interest when Boris Johnson was mayor of LondonBoris Johnson has been formally referred for potential investigation into whether he committed the criminal offence of misconduct in public office, over allegations about a conflict of interest with a US businesswoman while he was mayor of London.An official from the Greater London Authority, the city’s devolved government, has written to the prime minister noting claims he had “on more than one occasion” used his position as mayor to “benefit and reward” Jennifer Arcuri, a tech entrepreneur. Continue reading...

Heat stress guidelines would ‘prohibit or substantially reduce’ live export during northern summer says new policy documentThe RSPCA has accused the federal government of making a “backflip on animal welfare safeguards” with the release of a policy document outlining options for the live export of sheep to the Middle East.The discussion paper, released on Friday, outlines four possible options to govern the live sheep export trade from Australia to the Middle East from 2020 onwards. Continue reading...

Number of dead may be higher than official death toll and unrest in Wamena may have claimed as many as 41 livesWitnesses to Monday’s deadly riots in West Papua claim Indonesian police gunned down Papuan students in the street during the unrest, and say Wamena has since become a militarised ghost town.Witness testimony from Wamena, the largest town in Papua’s remote Baliem Valley, run in stark contrast to the Indonesian authorities’ official account. Continue reading...

Hillary Clinton criticised Donald Trump’s communications with Ukraine, saying he had ‘turned American diplomacy into a cheap extortion racket'. Speaking at Georgetown University on Friday, the former Democratic presidential candidate said the US president had ‘endangered us all by putting his personal and political interests ahead of the interests of the American people'. Clinton's comments come in the wake of a whistleblower complaint that revealed Trump attempted to pressure Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden’s family Continue reading...

In a new book, Labor’s Tim Watts takes a political and personal look at Australia’s great achievement – ‘outgrowing its beginnings’Tim Watts is the product of six generations of graziers, Anzacs and pilots who could have come from the pages of Russel Ward’s The Australian Legend, the 1950s book that distilled the mythical characteristics of the early white nation.The Labor MP for Gellibrand grew up on the Darling Downs in Queensland where his ancestor John Watts was one of the first colonisers. After managing a section of land on that rich black soil, John became its first MP in the Queensland parliament in 1859. Continue reading...

Imran Khan tells UN assembly ‘two nuclear-armed countries will come face to face’Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, warned last night that India’s actions in Kashmir could cause a “bloodbath” in the region and provoke war between the two nuclear-armed countries.In an address to the United Nations general assembly in New York, Khan described the situation in Kashmir as a test for the UN and warned that a conflict between India and Pakistan would have “consequences far beyond the borders”. Continue reading...

Michael Roby, 36, accused of public order offence at Birmingham constituency officeA 36-year-old man has been charged in connection with a disturbance outside the constituency office of the Labour MP Jess Phillips.Michael Roby, of Billesley in Birmingham, was arrested after police officers were called to the Birmingham Yardley MP’s premises in the Acocks Green area of the city on Thursday afternoon. Continue reading...

Alek Minassian said after his arrest he drew inspiration from men who used violence as retribution for ‘being unable to get laid’The man accused of killing 10 people by ploughing his van onto a crowded Toronto sidewalk has admitted that he was a violent misogynist who was radicalized online, in a video that was made public on Friday.Alek Minassian is accused of driving a rental van into a crowd on one of Toronto’s busiest streets, killing 10 pedestrians and injuring 16, in the deadliest act of mass murder in the city’s history. Continue reading...

Anti-Taliban resistance veteran faces off against old rival Ashraf Ghani in election on SaturdayAbdullah Abdullah has spent more than a decade trying to become Afghanistan’s president, contesting three separate votes and coming within touching distance in 2014 before watching the prize slip from his grasp.In most other countries, repeated high-profile losses would almost certainly spell the end of a political career, despite Abdullah’s credentials from years serving with the anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban resistance and later in government. Continue reading...

Bill is Emmanuel Macron’s biggest social reform since he was elected in 2017France has taken a step towards allowing lesbian and single women to conceive children with medical help, setting the stage for a clash with the country’s religious conservatives.To loud applause, France’s lower house of parliament approved a draft bioethics law in a move that has already sparked outrage from opponents, including some in President Emmanuel Macron’s own centrist party. Continue reading...

Former cabinet minister says ‘casual approach to safety of MPs and their staff is immoral’

Following concerns about the potential for violence, several chains will not allow face coverings or clothing that ‘would make other guests feel uncomfortable’Major cinema chains in the US have announced that they will enforce bans of masks, costumes and toy weapons at screenings of Joker, the new film starring Joaquin Phoenix as Batman’s nemesis, as concerns about the potential for violence connected to the film’s release on 4 October circulate.Landmark Theatres says on its website that “no masks, painted faces or costumes will be permitted into our theatres”. AMC Theatres, the US’s largest cinema chain with more than 600 venues, has said in a statement that they are “working with law enforcement” and that their standard policy allows audience members to wear costume but “we do not permit masks, face paint or any object that conceals the face … [or] weapons or items that would make other guests feel uncomfortable”. Continue reading...