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Simon Byrne says his officers could be killed if they had to patrol border checkpointsNorthern Ireland’s chief constable has said his police officers could be killed if they had to patrol border checkpoints in the event of a hard Brexit.Simon Byrne told the Guardian he opposed officers having to patrol checkpoints on a physical border between Northern Ireland and the Republic and said officers who were already under huge strain would be placed in danger policing any checkpoints. Continue reading...

Benjamin Netanyahu’s warnings that Arab parties would topple him may have backfiredIt’s become a tired trope of Benjamin Netanyahu’s election campaigns: as the country draws closer to election day the leader ramps up his racist scaremongering suggesting Israel’s Arab minority are preparing to vote en masse.Infamously in 2015 he said Arabs were “voting in droves”. This year the prime minister almost lost his voice on Tuesday as he shouted through a megaphone to his base. His political rivals in the Arab parties, he screamed, would gather enough parliamentary seats to topple him. “So go and vote!” Continue reading...

Ban follows vaping-related deaths in US, with punishment including up to a year in prisonIndia has announced a ban on electronic cigarettes, as a backlash gathers pace worldwide about a technology promoted as less harmful than smoking tobacco.The announcement by India on Wednesday came a day after New York became the second US state to ban flavoured e-cigarettes following a string of vaping-linked deaths. Continue reading...

MPs and senators rubbed shoulders with business leaders and celebrities at the annual press gallery ball in Parliament House Continue reading...

Fire broke out at artificial insemination facility in regional Victoria, AustraliaCryogenic cylinders full of cattle semen have gone up in flames at an artificial insemination facility in Australia.A fire broke out at Yarram Herd Services in regional Victoria at about 3am on Tuesday. A crew of more than 30 firefighters brought it under control within three hours. Continue reading...

Calls for ‘racist and humiliating’ gesture to be removed from online guide to Flemish signingAn organisation representing Jewish communities in Europe are demanding the removal of a “racist and humiliating” depiction of Jews as having large hooked noses from an online dictionary of Flemish sign language.The portrayal is one of more than 10,000 signs on a visual online guide recognised by the Flemish government as a “knowledge and coordination centre” for sign language in the Flanders region of Belgium. Continue reading...

North Antrim MP accused Sam McBride of lying as part of agenda to destroy DUPIan Paisley Jr has been strongly criticised by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) for personal comments he made about a reporter in Belfast.The North Antrim MP accused the News Letter’s political editor, Sam McBride, of lying as part of “an agenda to attempt to undermine and destroy the DUP”. In a 750-word Facebook post, since removed, Paisley described the journalist as “incredibly immature, intellectually weak and a simplistic fellow”. Continue reading...

Transport for London (TfL) says man died at station on Wednesday morningA man has died at Waterloo station while working on a moving walkway.Transport for London (TfL) said the engineer died at the station on Wednesday morning. Continue reading...

Imran Khan will use UN address to highlight alleged atrocities carried out by Indian armyPakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, is to follow a speech by his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, at the United Nations general assembly by accusing him of being complicit in the torture and mass detention of protesters in India-administered Kashmir.Khan will use his address in New York next week to highlight alleged atrocities being carried out by the Indian army in the Jammu and Kashmir state since Modi’s government revoked the region’s autonomy by abrogating article 370 of the constitution. Continue reading...

For years if you wanted to discuss racism, people looked at you as if you were a Nazi, but now there’s a new opennessWhen I was growing up there was no racism in Germany. In the 1980s every child learned at school that race was a construct that fascists had used to justify segregating and killing people. So if race didn’t exist, it naturally followed that racism didn’t exist either. If you wanted to talk about it people looked at you as if you were the Nazi.All this is changing. It is dizzying to watch my motherland grapple with the concept of race. And, to be honest, to grapple with it myself because when you stop speaking about something you stop thinking about it eventually too. So we’re all walking on eggshells; the discussion about racism is on the agenda but we’re whispering “race” as if it were a dirty word. Except for members of Alternative für Deutschland, the far-right party, who keep pushing the boundaries of what you can and can’t say, and at every opportunity tout their worries about “other races” outbreeding white Germans. Germans of colour, meanwhile, worry about the AfD’s success in winning a quarter of the votes in recent state elections in Saxony and Brandenburg. Continue reading...

Police called to Lordship Lane in Haringey on Tuesday nightA 46-year-old woman was left in a critical condition and a man also injured after a shooting in north London.Police were called at about 9.50pm on Tuesday to Lordship Lane in Haringey. Continue reading...

Greenland’s ice melt has been adopted by the world as a bellwether for climate crisis, but the impact on biodiversity has been overlooked. At an ice station on a remote Arctic glacier, scientists are looking to the smallest of life forms to predict the pace of species extinctionBehind the remote research huts of Sermilik ice station, a vast sheet of ice stretches north for 1,480 miles, spanning an area three times the size of France.It is holding 10% of the world’s freshwater, water that has been frozen solid for millions of years. It’s glacier calving season in the south-eastern reaches of Greenland, and the adjacent channel is full of the thunderous roars and cracks of a flotilla of icebergs breaking apart. Continue reading...

Neither of the two main contenders in the second Israeli election of 2019, incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival Benny Gantz, have declared themselves victors, results remain too close to call. Speaking to his supporters, Netanyahu called for a 'strong Zionist government... not [one that] leans on Arab and anti-Zionist parties', as the crowd chanted 'no unity' Benny Gantz, the leader of the Blue and White party, said he would negotiate a unity government over the coming days.

Intelligence officer Cameron Ortis had access to classified information from Five Eyes allies, including AustraliaCanada is seeking to reassure its Five Eyes intelligence allies in the wake of a massive alleged spying leak that may be linked to an Australian drug-smuggling criminal syndicate.Cameron Ortis, the director general of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s intelligence unit, has been charged over allegations he was trying to sell secrets to a foreign agent or terrorist group. He had access to classified information from Canada’s Five Eyes global allies, including Australia. Continue reading...

Film-maker has spent three years showing how the colander-wearing religion is more than a jokeSome time next year, the European court of human rights will decide on the case of a Dutch woman who feels unfairly treated because her country’s highest court has told her she cannot wear a plastic colander on her head for her ID photo.It may combine Mienke de Wilde’s plea with that of an Austrian former MP, Niko Alm, who proudly wears the offending kitchen utensil on his official documents but now insists his country recognise Pastafarianism – the faith both follow – as a religion. Continue reading...

Since November 2018, the quartet took their lives after making hazardous journeys to the UKA teenage Eritrean refugee was the fourth from his friendship group to take his own life after arriving in the UK, an inquest hearing has revealed.Mulubrhane Medhane Kfleyosus, 19, was found dead on 18 February 2019 in Milton Keynes. It is the fourth death in the space of 16 months among one friendship group of unaccompanied young male Eritrean asylum seekers and refugees. Continue reading...

My friend June Hautot, who has died aged 82, was a determined campaigner for the National Health Service and battled to protect community rights.In 2012 June was demonstrating against NHS cuts outside Downing Street when the then health secretary, Andrew Lansley, tried to thread his way through the crowd and failed to see June in his way. She would not let him pass without giving him a piece of her mind. Their encounter was caught on camera and widely reported in the press, with clips shown on the BBC news and follow-up interviews on TV. Continue reading...

England cricketer says front-page article about family trauma in 1980s is immoral

MSP who resigned as leader of Scottish Tories criticises suspension of parliament

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

Two protesters acquitted of theft on basis they were calling for action by French presidentTwo climate crisis protesters who removed Emmanuel Macron’s portrait from an official building were justified in doing so because of the severity of the environmental emergency, a judge has said.​The ​judge in Lyon acquitted the pair of theft in a ruling hailed as historic by campaigners. Continue reading...

For years, documentary-maker Vanessa Engle has been on the trail of a notorious swindler who escaped from prison and disappeared into thin air. Then one day, the phone rang ...

Hundreds of people removed from site near Dunkirk after court orders its closure

Netanyahu campaign has demonised Israel’s Arab minority and vowed to annex much of Palestinian territoriesIsrael elections: everything you need to knowIsraelis are going to the polls in the country’s second election this year, following a campaign dominated by Benjamin Netanyahu and his vows to implement a far-right, ultranationalist agenda in exchange for a record fifth term as leader.Facing the prospect of criminal corruption indictments and hoping to extend his unmatched stint in the prime minister’s office, Netanyahu has promised to declare up to a third of the occupied Palestinian territories as part of Israel if he is re-elected. Continue reading...

Almost 12% of firm’s shares are held by Curaçao-registered entity linked to Kathmandu founder Jan CameronMore than $176m will find its way to a mysterious entity in the Caribbean tax haven Curaçao linked to Kathmandu founder Jan Cameron if a proposed takeover of the infant formula company Bellamy’s Australia by a Chinese group goes ahead.The $1.5bn takeover bid, lodged by Hong Kong-listed China Mengniu Dairy Company, has drawn fire from Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie because one of Mengniu’s key shareholders is a company owned by the Chinese state, the China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation (Cofco). Continue reading...

At least 24,000 people are trapped in vastly overcrowded Aegean island camps in squalid conditionsChildren being bitten by scorpions, rats and snakes; hundreds being forced to use a single shower; the stench of human excrement never far away; and food shortages becoming the norm. One by one, Sophie McCann lists the degradations of life for refugees detained on Lesbos, the Greek island on the frontline of a new surge of asylum seekers desperate to reach Europe.McCann, a British advocacy manager with Médecins Sans Frontières, like other aid workers, is now raising the alarm: at least 24,000 men, women and children trapped in vastly overcrowded Aegean island camps are being subjected to conditions so harrowing they bear all the hallmarks of humanitarian catastrophe. Four years after the greatest migration crisis in modern times, there are fears history is repeating itself. Continue reading...

US secretaries of state and energy both explicitly blamed Iran for the attack but Trump suggests US did not have definitive evidence

The climate crisis is so severe the actions of the denialists are now an immediate threat to our childrenIn this age of rapidly melting glaciers, terrifying megafires and ever more puissant hurricanes, of acidifying and rising oceans, it is hard to believe that any further prod to climate action is needed.But the reality is that we continue to live in a business-as-usual world. Our media is filled with enthusiastic announcements about new fossil fuel projects, or the unveiling of the latest fossil-fuelled supercar, as if there’s no relationship between such things and climate change. Continue reading...

Rebel MPs had promised to move against the premier over her handling of abortion decriminalisationHardline anti-abortion Liberal MPs in New South Wales have called off a proposed spill against the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, over her handling of the abortion decriminalisation bill which is due to be debated in the upper house on Tuesday.The trio, Tanya Davies, the MP for Mulgoa, and legislative council members Matthew Mason-Cox and Lou Amato said on Monday night they would back the spill motion, only months after Berejiklian led the party to victory at the election. Continue reading...

As predictions about the climate crisis increasingly become observations, Australians are witnessing first hand the impacts of more frequent and severe weather events. These images supplied by the Climate Council show the devastating effects on the continent’s ecosystems and unique wildlife. Australia’s ecosystems are already under grave stress from land-clearing, over-harvesting and invasive feral animals and plants; climate change is adding to the litany of woes and proving to be the last straw for some systems and species Continue reading...

Inquiry into anti-radicalisation programme will only look at present and future proposalsThe independent review into the anti-radicalisation programme Prevent has been branded “strange” and “superficial” after it emerged it will exclude all past decisions from its scope.The review was announced after years of mounting criticism of Prevent, which has become a toxic brand for many within Muslim communities, with some viewing it as a state tool for spying on them. Continue reading...

Police say charges of stealing covert information against Cameron Ortis pose ‘potential risk’ for US, UK, New Zealand and AustraliaCanada and its allies are scrambling to assess the damage inflicted by what experts believe could be the largest security breach in the country’s history after a senior federal intelligence official was arrested on charges of stealing covert information.Following a lengthy investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted police, Cameron Ortis – the leader of the police force’s own intelligence unit – was charged on Friday with leaking or offering to share covert information. Continue reading...

Top criminal court instead orders release of Gen Hugo Armando Carvajal, who was sought on drug trafficking chargesA top Spanish court has denied a US request to extradite Venezuela’s former military intelligence chief on drug trafficking charges, instead ordering his release.“The Audiencia National has denied the extradition of Gen Hugo Armando Carvajal,” said Spain’s top criminal court, which handles such requests. Continue reading...

Government would only have 14 months to avoid hard border in Ireland in event of deal

Lib Dem MP tells conference PM’s credibility undermined by threats to break lawBritain is unable to exert any moral authority in a world increasingly dominated by authoritarian leaders if Boris Johnson continues to threaten to break the law over Brexit, the Liberal Democrat MP, Chuka Umunna has argued.Umunna, who now speaks on foreign affairs for the party he joined in June, told the Lib Dem conference that Johnson’s international credibility was further undermined by a government dominated by figures from the former Vote Leave campaign. Continue reading...

LFB questioned under caution as corporate body in relation to health and safety offencesDetectives investigating possible criminality before and during the Grenfell Tower disaster have interviewed leaders of the London fire brigade in relation to health and safety offences which may have contributed to the deaths of 72 people.The Metropolitan police interviewed the LFB under caution as a corporate body, bringing the number of such interviews to 17 so far, two years and three months after the tragedy. Unnamed others have also been questioned in relation to offences of gross negligence manslaughter and corporate manslaughter, but police have said charges are unlikely to be brought until 2021, after the conclusion of the parallel public inquiry into the 14 June 2017 fire. Continue reading...

Peter Duncan, 52, was stabbed in unprovoked attack in shopping centre on 18 AugustA 17-year-old has admitted murdering a lawyer who was stabbed with a screwdriver as he walked through a shopping centre on his way home from work.Peter Duncan, 52, sustained a fatal chest wound at Eldon Square in Newcastle on 18 August. Continue reading...

The head of aged care at Bupa pledges to ‘find out the truth’ about the company’s embattled centresThe head of Bupa’s aged care operation has promised to make surprise visits to some of the company’s embattled residential centres alongside a public advocate, to “find out the truth” of what’s happening.Bupa aged care managing director Suzanne Dvorak made the undertaking to Stewart Johnston at a meeting in Melbourne on Monday. Continue reading...

Machine-learning algorithms could replicate or amplify bias on race, sexuality and agePredictive policing – the use of machine-learning algorithms to fight crime – risks unfairly discriminating against protected characteristics including race, sexuality and age, a security thinktank has warned.Such algorithms, used to mine insights from data collected by police, are currently deployed for various purposes including facial recognition, mobile phone data extraction, social media analysis, predictive crime mapping and individual risk assessment. Continue reading...

Joint submission calls nuclear ‘a dangerous distraction’ from real action on climate as Zali Steggall backs 2050 zero-emissions targetA group of environmental and civil society groups has warned the government nuclear power has “no role” in Australia as crossbench independents urge it to recognise climate change as a health issue.On Monday submissions to the inquiry on nuclear power will close. A diverse group of stakeholders has called on the government to rule-out changing the law to allow nuclear energy in Australia. Continue reading...

Experts says PM’s proposal for bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland fraught with problems

PM’s upbeat account dismissed as Jean-Claude Juncker warns time is running outEU officials have rejected Boris Johnson’s claim that “a huge amount of progress” is being made in Brexit talks, as Jean-Claude Juncker warned that time is running out.Juncker, who will stand down as European commission president on 31 October, is expected to ask Johnson to spell out his ideas for replacing the Irish backstop when the pair meet over lunch in Luxembourg on Monday. Continue reading...

Former PM and deputy PM deploy incendiary language to describe decriminalisation bill being considered by NSW parliamentThe former prime minister and deputy prime minister of Australia have claimed at an anti-abortion rally in Sydney that a proposed decriminalisation bill has nothing to do with decriminalisation.Tony Abbott described the bill as “infanticide on demand”, while Barnaby Joyce described it as “the slavery debate of our time” while also perpetuating a false claim about pro-choice protesters on Saturday. Continue reading...

The bands played but the funeral of Zimbabwe’s ex-president was a strange affair in a divided nationAt just before 11.30am, the thousands of mourners in the vast bowl of Zimbabwe’s national stadium stood and the casket carrying the mortal remains of Robert Gabriel Mugabe began its short journey across the green grass to the podium where it would lie during the long, hot hours of the funeral.A military brass band led the procession. Then came the bereaved family and Mugabe’s successor, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, followed by foreign dignitaries, before a small crowd of ministers and officials from the ruling Zanu-PF party. Continue reading...

Prime minister warns Brussels that he will reject any offer of prolonged membership and renews his threat of no dealBoris Johnson will tell the outgoing European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, on Monday that he will defy a new act of parliament and refuse to discuss or accept any offer to extend the UK’s membership even if a Brexit deal cannot be agreed, Downing Street said last night.The prime minister’s hardline message to Brussels that he will take the UK out of the EU on 31 October, come what may, will enrage MPs from all parties who joined forces last week to force through a new law mandating him to ask the EU to prolong UK membership from the current deadline of 31 October until 31 January next year, to avoid a no-deal outcome. Continue reading...

Former PM vents fury in his memoirs at his old colleagues over their stance on Brexit and compares Leave campaign to racist Tory electioneering in 1964Boris Johnson is a liar who only backed the Leave campaign to help his career and Michael Gove was a “foam-flecked Faragist” whose “one quality” was disloyalty, David Cameron writes in his memoirs.The former prime minister poured vituperation on both his former colleagues Priti Patel, the current home secretary, and Dominic Cummings, the No 10 adviser, in extracts from the book published on Sunday. Continue reading...

For Haredi Jews exempt from military service, volunteering can mean a family break-upLife in one of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox military units does not proceed according to the usual army schedule. The morning starts with prayers just before dawn. Meals in the barracks are prepared under the strictest kosher requirements. Training is halted twice more during the day for prayers; once again for a rabbi to teach soldiers about religious texts. Unlike the rest of the Israel Defense Forces, there are no women on duty.Many of the unit’s deeply observant members were raised to be rabbis, which is seen as the highest calling and duty. But as Daniel Rosenberg, an ultra-Orthodox who operated a heavy machine-gun, explained, sometimes a “kid doesn’t want to be a rabbi; he wants to be a fighter”. Continue reading...

The MP says he has joined Jo Swinson’s party to fight No 10’s ‘scorched earth approach’ to leaving the EUBoris Johnson has suffered a fresh blow as the former Tory universities minister Sam Gyimah dramatically defected to the Liberal Democrats, accusing the prime minister of “veering towards populism and English nationalism”.Related: Sam Gyimah: ‘I am an outcast in the Tory party’ Continue reading...