Prayuth Chan-ocha to lead government with slim majority after weeks of backroom talksThe former head of Thailand’s military junta has been selected as the country’s next prime minister, securing the military’s already tight grip on power after the first Thai election in eight years.Prayuth Chan-ocha, who has been PM for the past five years after a military coup in 2014, will lead a coalition government. He was voted back in on Wednesday by the newly formed democratic parliament. Continue reading...
Country’s leader dissatisfied because of producers having the ‘wrong spirit of creation’North Korea’s mass games are to be put on hold, possibly for weeks, after Kim Jong-un criticised the producers of the most recent event for their “wrong spiritâ€, according to foreign tour groups.Kim, North Korea’s leader, said he was unhappy with the event, entitled The Land of the People, after attending Monday’s opening night at the 150,000-seat May Day Stadium in Pyongyang with his wife, Ri Sol-ju, and his influential younger sister, Kim Yo-jong – who had not, until then, been seen in public for weeks amid speculation Kim ordered her to keep a low profile after the failure of his second nuclear summit with Donald Trump. Continue reading...
Mark Fellows who shot dead Salford ‘Mr Big’ and a mob enforcer will never be releasedA double killer hitman who shot to death an underworld “Mr Big†and a mob enforcer will die behind bars after three of England’s most senior judges rejected an appeal against his sentence.Mark Fellows, 38, was told in January he would never be released from jail. He was found guilty of the murders of the Salford mobster Paul Massey with an Uzi machine gun in July 2015, and three years later the “cold blooded†execution of the mob enforcer John Kinsella, from Liverpool. Continue reading...
Party loyalty is a thing of the past, writes Alan Taylor, while Peter Muchlinski says that the political future requires replacing the residual elements of the ‘growth society’, with the ‘sustainable society’. Plus letters from Andrew Graystone and William WallaceSo, Boris Johnson fears that the Conservatives may face extinction if they delay Brexit (Report, 5 June). He may be right, on this at least, but for the wrong reasons. The fact is that the decline of the Conservatives, and of Labour, is a long-term process which began 60 years ago and may only now have reached its culmination. Both main parties have underestimated the consequences of this decline. The result is that the transformation in party voting seen in the Euro elections and since may be permanent.British politics has long been seen as dominated by two big parties, each with a block of loyal supporters, and a small number of “floating†voters between them. This was an accurate picture of elections in the early 1950s, when over 80% of the electorate voted Labour or Tory. But this two-party domination began to weaken from the late 50s, a trend that has continued ever since. Turnout fell as fewer people were enthused by the main parties. The growth of this pool of unattached electors gave space for Liberal and Liberal/SDP “revivalsâ€, the growth of nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, and now the rise of the Green party and the Ukip/Farage phenomenon. Continue reading...
by Owen Bowcott Legal affairs correspondent on (#4GJFG)
Ministry of Justice warns high court will be 40% below strength by end of yearHigh courts judges, who already earn more than £185,000 a year, are to be given an immediate 25% salary rise in an attempt to overcome an intensifying recruitment crisis.With more than a tenth of high court posts in England and Wales vacant, the justice secretary, David Gauke, has announced a “temporary recruitment and retention allowance†scheme to encourage more applicants. Continue reading...
Critics say ruling suspending exhumation of dictator’s remains legitimises 1936 coupLeading historians have rubbished the Spanish supreme court’s claim that General Franco was head of state from October 1936, almost three years before his rebellion secured victory in the Spanish civil war.The claim was made in the court’s latest ruling on the socialist government’s tortuous efforts to exhume the dictator’s remains from his hulking mausoleum and have him reburied in the family vault. Continue reading...
Charlie Brooker’s dystopian series returns more confident than ever, offering up an ambitious tale of sexual and gender fluidity and a barnstorming performance from Miley CyrusThe Bandersnatch boy is back. After the innovative-if-not-wholly-unprecedented interactive standalone episode under the Black Mirror umbrella, Charlie Brooker’s anthology series (created with co-producer Annabel Jones) has returned for a proper run. Season five comprises three episodes – each a discrete story set five minutes from now – that continue in Black Mirror’s lightly terrifying dystopian tradition of asking not what is the worst thing that could happen but what is the worst of the most likely possibilities. Like a sweetly sadistic scientist, it delights in shaving off slices of our collective psyche and sliding them under an unforgiving microscope to examine our most current concerns.Related: 'Our leftover ideas? We sell them to Samsung': Black Mirror creators reveal all Continue reading...
Demonstrators demand president’s exit as privatization reforms spark fears for education and health servicesHonduran security forces with teargas and live bullets have been deployed to quell a wave of nationwide protests led by doctors and teachers demanding the resignation of the country’s president.Juan Orlando Hernández, the US government’s top ally in Central America, is under increasing pressure amid public anger over crumbling public services, dismal approval ratings – and explosive revelations that he was the subject of a US Drug Enforcement Administration trafficking investigation during his first term in office. Continue reading...
Outside of 007 Stage also damaged by what producers called a ‘controlled explosion’An explosion on the set of the new James Bond movie at Pinewood Studios has injured a crew member and damaged a stage.The “controlled explosion†damaged the outside of the famous 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire, where the spy franchise is filmed. Continue reading...
It ‘never troubles me that our laws are being upheld’, PM says in LondonScott Morrison has tried to distance himself from Tuesday’s raid by Australian federal police on a News Corp journalist’s home, saying it “never troubles me that our laws are being upheldâ€.Speaking to journalists in London, the prime minister endeavoured to avoid answering questions about the raid on the News Corp Sunday political editor Annika Smethurst’s Canberra home, which came more than a year after she published a story about a top-secret proposal to broaden Australia’s domestic surveillance capabilities. Continue reading...
First reports of a man firing shots came at motel just outside the city centre about 5.50pmWitnesses of a shooting in Darwin that left four people dead and a woman injured have described scenes of panic after the gunman went on an hour-long rampage.Northern Territory police arrested the suspected shooter, described as a Caucasian man aged 45, wearing high-vis workwear, on Tuesday night. He remained in hospital under police guard on Wednesday. Continue reading...
Speaking at a private hustings, Johnson told party members he is the man to put Farage ‘back in his box’Boris Johnson has warned the Conservative party it is facing extinction if it does not deliver Brexit and put Nigel Farage “back in his box†as he spoke at a hustings of candidates to be the next prime minister from which the press and public were banned.Johnson told MPs from the centrist One Nation wing of the party that it was crucial to take the UK out of the EU at the end of October, arguing that he was the candidate to see off both Farage and Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn. Continue reading...
Pell’s lawyer will present three grounds to appeal conviction, over which cardinal was sentenced to six years in jailCardinal George Pell, once the financial controller of the Vatican and a close confidant of the Pope, will begin a legal fight on Wednesday to have his conviction for child sexual abuse offences overturned.Pell, 77, was convicted in December on four charges of an indecent act on a child under the age of 16, and one charge of sexual penetration of a child under 16. The verdict was subject to a suppression order and could not be revealed until February. In March he was sentenced to six years in jail, with a non-parole period of three years and eight months. Continue reading...
NAB and Commonwealth agree to pass on 0.25% cut in full but ANZ and Westpac will only pass on part of Reserve Bank’s rate reductionAustralia’s banks have come under pressure to reduce borrowing costs for customers after the Reserve Bank cut interest rates to a new historic low of 1.25%.The widely expected move by the central bank on Tuesday saw its cash rate fall for the first time since August 2016, with many economists predicting there could be two further reductions in borrowing costs before the year ends in the face of a weakening economy. Continue reading...
Centrist Kostas Bakoyannis says his approach transcends divisions that have long defined GreeceThe mayor-elect of Athens says he doesn’t believe in grand projects, nor does he “do utopiasâ€. What he prefers to focus on is “real life†– and seeing it by walking and talking with almost everyone he meets.It has paid off. After visiting 129 neighbourhoods across Athens since launching his campaign to become the capital’s youngest mayor, Kostas Bakoyannis, at 41, has been catapulted to the top office of City Hall with the widest margin of victory ever. With him comes a team of councillors that will be among the most politically diverse on record. Continue reading...
The Greek capital entombed its major rivers in concrete during its car-centred postwar development. Now the most storied of them, Ilisos, could be set freePhotographs by Christian SinibaldiWalking through the densely built metropolis of Athens, few visitors or even locals realise the Greek capital was once crisscrossed by three major rivers, not to mention some 700 smaller streams that flowed into them.The Kifisos, the Iridanos and the Ilisos were buried under concrete during the city’s postwar car-centred development, in what daily newspaper Kathimerini has labelled “a crime against the cityâ€. Continue reading...
China issues travel alert to its citizens, citing frequent ‘shootings and robberies’ in USChina has issued two travel alerts to its citizens going to the US, warning them about police harassment and crime.The warnings come amid an escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies and other tensions including attacks on each other’s human rights records. Continue reading...
After the disappointment of the election we need to engage with those who have lost faith in the systemWe should have seen it coming. The election result was staring at us all along, illusive in the white noise of the contest but crystal clear in the rear-view mirror.It was there in the declining levels of trust in our institutions as if politics could ever make difference. It was there in the negative approval level of the leader as the contest became a cage fight. It was there in the high number of disengaged voters who couldn’t even articulate which way they would lean four days our from the poll. Continue reading...
Experts criticise ‘foolish’ experiment after research finds mutation that protects against HIV can lead to early deathA rogue Chinese scientist who caused outrage last year when he said he had created the world’s first “gene-edited†babies in an attempt to protect them from HIV may also have put them at risk of premature death, experts said on Monday.He Jiankui sparked an international scientific and ethical row when he said he had used a technology known as Crispr-Cas9 to alter the embryonic genes of twin girls born in November 2018. Continue reading...
The louder the calls for democracy have become in Sudan, the tighter the junta clings to power. Outside powers need to back a democratic transition and tell autocratic allies to accept non-violent changeThe shooting dead of peaceful demonstrators in the Sudanese capital Khartoum is an outrage that deserves to be condemned. A denunciation of the governing transitional military council, which was almost certainly behind the bloody act, is required urgently. This needs to be reinforced by a message that the international community cannot normalise relations with Sudan, designated by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism, until power is ceded to democratically elected politicians. The generals ought to be disabused of the idea that they can use months of peaceful demonstrations to entrench their own rule. Only elections and civilian government offer a chance to shake off Sudan’s status as an international pariah after decades of isolation.For months, protesters have been demanding that a civilian government take over the running of the country. The killing of those who had been staging a sit-in in front of the army headquarters for two months is only the most bloody act of terror by the authorities in a series of atrocities against peaceful demonstrators. Today’s violence saw a total lockdown in Khartoum. The revolt had led to the ousting of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president since 1989, in April, and his successor, Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, a day later. Yet the louder the calls for democracy have become, the tighter the junta clings to power. Continue reading...
Workers blockade French site, halting three production lines as ingredients run lowA factory in northern France that makes 25% of the world’s Nutella has been blockaded for a week by workers demanding more pay, causing key ingredients to run low.The Villers-Écalles factory of the privately owned Italian confectionery company Ferrero normally produces 600,000 jars a day of the cocoa and hazelnut spread, making it the biggest Nutella producer in the world. Continue reading...
by Jason Burke, Africa correspondent, and Zeinab Moha on (#4GCEN)
At least 13 reported dead during attempt to disperse sit-in outside defence ministryDozens are feared dead after Sudanese security forces launched a massive crackdown against protesters at a central Khartoum sit-in.. Continue reading...
by Josh Halliday North of England correspondent on (#4GCYP)
Chief executive offers support to family of seven-year-old as investigation gets under wayThe chief executive of Lightwater Valley theme park has issued a public apology to the family of a seven-year-old boy who was seriously injured in a fall from a rollercoaster.The child remains in hospital where his condition is said to be improving after he fell about 5 metres (16ft) from the Twister rollercoaster on Thursday. Continue reading...
Photo shows Kim Yong-chol attended an art performance with Kim Jong-un on SundayA senior North Korean official who was reportedly sent to a labour camp has attended a concert alongside the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, state media have said.There had been speculation about the fate of Kim Yong-chol after a South Korean newspaper reported last week that he had been subjected to forced labour and “ideological educationâ€. Continue reading...
Legal settlement reached after Acciona alleged it was misled over the complexity of the project and demanded $1.1bnThe consortium building Sydney’s eastern suburbs light rail project will receive up to $576m extra from the New South Wales government under a settlement deal which takes the total cost to $2.7bn.The light rail linking the CBD to Randwick and Kingsford was originally meant to cost taxpayers $1.6bn. Continue reading...
Silvana Trevale left Venezuela in 2011 but has returned to document the ever worsening crisis that has deeply affected families of every economic status. She was selected as the 2018 recipient of the Joan Wakelin Bursary, administrated in partnership with the Royal Photographic SocietyVenezuela, a country that once hoped for wealth and a bright future with its oil reserves and natural resources, is falling to pieces. It faces a humanitarian crisis where families struggle daily to find food, medicine and clean water as they live with collapsing public services. Many attend the ongoing protests, which are frequently violently repressed. Though I left my home in 2011 I have returned to Venezuela to document the ever-worsening crisis that has deeply affected families of every economic status. Continue reading...
by Presented by Anushka Asthana with Martin Chulov an on (#4GC8X)
Martin Chulov, the Guardian’s Middle East correspondent, tells Anushka Asthana about meeting Umm Sayyaf, who described her role in helping the CIA hunt for the Isis leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. And: Johny Pitts on how an ice bath with pop duo Jedward prompted a journey around Europe exploring Afropean identityMartin Chulov, the Guardian’s Middle East correspondent, tells Anushka Asthana about meeting Nisrine Assad Ibrahim, better known by her nom de guerre, Umm Sayyaf - the most senior female Islamic State captive. Sayyaf, 29, is a controversial figure who has been accused of involvement in some of the terror group’s most heinous crimes, including the enslavement of the captured US aid worker Kayla Mueller and several Yazidi women and girls, who were raped by senior Isis leaders.Chulov describes the central role Sayyaf played in the hunt for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, helping identify safe houses used by the fugitive terrorist leader. Chulov was the first journalist to interview Sayyaf since she was captured in a Delta Force raid in Syria four years ago. Continue reading...
‘Sophisticated’ device was found under a police officer’s vehicle at a golf club in the cityPolice have launched an investigation straddling the Irish border after a bomb was placed under an officer’s car.A “sophisticated†device was discovered under the man’s vehicle at Shandon Park golf club in east Belfast on Saturday. It is suspected dissident republicans were to blame. Continue reading...
Finance minister denies revenue lost from tax cuts will lead to budget deficits in an economic downturnMathias Cormann has said there is no chance the government will split its $158bn income tax package, hardening the Coalition’s stance on its central election commitment.Labor is mulling its position on the seven-year plan which analysis has shown would benefit the wealthy after first providing tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners. Continue reading...
London mayor hits out at US president before his state visit to BritainThe mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has compared the language used by Donald Trump to rally his supporters to that of “the fascists of the 20th century†in an explosive intervention before the US president’s state visit to London that begins on Monday.Writing in the Observer, Khan condemned the red-carpet treatment being afforded to Trump who, with his wife Melania, will be a guest of the Queen during his three-day stay, which is expected to provoke massive protests in the capital on Tuesday. Continue reading...
As he is kicked out of Labour, the party’s former spin doctor and his daughter, Grace, talk Brexit and beyondIt was already a fairly lively Tuesday morning when the former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell agreed to an interview with the Observer.The party’s disastrous performance in the European elections had reopened a painful debate about a second referendum on any Brexit deal, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission had said it was launching an investigation into claims of antisemitism within Labour. Continue reading...
South-east basks in high temperatures that could rise higher before the weekend is overParts of the UK have been basked in sunshine on the country’s hottest day of the year so far.The Met Office said the temperature had reached 27.6C at 2.27pm at Heathrow in west London on Saturday. That beat 2019’s previous warmest temperature of 25.8C, set in April. Continue reading...
Thousands contact pioneering ‘chat’ project set up by police to help victims of abuseOn the third floor of a modern police station west of Paris, an alert sounds and one of four officers – three women and a man – seated around a block of desks begins typing. Somewhere in France or one of its overseas territories, someone is reporting a sexual assault, sexist harassment or discrimination to a 24-hour chatline.The police station at Guyancourt, 20km from the capital is the heart of the French government’s #NeRienLaisserPasser (#Don’tLetAnythingGo) project, part of its response to the #MeToo movement and, say officials, the first online portal of its kind in the world. Continue reading...
After a row over military service ended Netanyahu’s efforts to form a government, Israelis speak of the resentments behind the crisisIt’s Thursday night at the Mahane Yehuda market in west Jerusalem, where the music is thumping and the drinks are flowing. When a bottle breaks, the crowds erupt with a chorus of “mazel tovâ€, or congratulations.But as some ultra-Orthodox Jewish men in traditional black suits, side locks, and thick skullcaps pass by, Ad Shamsi’s face sours. “What do they have to do here?†asks the 56-year-old Jewish Israeli, who is kicking off the weekend at an outside bar. Continue reading...
Frontman of the 13th Floor Elevators described as ‘heroic icon of modern rock’n’ roll’Roky Erickson, one of the most enduring and adventurous exponents of American psychedelic rock, has died at the age of 71.Erickson’s death was confirmed by his representatives in a statement that described him as a “heroic icon of modern rock’n’roll and one of the best friends the music ever hadâ€. The cause of death had not been released and the representatives appealed for privacy for his family. Continue reading...
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