World news | The Guardian

Calls for extra winter help as ONS estimates 1.3m people with heart and breathing conditions living in povertyMore than a million people living with heart and breathing problems could be at greater risk of hospitalisation or death owing to poverty leaving them more likely to be exposed to the cold, figures suggest.The data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated that there are 1.3 million people with cardiovascular and respiratory conditions living in poverty, and that they are more likely to be older people, prompting calls for extra help to deal with the cold weather. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Plan to recruit up to 10 people into senior roles seen as unusual and follows reports of bullying in the departmentDominic Raab’s department is carrying out a major recruitment drive for private office staff, the Guardian can reveal.A hiring spree has been launched that initially sought to recruit 10 private secretary jobs in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) – a figure Whitehall insiders and former cabinet ministers said they had never seen for a job of that nature. Continue reading...

General secretary of Unite says NHS strike will deepen next week unless ministers undertake ‘serious pay talks’ with health staff. This live blog is now closedIn his latest column, Simon Jenkins argues that instead of fighting for the centre ground, Keir Starmer should look to the radical changes pushed through under Harold Wilson.Wes Streeting has declined to say whether a Labour government would agree to a pay rise for nurses. Continue reading...

Dmitry Sytii is under US sanctions for links with mercenary group founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is close to Vladimir PutinA Russian businessman believed to be a close ally of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group founder, has been taken to hospital in Central African Republic (CAR) after an “assassination attempt”, the RIA Novosti news agency has reported, citing the local Russian embassy.Dmitry Sytii, who officially works as head of the “Russian House” culture centre in CAR’s capital, Bangui, had sanctions imposed on him by the US in September 2020 for his alleged links to Wagner Group, a private military group that has deployed more than 1,000 fighters in the unstable country to fight rebels. Continue reading...

Union hails ‘top-notch’ deal for 1,200 employees at Goodwood site, as Wincanton drivers agree increase of between 20% and 37%The luxury carmaker Rolls-Royce and the logistics company Wincanton have both given workers in the UK above-inflation pay rises, averting threatened industrial action.About 1,200 workers at the Rolls-Royce Motor Cars factory in Goodwood, West Sussex, will receive an increase of 10%, plus a £2,000 bonus. Together, the increase will be worth up to an extra 18% for 2023. Continue reading...

Former lady in waiting to queen Susan Hussey and black charity founder have ‘warm and understanding’ meetingA former lady in waiting to the late queen who resigned from the royal household after repeatedly asking the black charity founder Ngozi Fulani where she was from during a charity palace reception has apologised to her in person, Buckingham Palace has said.Susan Hussey, godmother to the Prince of Wales, met Fulani, the founder of Sistah Space, at the palace in a meeting described as “warm and understanding”, during which she apologised for comments including for asking “where she was really from” despite being told by Fulani she was British. Continue reading...

Actor facing seven sexual offence charges confirms name and date of birth ahead of trial next yearThe Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey has appeared in a London court by video link facing seven sexual offence charges.In a short hearing at Westminster magistrates court in London, the 63-year-old US actor appeared by video link from the Middle East and spoke only to confirm his name – Kevin Spacey Fowler – date of birth and address. Continue reading...

Earl of Shrewsbury and Mary Goudie took thousands of pounds to help and promote firms, reports findA House of Lords watchdog has ordered that two peers be suspended from the upper house for long periods for taking thousands of pounds to promote companies, in breach of parliamentary rules.In two reports published on Friday, the House of Lords Conduct Committee recommended a suspension of nine months for the Earl of Shrewsbury, a former Conservative, now non-affiliated, hereditary peer, and six months for the Labour-appointed peer Mary Goudie. Continue reading...

Stefan Dercon says aid budget is increasingly being tapped into to ‘plug holes’ in other Whitehall departmentsBritish aid cuts have been imposed in a totally chaotic and unethical way depriving the aid budget of any coherence, the former lead development policy adviser to then foreign secretaries Liz Truss and Dominic Raab has said.Stefan Dercon, who also worked as the chief economist at the Department for International Development between 2011 and 2017, claims ministerial decisions to load more of the costs of asylum seekers in the UK on to the aid budget has “got out of hand”, and led to “dreadful moral choices”. Continue reading...

Officers working with French partners ‘to find those responsible and bring them to justice’Police are investigating the deaths of four people after a small boat capsized in the Channel, saying they are determined that those who facilitated the crossing face justice.Kent police said they were looking into the circumstances surrounding Wednesday’s incident with the support of the National Crime Agency (NCA). Continue reading...

Calls for consensus come as second UN expert urges Holyrood not to delay or water down new lawA cross-party group of MSPs has tabled amendments to Scottish government plans to streamline how transgender people change their legal sex, in order to address concerns about abusive males taking advantage of the new system.The moves come days before a parliamentary vote on the bill, and as a UN expert on gender identity warned that attempts to postpone or weaken it could be based on “unfounded negative stereotypes about trans women as violent or predatory”. Continue reading...

Prosecutors investigating after Jarosław Szymczyk injured in blast at police headquarters in WarsawPolish prosecutors are investigating a “violent release of energy” at the national police headquarters amid media reports that the chief of police fired a grenade launcher in his office.Poland’s interior ministry said on Thursday that Jarosław Szymczyk, the police commander in chief, was injured and taken to hospital when a present he received during a visit to Ukraine exploded at police headquarters in Warsaw. Continue reading...

The Little Women writer-director has re-teamed with Noah Baumbach to write a new take on the much-loved doll characterThe teaser trailer for the much-anticipated new take on Barbie has landed, giving us our first official look at Margot Robbie in action.The Suicide Squad star takes on the role of the divisive doll, originally launched in 1959, in a satirical film directed by Greta Gerwig based on a script she wrote with Noah Baumbach. The two previously collaborated on scripts for Frances Ha and Mistress America. Continue reading...

Robey Warshaw did not specify how much the former chancellor would collectGeorge Osborne will collect a share of a £26.5m payout for his first year working as partner at the City advisory firm Robey Warshaw.The former chancellor, who orchestrated the austerity drive after the financial crisis, is one of four partners at the Mayfair-based investment banking company, which announced on Friday it would pay out a total of £26,482,914 to four men. Continue reading...

Government proposal comes after clubs lobby criticised the lower rate imposed on casino operators

New coalition’s proposal to remove Great Prayer Day from calendar met with criticism by church and business ownersDenmark’s new government, the country’s first left-right coalition since the 1970s, has got off to an unpopular start with the announcement that one of its earliest policy proposals is to scrap a bank holiday.The Social Democrat prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, appointed right-leaning political rivals as key ministers in her new reform-oriented government on Thursday, after close-run parliamentary elections last month. Continue reading...

Men were pardoned in April 2020, but after reviewing evidence the court concluded they had not come clean about their tripColombia’s peace tribunal has revoked a controversial amnesty it granted to three alleged IRA members accused of training Colombia’s largest guerrilla group in bomb-making.Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) had pardoned the trio in April 2020 providing they fully divulge the truth about a trip they made to Colombia in 2001 at the height of the country’s six decades of conflict. Continue reading...

New variants and wet weather still driving infections as people urged to be mindful of vulnerable

Conditions are expected to persist for several days in NSW, but Tasmania and Victoria will see warmer temperatures from Sunday

Gay is the only Black president in the Ivy League and says the ‘ivory tower’ should not be the future of academiaHarvard University announced on Thursday that Claudine Gay will become its 30th president, making her the first Black person and the second woman to lead the Ivy League school.Gay, who is currently a dean at the university and a democracy scholar, will become president on 1 July. She replaces Lawrence Bacow, who is stepping down to spend more time with family. Continue reading...

Apology accepted by the Aunty Myrtle Evans, the sister of the singer and storyteller

Exclusive: Leaked annual survey shows fourfold rise in harassment claims in justice ministers’ officeA third of the staff in Dominic Raab’s private office at the Ministry of Justice have claimed to have been bullied or harassed while working in their current team in the past year, according to an internal Whitehall survey.The results of the civil service survey from this week, which have been leaked to the Guardian, show that 10 of the 33 people who worked most closely with the justice secretary said they had been a victim of bad behaviour. Continue reading...

Austrian city also intends to rename three other thoroughfares bearing ‘tainted’ names after commission’s reportThe Austrian city of Linz has announced plans to rename a street honouring the founder of the luxury carmaker Porsche after a commission investigating controversial names found his Nazi past “problematic”.The renaming of streets and other public places is still a hotly debated issue in Austria – Adolf Hitler’s birthplace – which Nazi Germany annexed in 1938 and which long cast itself as a victim. Continue reading...

Finance secretary says starter, basic and intermediate rates of income will stay the same. This live blog is closedThe Bank of England has raised UK interest rates to 3.5%, the highest since October 2008, my colleague Graeme Wearden reports on his business live blog.Yesterday James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, told MPs in a written statement that the government had given the Chinese a week for six of their diplomats to comply with a request to be interviewed by the police over the beating-up of a pro Hong Kong democracy campaigner at the consulate in Manchester. He said the diplomats had all avoided police action because they have either left the country, or are about to do so.The consul general and five others brutalised a refugee on British soil and rather than being expelled or prosecuted, they’ve been allowed to slip off, flee like cowards, which makes their guilt even more evident.By giving a week’s notice to them, which goes so far beyond the Vienna convention, we have essentially denied Bob Chan any sense of justice. Continue reading...

Man arrested on suspicion of murder; children who died understood to have been aged four and sixA murder investigation has been launched after the deaths of a woman and two children, understood to have been aged four and six, in Kettering, police have said.Northamptonshire police said they were called to a house on Petherton Court at 11.15am on Thursday where a woman and two children – a boy and a girl – were found with serious injuries. Paramedics and police officers treated them at the scene but the woman was pronounced dead and the two children died in hospital. Continue reading...

Late author’s estate has shared a manuscript with the bestselling novelist centered on a volcanic eruption in HawaiiThe bestselling author James Patterson is set to complete an unfinished manuscript from the late Michael Crichton.According to the Wall Street Journal, Crichton’s estate has provided him with over 100 pages of a novel about the imminent eruption of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano, which threatens a secret cache of deadly chemical weapons. Just last month, the volcano did start erupting. Continue reading...

President Roberta Metsola promises wide-ranging reforms aimed at tackling ‘cash for influence’ scandalThe European parliament will consider banning Qatari officials from its premises in response to a “cash for influence” investigation that has become the biggest scandal in the institution’s history.The parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola, said the assembly’s senior leaders would discuss a possible ban and that a “wide-ranging reform” package would be implemented in response to a Belgian police investigation that has led to four people being charged with money laundering and corruption, including a serving MEP. Continue reading...

Animals, one of which is wounded, are not secure in their enclosures after staff shot three others deadFour chimpanzees, one of which is wounded, were on the loose inside a building in a Swedish zoo on Thursday, a day after they escaped from their enclosure. Three others have been shot dead.Swedish officials and media said the wounded animal had not received veterinary attention because no one could safely get inside the building at Furuvik zoo. Continue reading...

Princess Bajrakitiyabha’s condition is now stable to a certain level, the royal palace has saidThe eldest child of Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn has been hospitalised due to a heart problem and her condition has stabilised to a certain level, the royal palace said.Princess Bajrakitiyabha, 44, was taken ill after losing consciousness early on Wednesday in north-eastern Nakhon Ratchasima province and was treated at a local hospital. Continue reading...

Publisher Fred Ryan described as ‘embarrassing’ after walking out of meeting following revelation that up to 250 jobs could be lostTurmoil at the Washington Post has intensified after a contentious town hall meeting on Wednesday in which the newspaper’s publisher, Fred Ryan, astounded staffers by announcing substantial job cuts to come, then quit the meeting, refusing to answer questions.“This is embarrassing, this is embarrassing,” one staffer was heard saying as Ryan made his hasty exit, according to video footage posted on social media. Continue reading...

Social landlord waited nearly two years to check other properties after infant died in mouldy home, says regulatorThe chair of a social housing landlord is to quit after an investigation found it left hundreds of tenants exposed to harmful damp for nearly two years following the death of an infant from respiratory failure in one of its mould-infested homes.Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) waited nearly two years after Awaab Ishak died to check other homes on the estate, the regulator of social housing concluded on Thursday. When it did, it found hundreds of tenants living with damp and mould.This article was amended on 15 December 2022. Due to incorrect information provided by Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, an earlier version stated in the text and headline that all RBH board members were to step down, not just its chair. Continue reading...

Surge in violence either side of the ‘green line’ has led people to wonder if a third intifada is on the cardsLate on Sunday night, like almost every other night in Jenin, the fighting started. The Israeli army said it entered the occupied West Bank city to arrest three suspected Palestinian terrorists and militants responded by throwing firebombs and opening fire.According to two members of her family, 16-year-old Jana Zakaran ventured up to the roof of her home when gunfire erupted nearby to bring her cat inside to safety. When Zakaran’s father went to look for her, he found her dead in a pool of blood, the cat by her side. Continue reading...

Unite confirms two 72-hour stoppages starting Friday 16 December after members reject ‘miserable’ pay offerStrikes planned by hundreds of workers at Heathrow will go ahead on Friday, union leaders said, with further dates announced for action over the Christmas and new year period.Unite said ground handlers at Britain’s biggest airport had rejected the latest “miserable” pay offer from their employer, Menzies. Continue reading...

National parks staff emailed residents with news, citing lack of progress on the site, 24 hours before contractors were told

Compliance manager tells royal commission she was ‘unable to influence’ boss away from ‘deliver the numbers’ direction

Prime minister says opposition’s stance was a vote for high power prices after package capping gas prices and funding consumer rebates is legislated

The Historic England list also includes two cab shelters in London and first world war training trenchesA watermill that inspired the landscape artist John Constable, an intact Victorian soup kitchen and two 16th- and 17th-century shipwrecks are among the historic sites to have been listed in England during the past year.The Historic England national heritage list also includes two cab shelters in London as well as first world war training trenches that have links to the SAS. Continue reading...

Voters go to polls in byelection called after sitting Labour MP became Greater Manchester mayor’s deputyVoters in the Greater Manchester constituency of Stretford and Urmston go to the polls on Thursday in a byelection called after the sitting Labour MP quit to become Andy Burnham’s mayoral deputy.Labour will be hoping for a comfortable win after the party’s comfortable victory in Chester earlier this month. Continue reading...

Intervention came a day before council voted to cap use of some residential accommodation at 90 days per year

Samples to be retested and double jeopardy laws potentially reformed so serious crimes can be re-prosecuted after 123 recommendations accepted

Local leaders condemn ‘insensitive cruelty’ as residents remain shaken after weather event likened to an inland tsunami

Liberal senator says Australia’s approach to emissions debate had not been ‘ideal’ for Pacific relations

NT supreme court rules Const Zachary Rolfe cannot decline to answer questions at inquest by invoking penalty privilege

Girl fled to neighbour’s house but mother and sister murdered by her father in drug-induced psychosis, court told

Dredging and landfill work creates 170 hectares of new land in Spratly Islands, which are also claimed by China and othersVietnam has conducted a major expansion of dredging and landfill work at several of its South China Sea outposts in the second half of this year, signalling an intent to significantly fortify its claims in the disputed waterway.Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has said on Wednesday the work in the Spratly Islands, which are also claimed by China and others, had created roughly 170 hectares (420 acres) of new land and brought the total area Vietnam had reclaimed in the past decade to 220 hectares. Continue reading...

Sitiveni Rabuka calls for calm, while his claims of irregularities are rebuffed by election supervisorsFiji’s opposition leader, Sitiveni Rabuka, has alleged irregularities in voting data while calling for calm, as counting continued in the country’s national election.Provisional results had the opposition People’s Alliance party hovering in the mid to low 40s and incumbent prime minister Frank Bainimarama’s FijiFirst party in the mid-20s four hours after polls closed. The results were taken offline for a number of hours and, when they returned, the results had flipped. Continue reading...

Time from arrest to case being finalised in 2021/22 grew by 41% thanks to Covid pandemic interruptions

Clinicians warn of the UK’s ‘biggest cancer crisis ever’ as record-breaking treatment waiting times have become normalisedBritain faces a cancer emergency because of treatment delays, doctors have warned, saying the care backlog needs the same urgent focus as the hunt for a Covid vaccine.NHS figures show only 60.3% of the 14,425 cancer patients urgently referred by their GP in October waited less than than two months to start treatment. This was the second worst performance on record and some way below the target of 85%. Continue reading...

Excitement builds for final against Argentina as spectators, some draped in French and Moroccan flags, praised play of both teamsAmid a cacophony of beeping car horns, fireworks, and people hanging from car windows waving flags, cheering football fans poured on to Paris’s Champs-Élysées on Wednesday night to celebrate France beating Morocco to reach the World Cup final, hoping it would become the first country in 60 years to retain the title.“We’re in the final!” yelled Romain, 16, who had high school the next day but was planning a late night celebrating. “When France won the World Cup in 2018, I was 12 and couldn’t really celebrate in the streets,” he said. “It feels brilliant tonight, but facing Argentina will be close, nail-biting.” Continue reading...

RCN chief says members are acting across England, Wales and Northern Ireland with a ‘very heavy heart’Tens of thousands of nurses will strike across England, Wales and Northern Ireland on Thursday, sparking major disruption to services in the first such action in NHS history.Nurses will refuse to work at hospitals and other places of care across the three countries from 8am until 8pm, in the first of two days of scheduled walkouts over their pay claim. Continue reading...