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Swedish prime minister also said he hopes Sweden’s accession will be ratified by Ankara after May electionsFinland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, has said he expects his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to confirm that Turkey is endorsing the Nordic country’s Nato membership application when the two meet in Ankara later this week.“We knew that when Turkish President Erdoğan on his part has decided to ratify Finland’s Nato membership, he wants to meet and fulfil his promise, president to president,” Niinistö told Reuters on Wednesday. Continue reading...

BBC journalists asked to avoid term ‘lockdown’ in reporting at the start of the pandemic, leaked messages showFormer BBC staffers have expressed concerns about the leaked WhatsApp and email messages suggesting the corporation bowed to pressure from No 10 to avoid using the word “lockdown” at the start of the pandemic and to turn up criticism of Labour.Rob Burley, a former senior editor in charge of political programmes, described the messages as “very troubling” while veteran BBC journalist John Simpson stressed that it was “not our job to do Downing Street’s bidding”. Continue reading...

About 40-50% of trains expected to run overall on Thursday with wide regional variationsTrain services around Britain will be severely disrupted again as RMT members at 14 train operators stage the first of four planned 24-hour strikes.Passengers have been urged to check before travel on Thursday and are being told to only travel by rail if absolutely necessary, with most affected operators ending remaining services by early evening. Continue reading...

Star James Martin will bring Oscar statuette to his Belfast drama group among programme of eventsAfter storming the Oscars the makers of An Irish Goodbye are preparing for what promises to be a rapturous Irish homecoming.Ross White and Tom Berkeley, who wrote and directed the film, plan to ride its success with a cinema tour of Ireland and Northern Ireland involving gala screenings and events with the cast and crew. Continue reading...

ONS reveals 16% of white people in England and Wales live in social housing, but 44% of black peopleBlack Britons are almost three times as likely as their white counterparts to live in social housing, new census data shows, while people of mixed race backgrounds were 1.6 times more likely.The data showed that life outcomes varied considerably between ethnic groups in England and Wales in education and employment, health, disability, home ownership and overcrowding. Continue reading...

High court move follows violent clashes between police and supporters outside former PM’s house in LahoreA court in Pakistan has ordered police to suspend an operation to arrest Imran Khan, after violent clashes between the former prime minister’s supporters and law enforcement outside his house.The vicinity of Khan’s residence became a battleground on Tuesday, when police arrived after a lower court in Islamabad issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for not appearing before it despite several summonses. Continue reading...

Figures close to Kean said the Liberal treasurer, a high-profile moderate, has floated the idea

Scores of trees destroyed in a few hours on Tuesday night despite petition to save them signed by 16,000 peopleMore than 100 mature trees have been cut down in the centre of Plymouth in a move campaigners said was reminiscent of the needless felling of thousands of trees in Sheffield.Despite widespread opposition from local people, the Conservative council in the Devon city cordoned off the trees with metal fencing, sent in security guards and in the cover of darkness on Tuesday night, destroyed more than 100 with chainsaws over a few hours. Continue reading...

Home Office is recruiting them for national assessment board, taking decision away from local authoritiesThe professional body for social workers has urged its members not to work with the Home Office to assess the ages of asylum seekers, saying that political pressures could undermine their professional judgment.The Home Office is recruiting social workers to join the National Age Assessment Board (NAAB), which was set up under the Nationality and Borders Act to take responsibility for determining the age of asylum seekers away from local authorities. Continue reading...

Providence Equity Partners will pay 108p for each share – worth 610p before Covid sent sales plummetingThe events organiser Hyve Group has become the latest UK company to be sold to a private equity firm, sending its shares sharply higher.In a joint statement, the US firm Providence Equity Partners said it had agreed a buyout deal paying 108p in cash for each Hyve share – valuing the international conference organiser at £481m. Hyve had previously rejected two offers worth 101p and 105p a share from Providence. Continue reading...

Mother of university cook Claudia Lawrence felt ‘untold heartache’ over letters threatening £1,000 finesThe BBC has said it is “very sorry” for the distress caused to the mother of missing university cook Claudia Lawrence after letters about licence fee payments were sent to her daughter’s property.The broadcaster plans to apologise directly to Joan Lawrence after she told the Sun the letters, which she said had threatened up to £1,000 in fines, were causing her “untold heartache”. Continue reading...

Ben Wallace urges respect for international airspace as presumption grows incident was one-off blunder by Russian pilot

Fridge-sized self-drive robots from logistics firm Starship Technologies will ‘walk’ to customer homes in Sale and wait outside for drop-offAutonomous delivery robots will hit the streets of Greater Manchester this week as the Co-op partners with the self-driving logistics company Starship Technologies to bring its six-wheeled bots to a seventh British city.Five years after making their first UK delivery in Milton Keynes, Starship has expanded to cover hundreds of thousands of households across the country, offering services in cities including Cambridge, Leeds and Northampton. Continue reading...

British stance edges closer to the US, but many MPs want government to go further and designate China as a threat

Newly-added words include koha – a gift or offering – and kōrero, meaning a conversation or chatNew Zealanders will now see the common and casual te reo Māori greeting Kia ora e hoa! – meaning “hi mate” – in their Oxford English Dictionaries, as the institution moves to recognise the “profound and lasting impact” the Indigenous tongue has had on New Zealand’s language.E hoa, or friend, is one of 47 New Zealand English words or expressions added to the dictionary in its latest update – most of them in te reo Māori, which is an official language of New Zealand. The OED describes itself as the definitive record of the English language. Continue reading...

Mary McCoy, 85, lived briefly in a tent as a child before breaking into radio in 1951 and eventually sharing a stage with Elvis PresleyShe spent part of her childhood growing up in a tent without electricity or running water, became a voice on the radio at the age of 12 and once shared a stage with the king of rock’n’roll.Now Mary McCoy’s remarkable life and career have taken another turn. Guinness World Records announced on Tuesday that it had recently verified McCoy as the globe’s longest-serving female radio presenter after nearly 72 years on the airwaves. Continue reading...

Controversial pilot project in Kupang, the capital of East Nusa Tenggara province, has twelfth-graders at 10 high schools starting classes in the darkEarly every morning in a city in Indonesia’s far east, sleepy teenagers can be seen trudging through the streets on their way to school.The students are taking part in a controversial experiment to get the day off to a much earlier start. Continue reading...

It is the second time in recent weeks that police have been dispatched to serve an arrest warrant to the former prime ministerPakistan riot police have used water cannon and teargas to push back supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan who gathered outside his house to prevent officers from arresting him.Khan was ousted from office by a no confidence vote last year, and has been snarled in a series of legal cases as he campaigns for early elections and his return to office. Continue reading...

Energy regulators issue draft default market offer, which set cap for this year’s increases

People in Malawi and Mozambique picking up the pieces after fierce storm swept through at the weekendThe death toll from Cyclone Freddy in Malawi and Mozambique has risen past 200 on Tuesday, after the record-breaking storm triggered floods and landslips.Rescue workers warned that more victims were likely as they scoured destroyed neighbourhoods for survivors even as hopes dwindled. Continue reading...

News of the Grammy award-winner’s performance comes weeks after organisers apologised again for how wild weather and traffic were handled last year

Russia’s and China’s ‘signalling’ to US aircraft in international airspace is nothing new, but downing a craft is a worrying developmentOn any given day around Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, Russian and Nato aircraft and naval vessels, manned and unmanned, buzz around in close proximity, a constant recipe for a superpower crisis along the edges of a war.The stakes are raised by the fact that both sides have thousands of nuclear warheads as a weapon of last resort, and the risks are raised considerably by reckless behaviour. Continue reading...

College football, Mexican cola and muffins – UK prime minister has plenty to talk about in private hour at AukusIt is common for British and American leaders to try to show the “special relationship” between their two countries extends to them personally.When Rishi Sunak landed in San Diego for a flash visit to see Joe Biden, the world’s media were spared any such attempts verging on the grandiose. Continue reading...

Sister company to firm that refurbished Grenfell among builders that failed to comply with deadlineMichael Gove has given 11 housebuilders – including one affiliated with the main contractor on Grenfell Tower – a last-minute reprieve after they failed to sign up to a government safety scheme by Monday’s deadline.The levelling up secretary revealed on Tuesday that 39 companies had signed up to the building safety contract, which details how they will replace any flammable material found in their mid-rise developments in England. The contract is a key part of the government’s response to the Grenfell fire, and will force housebuilders to spend a collective £2bn on remediation works. Continue reading...

Woman who once had a relationship with murder accused tells jury she helped police because she ‘couldn’t sleep’A key prosecution witness in the trial of the man accused of murdering nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel has told a jury she helped police because she “couldn’t sleep at night” and denied being motivated by money.The woman, who cannot be named, claims Thomas Cashman, the man accused of Olivia’s murder, visited her home immediately after the shooting. Continue reading...

Justyna Wydrzynska sentenced to community service after telling court she sent pills to victim of domestic violenceA court in Poland has convicted an activist for helping a pregnant woman access abortion pills, sentencing her to eight months of community service in a landmark case over abortion rights in the predominantly Catholic country.“I do not feel that I am facing the court alone,” said Justyna Wydrzynska at the hearing on Tuesday. “Behind me are my friends and hundreds of women I have not had the luck to meet yet.” Continue reading...

Russian fighter jet collides with US drone over Black Sea; one person killed and three injured in Kramatorsk shelling Continue reading...

Hospital boss refused to remove Letby from shift despite colleagues raising concerns about her presence and series of infant deathsLucy Letby allegedly tried to murder a baby after a hospital boss refused to remove her from frontline duties despite her colleagues raising concerns, a court has heard.A senior paediatrician told an executive that he and his team were “not happy” with Letby continuing to work on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital following a series of infant deaths. Continue reading...

The thrash metallers have secured their own supply of the high-value format, which is enjoying a 16th consecutive year of growth, ahead of the release of a new albumMetallica have bought their own factory to manufacture vinyl records, as annual vinyl unit sales outstrip CDs for the first time since 1987 in the US.The thrash metal band are the new owners of Furnace Record Pressing, a Virginia pressing plant that has made discs for Metallica for 15 years, as Billboard reports. The company’s founder and chief executive Eric Astor said: “Knowing our long-term future is secured while also being better able to take advantage of growth opportunities is really exciting.” Continue reading...

Rachel de Souza asks Suella Braverman for clarity on how unaccompanied children will be treated under proposals

Reach, which also owns Birmingham Mail, Liverpool Echo and Manchester Evening News, aims to cut costsThe publisher of the Mirror and the Express newspapers has warned that up to 420 staff could faceredundancy, as part of a continued cost-cutting drive.Reach, which also owns hundreds of regional newspapers including the Birmingham Mail, Liverpool Echo and Manchester Evening News, has been battling higher costs resulting from inflation, as well as a slump in print advertising as the UK economy falters. Continue reading...

Manuel Paez Terán’s family release results of independent autopsy after protester fatally shot by Georgia law enforcementAn environmental activist who was fatally shot in a confrontation with Georgia law enforcement in January was sitting cross-legged with their hands in the air at the time, the protester’s family said as they released results of an autopsy they commissioned.The family of Manuel Paez Terán held a news conference in Decatur to announce the findings and said they were filing an open-records lawsuit seeking to force Atlanta police to release more evidence about the 18 January killing of Paez Terán, who went by the name Tortuguita and used the pronoun they. Continue reading...

Ten people from conflict zones threatened with removal to Africa claim there has been a failure to consider risks of deportationA court of appeal judge has ruled that a group of asylum seekers can bring a legal challenge against the Home Office for what they claim has been a failure to consider the dangers and risks of deporting them to Rwanda.Lord Justice Underhill, the vice-president of the court of appeal’s civil division, has granted permission for the group to appeal against the government’s controversial policy on some grounds. Continue reading...

Green transition in spotlight as party opposed to nitrogen emission cuts surges in pollsA new party led by farmers fighting cuts to nitrogen emissions looks set to be the big winner in key Dutch regional elections that could severely weaken the government and, analysts suggest, herald a Europe-wide backlash against the green transition.The BoerBurgerBeweging (Farmer-Citizen Movement, or BBB) was launched in 2019 and has just one MP, but its people-against-the-elites platform has struck a chord with disaffected voters and polls suggest it could finish as the second largest or even the largest party in Wednesday’s vote. Continue reading...

After a year of murder, rape, disease and looting, aid workers ask the international community: ‘Where the hell have you been?’More than 300,000 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were displaced by fighting between the M23 rebel group and the government last month.According to the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, more than 800,000 people have now been displaced by the conflict in the east of the country since March last year, and aid workers are warning of a humanitarian crisis that they say regional and international powers have allowed to fester. Continue reading...

Melanie Dawes tells MPs BBC should look again at what its guidelines ask of contributors as well as staff

Heatwave comes as Bureau of Meteorology confirms La Niña event that has brought much of the rain to the east coast is over

A Janelle Monáe residency, work by Yayoi Kusama and Ryuichi Sakamoto and a collaboration between footballer Juan Mata and artist Tino Sehgal kick off at this summer’s eventA group show by 11 pairs of footballers and visual artists, an exhibition of Yayoi Kusama inflatables and a new work by the pioneering Japanese experimental composer Ryuichi Sakamoto will take centre stage at this year’s Manchester international festival, which runs from 29 June to 16 July.Artistic director John McGrath said that this year’s festival, which will also feature a citywide artistic Easter egg hunt for collectable coins by artist Ryan Gander, a three-day Janelle Monáe residency, and the world premiere of Kimber Lee’s lauded untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play, would “once again take the temperature of our times, and imagine possibilities for the future. Continue reading...

International criminal court prosecutor is said to be preparing to formally open two war crimes cases

Scheme allowing nuclear materials in Australian submarines worries experts about precedent of safeguard removalThe Aukus scheme announced on Monday in San Diego represents the first time a loophole in the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been used to transfer fissile material and nuclear technology from a nuclear weapons state to a non-weapons state.The loophole is paragraph 14, and it allows fissile material utilised for non-explosive military use, like naval propulsion, to be exempt from inspections and monitoring by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It makes arms controls experts nervous because it sets a precedent that could be used by others to hide highly enriched uranium, or plutonium, the core of a nuclear weapon, from international oversight. Continue reading...

Report from University of Birmingham has inspired an exhibition from street artist Foka Wolf titled Why are we stuck in hospital?Thousands of people with learning disabilities are stuck in long-stay hospitals because of a lack of psychological support and overly complicated treatment systems, according to research.The report from the University of Birmingham has been released in conjunction with an exhibition from the subversive street artist Foka Wolf titled Why are we stuck in hospital? Continue reading...

Government yet to overhaul family worker exemption, which permits live-in staff to be paid less than national minimum wageCampaigners are calling on the government to close a minimum wage loophole, two years after the independent Low Pay Commission warned that it allowed vulnerable migrant workers in private homes to be exploited.The commission (LPC) was asked by the government to examine the family worker exemption, which permits employers to pay domestic staff less than the national minimum wage if they live-in and are treated like a member of the family. Continue reading...

Security minister denies only route for women’s rights activist from Iran is via a boat across the ChannelThe security minister, Tom Tugendhat, has defended the government’s illegal migration bill, swerving repeated questions on whether there were any safe and legal routes for refugees from countries such as Iran to come to the UK.The bill, which will see asylum seekers who come to the UK via “illegal” routes deported, has come in for harsh criticism from the former prime minister Theresa May and others, but Tugendhat said the government was determined to end the suffering caused by traffickers. Continue reading...

Creation of £63m fund comes after Guardian reveals loss of almost 400 swimming pools since 2010England’s floundering swimming pools are to be offered a lifeline in the budget with the creation of a £63m fund to ease cost pressures.On Wednesday, the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, will outline that the new money will be made available for one year and managed by Sport England. Continue reading...

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Some traders are even pricing in a cash rate cut in Australia later this year, a position that had little support just a week ago

Foreign minister set to visit south-east Asia and the Pacific to reassure countries Australia does not seek to escalate military tensions

Yeoh also made first on-screen appearance while in Australia in 1980s – in a Guy Laroche watch advertisement alongside Jackie ChanMichelle Yeoh on Sunday became the first Asian woman to win best actress at the Academy Awards – but an Australian broadcaster has since unearthed archival footage of the actor at a beauty pageant at a Melbourne community festival in 1984.Yeoh, who was born in Malaysia, was studying at London’s Royal Academy of Dance in the early 1980s when a spinal injury forced her to return home. Continue reading...

Steve Barclay accused of ‘wasting months’ by failing to meet unions and being dismissive of their demands for improved payJunior doctors’ leaders have blamed Steve Barclay for triggering their three-day strike this week by ignoring their concerns and being “dismissive” of their demands for improved pay.Hospitals in England functioned effectively on Monday, the first day of the stoppage, with consultants – senior doctors – covering work usually done by junior colleagues. Many thousands of trainee medics refused to work, forcing hospitals to cancel outpatient appointments and operations. Continue reading...