World news | The Guardian

Court hears children of late cricketer wrote a letter of support for Jarrod Grech describing him as ‘lovely’

Denise McCarthy told trial of Narelle Fiona Smith that she found her ex-husband, Peter, dead in his home after being unable to contact him for days

Minister says more than 30,000 people forced to flee in Blue Nile state as tensions between rival communities erupt into violenceAt least 230 people have been killed and more than 200 injured in attacks on villages in Sudan’s Blue Nile state over the past few days, according to authorities.Gamal Nasser al-Sayed, the health minister in the southern state, which borders Ethiopia and South Sudan, told the Guardian that more than 30,000 people in eight villages in the Wad al-Mahi area had had to flee as their homes were torched and villagers were attacked. Continue reading...

Helen Haines and Zoe Daniel call for freed up funds to be reinvested as Sophie Scamps criticises $75m cut from Wakehurst Parkway upgrade

Budget dishes created by celebrity cook include peanut butter pasta and feta, black bean and clementine couscousA peanut butter, dried thyme and garlic pasta dish is Nigella Lawson’s answer to money-saving as part of a suite of £1.25-a-portion recipes she has created under a partnership with online grocer Ocado.The celebrity cook has been signed up as the upmarket delivery firm’s answer to the cut-price food blogger Jack Monroe in her first sponsorship deal with a retailer. Continue reading...

Dispute between major parties in parliamentary inquiry sets up battle on electoral law before 2025 election

Annastacia Palaszczuk says the restrictions will be removed this year to comply with Opcat treaty

US president and new British PM reaffirm ‘special relationship’ after Sunak becomes Britain’s third leader in 2022The US president, Joe Biden, and Britain’s new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, agreed during talks on Tuesday to work together to support Ukraine and stand up to China, the White House said.They spoke for the first time a few hours after Sunak became Britain’s third prime minister this year, inheriting an economic crisis after the resignation of Liz Truss whose tenure lasted 49 days. Continue reading...

Officers who made complaints say internal witness support unit is understaffed and overwhelmed

Outspoken comments about schools policy were made before he became king in one-off episode of BBC showKing Charles has criticised the lack of vocational education in schools during his appearance in a special edition of the BBC television show The Repair Shop.In the one-off episode, to be broadcast by the BBC on Wednesday, he praises the value of technical skills and apprenticeships, and describes the lack of vocational education as a “great tragedy”. Continue reading...

Braverman reappointed to post after resigning days ago; James Cleverly retained as foreign secretary; Oliver Dowden becomes Cabinet Office ministerThe BBC’s political correspondent, Nick Eardley, has just summed things up on BBC Radio 4 like this: “Liz Truss faced one of the most daunting entries of modern times, Mr Sunak faces an even more daunting one – plus he has to pick a cabinet that will unite the party.”When he becomes PM, Rishi Sunak will be doing many things for the first time in modern politics – he will be the first PM of colour, the first Hindu, the youngest since William Pitt the Younger. Continue reading...

Kyiv’s allies dismiss allegation it could use such a weapon on its own soil as scientifically absurd and a distraction effort

New cabinet is designed to bring down the temperature in the party – but dangers lie ahead

Influencers Christopher Richwhite and Bridget Thackwray had disappeared after entering Iran in July and had been prevented from leavingTwo New Zealand social media influencers who were detained in Iran for almost four months have been released and have now left the country.Social media influencers Christopher “Topher” Richwhite and Bridget Thackwray were undertaking a trip called Expedition Earth in which they aimed to travel across 90 countries in a Jeep. The two recorded their travels with near-daily vlogs and Instagram posts, and documented their border crossing into Iran from Turkey in early July. Continue reading...

Judges commend Clémentine Schneidermann for simple series capturing neighbour in WalesA series of portraits documenting the mundane, daily chores of life in lockdown have won one of the world’s most prestigious photography prizes.The National Portrait Gallery has named French photographer Clémentine Schneidermann as winner of the 2022 Taylor Wessing photographic portrait prize for her series Laundry Day. The photographer, who lives and works between Paris and south Wales, wins £15,000. Continue reading...

While new Tory leader’s rise reflects positive progress, reality of life in UK for ethnic minorities remains complex pictureIn 1969, the late Queen’s chief financial manager, Lord Tryon, told a Home Office civil servant that “it was not, in fact, the practice to appoint coloured immigrants or foreigners” to certain roles within the royal household. People from ethnic minority backgrounds were, however, allowed to work as domestic servants.The note was sent two months before Queen Elizabeth II invested her son Charles as the Prince of Wales. The UK’s rapid social and political change in the half-century that followed is best described with the official pronouncement made on Tuesday: Charles, now king, received the Tory leader, Rishi Sunak, a British South Asian and practising Hindu, to form a government and become Britain’s 57th prime minister. Continue reading...

Italy’s infrastructure minister says plan is one of his goals, despite cost, impracticability and seismic riskJust days after being nominated Italian infrastructure minister, Matteo Salvini has revived the ancient and controversial dream to build a gigantic, multi-billion-euro bridge linking Sicily to the mainland, in one of the areas with the highest seismic risk in Europe.On Monday, Salvini, the leader of the League, a junior partner in a far-right coalition that won September’s general election, told the Italian state broadcaster Rai he would put in motion the long-discussed plan of linking Messina to Reggio Calabria, despite the fact that the project was repeatedly rejected by previous governments because of high costs, engineering impracticability and environmental impact. Continue reading...

Third British PM in less than two months vows to prioritise economic stability after Liz Truss’s departure

Incident outside National Museum in Doha comes less than a month before start of men’s football World CupThe human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has been stopped by police in Qatar while staging a protest against the Gulf state’s criminalisation of LGBTQ+ people.Tatchell’s protest outside the National Museum of Qatar in the capital, Doha, comes less than a month before the start of the Fifa World Cup, which is expected to attract 1.2 million visitors from around the world. Continue reading...

World leaders laud the significance of Sunak’s victory as the UK’s first prime minister of colour

Labour leader says shadow cabinet should stick to tried and tested criticism of the new PM

Service says the move is aimed at encourage the return of borrowers who stopped using the library during the Covid pandemicLibraries in Peterborough are holding a fine amnesty to try to recover 22,000 missing books.The service, which runs 10 libraries across the area, will not fine anyone for returning overdue books and will clear accounts of debt. Continue reading...

Show portrays adventures of agent who wakes from cryogenic sleep to find himself in modern SpainThree years after the remains of Francisco Franco were finally removed from the granite chambers of the Valley of the Fallen, another relic of the dictatorial regime is stirring from a long slumber deep inside the monument’s damp and bone-stacked caverns.Fortunately, the relic in question is not a long-dead falangista but rather a fictional Francoist secret agent whose adventures in contemporary Spain have moved from the pages of three graphic novels to the small screen. Continue reading...

Sunak says UK is in ‘economic crisis’ and warns of ‘difficult decisions to come’ while heading off calls for general election

Remarks come as appointment prompts varying reactions in Indian media, with one channel calling it a ‘miracle’

Vyacheslav Boguslaev allegedly said he ‘completely understands’ why factory was bombed by Russia

Russian strikes in Donetsk kill seven civilians; car explodes near office of Kremlin propaganda channel; German president arrives in Kyiv

Third man still critically ill in hospital after reports of fatal fight in IlfordPolice are investigating a triple shooting in east London in which two men died and a third was critically injured.The Metropolitan police said the shots were fired in Ilford shortly after midnight on Tuesday. Police say they were called to reports of a fight in Henley Road, with the London ambulance service telling officers that they had also heard gunfire. Continue reading...

Bill Shorten says $126m earmarked in Labor’s October budget will help protect national disability insurance scheme ‘from crooks’

Outgoing PM tells successor he should continue cutting taxes and keep planned rise in defence spending

Albanese government unveils big boost to Pacific aid partly offset by axing Coalition’s agriculture visa while sparing defence from major cuts

As Rishi Sunak warns of a ‘profound economic challenge’, struggling departments face reduced budgetsAfter being named as Tory party leader and the next prime minister, Rishi Sunak warned MPs that the UK faced “a profound economic challenge”. Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, at least for now, has previously said no option is off the table when it comes to filling the £40bn black hole in the public finances identified by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). We look at how government departments would cope with spending cuts. Continue reading...

Former Home Office minister Victoria Atkins says levelling up, NHS and crime will be focus

Vitali Klitschko hopes to follow Poland and Hungary on path to greater prosperity and European integration

Colleagues pay tribute to 55-year-old GenX Radio Suffolk DJ, who died suddenly at home studioA radio presenter who died while presenting on air has been described as a “dear friend” and “all round lovely man” by those who worked with him.Tim Gough, 55, died suddenly while hosting the GenX Radio Suffolk breakfast show on Monday. Gough was thought to have been broadcasting from a studio at his home at the time. Continue reading...

Ex-chancellor to become third Tory prime minister in less than two months and fifth in six years

Multimillion-dollar study led by Dr Paul McCrory led to ‘confusion’ among player participants over tests and procedures, review says

‘Historic’ accord includes state and federal funding commitments for 20,000 new affordable dwellings

Farmers for Climate Action say the state government’s scheme could speed up the switch to renewables

Renaissance artist’s famous marble to form part of V&A exhibition exploring his cultural impactDonatello’s most famous marble sculpture, David, is to go on display in the UK for the first time as part of the country’s first exhibition of the Renaissance master’s work.Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance, which will be staged at the Victoria and Albert Museum, will feature other previously unseen works in Britain, offering a fresh vision of the artist and his impact on the the cultural and artistic development of 15th-century Italy. Continue reading...

Firms such as Apple, Google and Amazon could harm competition in UK’s sector, Financial Conduct Authority saysThe UK’s City watchdog is to examine how to regulate “big tech” companies such as Apple, Google and Amazon over fears they could harm competition in Britain’s financial services sector.The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said that big tech companies could provide innovations in financial services and drive down costs, but also expressed concerns that they could build dominant positions leading to the “potential exploitation of market power”, according to analysis published on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Despite public displays of loyalty by former opponents, the new PM’s honeymoon period is likely to be briefWhen Conservative MPs are asked privately if the party will pull itself out of a seemingly never-ending spiral of disunity now Rishi Sunak is at the helm, rather than reply with the affirmative, most instead say that “it can” or “it has to”.The new prime minister will expect to get a reprieve from colleagues’ acidic briefings as those who tried everything to keep him out of Downing Street slink away to lick their wounds and the more moderate doubters magnanimously fall into line. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Guardian analysis of hospital trust accounts found 101 owe about £50bn in future unitary PFI paymentsNHS trusts spent close to a half a billion pounds on interest charges from private companies for private finance initiative (PFI) contracts last year – equivalent to the salaries of 15,000 newly qualified nurses.Hospital groups spent £2.3bn on legacy PFI projects in 2020-21, of which just under £1bn went on costs for essential services such as cleaning and maintenance. A third of the remaining PFI spend – £457m – went purely on paying off interest charges. Continue reading...

Judge urges jury to make ‘a further attempt’ after ACT supreme court receives note indicating members ‘unable’ to agree

Kallista Mutten permitted to spend sentence in community for 2021 Blue Mountains robbery

Observers wonder whether there is anyone left in CCP to stop Chinese president making a rash moveXi Jinping’s purging of political rivals and elevation of loyalists to the top ranks of the Chinese Communist party has raised fears that his now unfettered and unquestionable power could increase the risk of an attack on Taiwan.Beijing has pledged to annex Taiwan under a disputed claim that it is a Chinese province, and in recent years has increased its military activity and other forms of harassment and coercion. No timeline has been set, but senior defence figures have said China could be capable of invasion as early as 2027. Others point to Xi’s pledge of “national rejuvenation” by 2047 – the centenary of the People’s Republic of China – as a potential goal. Continue reading...

Disgraced Hollywood producer denies accusations from five women who say he abused them between 2004 and 2013As Harvey Weinstein faces a new trial on multiple rape and sexual assault charges in Los Angeles, a prosecutor alleged a series of graphic rapes in hotel rooms across the city, and a group of women who were left terrified by Weinstein’s power within Hollywood.Opening statements began on Monday, with prosecutors in Los Angeles saying that eight women would testify about Weinstein’s alleged crimes, including Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary film-maker and actor who is now married to the governor of California, Gavin Newsom. Siebel Newsom alleges that Weinstein raped her during what she thought would be a business meeting in 2005, when she was a young actor trying to build her career. Continue reading...

Girlguiding survey finds girls and young women in the north of England are less likely to feel safe in their daily livesGirls and young women in the north of England feel less safe and less happy than their counterparts in London and the south, according to a survey by the Girlguiding charity, which is concerned about “stark” regional differences in attitudes.More than one in five (22%) girls and young women in the north aged 11-16 who took part in the survey published on Tuesday blamed fear of sexual harassment for holding them back at school. The figure was significantly lower at 16% in London and the south. Continue reading...

Man charged with murder of 15-year-old Cassius Turvey after police say alleged attacker approached a group of children as they were walking along the roadA man has been charged with the murder of a 15-year-old Aboriginal teenager in Perth, who police allege died from head injuries after being bashed with a metal pole.Police said teenager Cassius Turvey and a group of friends were approached by a 21-year-old man while walking home from school in Middle Swan on Perth’s outskirts on 13 October. Continue reading...

New prime minister likely to prioritise unity in offering ministerial jobs, although leading Trussites can expect the chopRishi Sunak has pledged to build a cabinet of all the talents but, given the swiftness of the leadership competition, relatively little has been briefed about his potential cabinet.His team say no roles have been promised to any backers and Sunak was in the enviable position as the frontrunner of not needing to promise roles to anyone. Continue reading...