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Deaths and hospitalisations also rise, prompting NSW to upgrade its risk rating to amber and mandate a limited return to mask-wearing

Latest intercontinental ballistic missile launch comes day after North resumed weapons testing and threatened ‘fiercer’ military response to US moves in regionJapan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has condemned North Korea for firing a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday that landed within his country’s exclusive economic zone.The missile, which a Japanese minister said had the potential range to reach the US, landed about 200 km (124 miles) west of Oshima-Oshima island in the northern prefecture of Hokkaido. There were no reports of damage to ships or aircraft. Continue reading...

Economic adviser to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi was described as being in ‘amazingly good spirits’ by Anthony Albanese

The UK newspaper front pages are united in their strong – and negative – response to the chancellor’s long-awaited budgetReactions to Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement dominate UK front pages on Friday, with the Guardian’s headline reading “From bad to worse”. The paper reports that the chancellor’s £30bn of delayed spending cuts and £25bn of backdated tax increases “laid bare the country’s dire economic predicament”.The i splashes with “UK’s lost decade”, and what the paper calls the “biggest drop in living standards on record … sending British earnings back to 2013”. Continue reading...

Ahead of first meeting with China’s president in three years, New Zealand PM calls for environment where differences can be discussedJacinda Ardern has said she must be able to raise concerns with Beijing without prompting “retaliatory acts”, on the eve of her planned meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.The pair’s first in-person bilateral meeting since 2019 is due to take place on Friday evening on the sidelines of the Apec forum. It comes during a strained time in New Zealand-China relations, where ideological differences – and New Zealand’s economic reliance on China as an export market – have continued to grow. Continue reading...

Australian foreign minister says Dutch court that found two Russians and one Ukrainian guilty of downing flight delivered ‘the truth’

Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, run by Gareth Swarbrick, received multiple complaints about fungi from Awaab Ishak’s parentsA housing boss responsible for the flat where two-year-old Awaab Ishak died due to mould has refused to resign, claiming that conversations about his position have “begun to overshadow” the tragedy.Under chief executive Gareth Swarbrick, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) received multiple complaints about fungi from Awaab’s parents before he died from a respiratory condition in December 2020. Continue reading...

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall aided appeal for Fisher, whose Nissan Navara was last seen in Dorchester, say policeTributes have been paid to the missing journalist and award-winning scriptwriter Nick Fisher after a body was found in Dorchester.Fisher, whose books included Sea Fishing: River Cottage Handbook, with an introduction by celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, had last been seen in his home village of Hooke in west Dorset on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Company halts ticket sales ‘due to extraordinarily high demands’ while Tennessee investigates Ticketmaster over presale chaosThe US entertainment ticketing company Ticketmaster has canceled plans to sell tickets to the public on Friday for Taylor Swift’s 2023 Eras tour after supply was far outstripped by demand and the sales system descended into chaos.A clamor for tickets this week led to part of Ticketmaster’s online sales system crashing and long delays for fans who accessed the site but were left waiting for hours for the chance to snap up dates to see the pop star’s stadium tour. Continue reading...

Bereaved families of workers and rights groups want World Cup organisers to make £372m payoutQatar is facing renewed calls from migrant workers, their families, and rights groups to compensate for human rights abuses including wage theft, injuries and uninvestigated deaths, days before the World Cup kicks off.As fans and footballers descend on the Persian Gulf country for the month-long tournament, workers and their families, who have spent 12 years sounding the alarm on exploitative conditions endured while building the tournament’s infrastructure, are seeking an amount equivalent to the $440m (£372m) World Cup prize money for a remediation programme. Continue reading...

Police say drugs and gun also found at Johannesburg property where they detained wanted Abergil gang member and seven othersA man reputed to be one of Israel’s most wanted gang leaders has been arrested during a raid on a home in an affluent Johannesburg suburb where South African authorities said they also found guns, drugs and a van equipped for torture.South African police said on Thursday that the 46-year-old Israeli was a member of the Abergil gang, which deals in drug trafficking and extortion, and that he was wanted in Israel for several attempted murders. Continue reading...

Analysis: with half of all British households set to be worse off next year, many Tory MPs fear voters will turn against them

Hollywood actor criticised by South Africans after saying controversial apartheid-era language ‘not very helpful’Charlize Theron has prompted anger in her native South Africa after suggesting that Afrikaans, a language descended from Dutch colonial settlers, was heading for oblivion.“There’s about 44 people still speaking it … it’s definitely a dying language, it’s not a very helpful language,” the 47-year-old Oscar-winning actor said this week on a US podcast “Smartless.” Continue reading...

Victims’ advocates say report, which identified 68 alleged abusers between 2020-21, excludes key data and figuresItaly’s Catholic church has identified 68 alleged abusers in an investigation into the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable individuals spanning a period of just two years – a timeframe criticised by victims’ advocates as a “joke”.The figure is astonishingly high given the inquiry only targeted the 2020-2021 period and only referred to data provided by “listening centres” that were established by dioceses across Italy in 2019 specifically to receive complaints of abuse. Continue reading...

Authorities claim to have found ‘torture chambers’ in liberated southern Ukrainian city

Thinktanks warn new £3.3bn in each of next two years won’t account for the £2.5bn inflation and other unexpected cost pressuresThe NHS will receive an extra £3.3bn in each of the next two years, the chancellor has announced, but experts warned the cash is likely only half of what is needed to keep the health service afloat.Jeremy Hunt told the Commons during his autumn statement he had been assured the funding would mean the NHS can hit its “key priorities”. Its chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, later issued a statement welcoming the funding, saying it showed that “the government has been serious about its commitment to prioritise the NHS”. Continue reading...

Register also shows former PM travelled to Montana at Rupert Murdoch’s expense last monthBoris Johnson enjoyed the hospitality of Rupert Murdoch and a few days later was paid £276,130 plus expenses for a speech to insurance agents in the US.Johnson’s update to his register of interests – all MPs are required to update theirs every 28 days – shows he travelled to Montana for a business meeting on 11-12 October. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Nikita Chibrin claims he did not fire weapon once while deployed to Ukraine for more than four months

Although barrister ‘would not want’ her daughter to attend the footballer’s parties, accusers were making ‘real-life choices’Benjamin Mendy’s barrister said she wouldn’t want her daughter to go to a party if the Manchester City footballer was there, but insisted that did not mean he was a rapist or a Jimmy Savile-style groomer.Eleanor Laws KC told the jury in Mendy’s rape trial that the 28-year-old regularly had unprotected sex at parties in his Cheshire mansion with “women he didn’t know from Adam”. But it was “not criminal” to have sex with multiple women without a condom, she stressed. Continue reading...

Merchandise linked to supermarket’s latest Christmas campaign sells out online hours after going on saleMore than 70,000 shoppers have queued online and hundreds lined up outside UK stores to get their hands on Aldi’s toys and merchandise based around its Kevin the Carrot adverts.By 10am, several versions of the soft toys had already sold out online amid high demand for merchandise linked to the hero of the discount grocery store’s festive campaign. Continue reading...

Exclusive: protesters say they were assaulted by officers at peaceful ‘kill the bill’ demonstration in March 2021A police force has paid damages to protesters who allege they were assaulted by officers when they broke up a peaceful “kill the bill” demonstration in Bristol.One of the protesters alleges that an officer struck him in the face with a shield, leaving him scarred, and a second claims she struggled to breathe when she was crushed beneath two police shields. They say they witnessed another protester being dragged along the ground by his long hair. Continue reading...

The claims and counter-claims against the charity at the heart of the debate over trans childrenThe charity Mermaids has found itself at the heart of the highly charged debate pitting trans rights supporters against gender-critical feminists.Mermaids, which is funded mostly by donations but also receives grants and payments for training, says it provides support to transgender children and their families, as well as helping to facilitate their acceptance in society. Continue reading...

Government ordered Nexperia to sell 86% of its shareholding in company formerly known as Newport Wafer FabThe UK head of a Chinese-owned semiconductor company has said the decision to reverse its takeover of Britain’s largest chip plant is “bad news” for workers and pledged to do whatever it takes to fight the order.The business department late on Wednesday night ordered Nexperia to sell 86% of its shareholding in the company, formerly known as Newport Wafer Fab, which produces semiconductors in south Wales. The order, which cited national security concerns, would reverse a £63m takeover completed in July 2021. Continue reading...

Widespread protests lead to deaths in separate incidents as anger over Mahsa Amini transforms into wider protest against the regimeAs many as 15 people have been shot dead in Iran, including members of the security forces and a nine-year-old boy, in separate incidents as the country experienced one of its most serious and widespread nights of protests of the past nine weeks.On the anniversary of the 2019 uprising, state news agencies blamed terrorists on two motorcycles for the killing of seven people in a shopping centre in the southern city of Izeh Khuzesta. However, protesters said members of the Basij militia force ran amok, killing among others a nine-year-old boy sitting in a car with his father. State news agencies said two volunteer Basij patrolmen were among the dead, and 10 were injured. Continue reading...

Germany latest to end peacekeeping mission as operations prove unable to stop Islamic extremist insurgencyThousands of international troops are withdrawing from Mali amid surging violence, growing Russian influence and an acute humanitarian crisis.On Wednesday Germany became the latest country to end its participation in the UN peacekeeping mission in the unstable west African country. Earlier this week, British officials said that 300 British soldiers sent in 2020 to join the United Nations force would be returning earlier than planned. Continue reading...

Analysts say millions still face winter crisis despite Hunt’s decision to increase benefits in line with inflation

Culture and safety of hunting widely seen to be on trial too after Morgan Keane, 25, died while cutting wood on his landTwo hunters have appeared in court in the French town of Cahors accused of the manslaughter of a young man mistaken for a boar in a case where the culture and safety of French hunting are widely seen to be on trial too.Morgan Keane, 25, died after he was hit in the chest while cutting wood on his own land near Calvignac in the Lot, south-west France, in December 2020. The hunter, Julien Féral, 35, who fired the fatal shot, said he had mistaken the Keane for a wild boar. Continue reading...

Gunty’s debut novel The Rabbit Hutch, set in a low-income housing community in Indiana, was the fiction winnerTess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch, a sweeping debut novel set in a low-income housing community in Indiana, has won the National Book Award for fiction. The 30-year-old Gunty was among three writers nominated for their first published books.The nonfiction prize went to Imani Perry’s South to America, and Sabaa Tahir’s All My Rage won for young people’s literature. In poetry, John Keene was cited for Punks: New and Selected Poems, while Argentinian author Samanta Schweblin and translator Megan McDowell won for best work in translation for Seven Empty Houses. Continue reading...

Andrew Burfield sentenced to 32 years in prison for ‘ferocious and cruel’ axe attack on ex-girlfriendA “highly dangerous” man who claimed he had accidentally killed his ex-girlfriend when throwing an axe has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 32 years for her murder at Preston crown court.Andrew Burfield admitted killing 33-year-old Katie Kenyon in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire, on 22 April, burying her body in a grave he had dug the day before. Continue reading...

State media says foreign nationals and 712 ‘political prisoners’ among 5,774 to be freed in so-called amnestyAlmost 6,000 people will be released from prison in Myanmar, including the Australian academic Prof Sean Turnell, Britain’s former ambassador Vicky Bowman and Japanese film-maker Toru Kubota, junta-controlled media has said.On Thursday, Myanmar’s state-run MRTV said that the foreign nationals, as well as a Burmese-American citizen, had been released and deported in a so-called amnesty timed to coincide with Myanmar National Day. Continue reading...

Brand says decision to stop tourists reclaiming VAT has hurt UK reputation as luxury shopping destinationTourists hoping to snap up Burberry products are heading to Paris and Milan rather than London, while luxury shoppers face price significant increases as costs rise, according to the British fashion brand.Burberry, which plans a return to the “Britishness” of the 167-year-old company in a refocus under new chief executive Jonathan Akeroyd, said that American tourists in Europe fuelled a double-digit increase in store sales in the three months to the end of September. Continue reading...

University of Queensland research shows coverage has also been used to threaten partners

The latest missile test comes on the back of expanded military exercises between the US and South Korea

Two independent candidates say the complaint to the state’s electoral commission is ‘unfounded’

State’s top legal officer is monitoring appeal against a ruling lawyers say has emboldened churches to limit compensation to alleged victims of dead paedophile priests

Auction of the late writer’s estate sees prices soar thousands of dollars over estimates – but it is all going to a good causeAn estate sale for the late Joan Didion has seen buyers flock to snap up the writer’s belongings, with everything from napkins to chunky Celine sunglasses to a broken desk clock selling for thousands above the estimated prices.On Wednesday, the live auction at Stair Galleries in New York, titled An American Icon: Property From the Collection of Joan Didion, saw the late American writer’s furniture, art and books snapped up for hair-raising prices. Continue reading...

Minerals Council opens new front between resources sector and Albanese government who are already at war over IR changes

Opposition refers ALP to Ibac over video of so-called ‘preference whisperer’ skiting about 2018 Victoria election deal

Victorian Electoral Commission has ‘not received full cooperation’ in its attempt to investigate the issue

Chinese president’s testy remarks about briefings on earlier conversation captured by media pool at G20 summit in IndonesiaXi Jinping has angrily rebuked Justin Trudeau after Canadian officials shared details of a previous meeting, highlighting the frosty relationship between the two leaders.In a clip recorded by the media pool at the G20 summit in Indonesia, a visibly frustrated Xi pulls the Canadian prime minister aside and says it was “not appropriate” for details about a previous conversation between the two leaders to have been shared with media, suggesting Trudeau lacked “sincerity” in his approach. Continue reading...

Overall smoking rate falls to 8% as country pursues goal of becoming smoke-free by 2025, but many may be switching to vaping insteadThe number of people smoking in New Zealand has fallen to a historic low, as the country pushes forward with ambitious plans to wipe out smoking in a generation.Data released on Thursday showed the number of people smoking daily had fallen to 8%, the lowest rates since records began, and down from 9.4% last year. Continue reading...

Women in UK three times more likely to die around the time of pregnancy than those in NorwayMothers in the UK are three times more likely to die around the time of pregnancy compared with those in Norway, according to an international analysis of data.Although maternal mortality is at historic lows in high-income countries, it remains an important indicator of quality of care, health system performance and, more specifically, maternal care. The comparison of maternal mortality rates in eight European countries was published in the BMJ. Continue reading...

Jeremy Hunt expected to use autumn statement to announce rise in household energy price cap to as much as £3,100Millions of UK households will pay more for their energy from next April under plans to cut the generosity of the government’s gas and electricity support scheme expected to be announced by Jeremy Hunt on Thursday.The chancellor is likely to use his autumn statement to say the need to save money and reduce state borrowing will require the household energy price cap to rise from £2,500 to an expected £3,000 to £3,100. Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak will appoint independent investigator at request of deputy prime ministerRishi Sunak will appoint an independent investigator to examine claims of alleged bullying against Dominic Raab, after the deputy prime minister requested an inquiry into two formal complaints that have been made against him.Raab, who said he will stay on as deputy PM and justice secretary while the process takes place, used a stand-in appearance at prime minister’s questions to insist he had always behaved properly towards staff, despite a growing list of accusations from officials. Continue reading...

Flurry of face-to-face talks with the leaders of US, UK and France could lead to more deals for military equipment

Video footage shows people running for exits and police with batons beating women in metro carriagesIranian security forces have opened fire on people at a metro station in Tehran and beaten women who were not wearing mandatory hair coverings as protests over the death of Mahsa Amini entered a third month.Footage shared on social media showed passengers running towards exits, with many falling and being trampled, after police opened fire on a crowded platform. Police were also filmed through train windows marching down through carriages and beating women with batons. Continue reading...

Bruno Carbone, right-hand man of mafia boss Raffaele Imperiale, was arrested at Rome airport amid claims he was extradited from SyriaThe arrest of an Italian drug trafficker who was on Europol’s most wanted list is shrouded in mystery amid reports that he was captured and extradited from Syria.Bruno Carbone, who had been on the run since 2003, was the right-hand man of Raffaele Imperiale, a drug broker for the Naples’ Camorra mafia who was arrested in Dubai in August 2021. Continue reading...

Killer confesses to murdering Katie Kenyon after Preston crown court hears how he buried her in grave he dug the day beforeA man accused of the murder of a mother-of-two has admitted he is guilty, having initially denied the killing, three days into his trial at Preston crown court.Andrew Burfield confessed to murdering his ex-girlfriend 33-year-old Katie Kenyon after the court heard how he buried her body in a grave he had dug the day before in the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire. Continue reading...

Pacific Zircon, linked to Israeli billionaire, said to have been ‘hit by projectile’ but suffered only minor damageAn oil tanker associated with an Israeli billionaire has been struck by a bomb-carrying drone off the coast of Oman amid heightened tensions with Iran.The drone attack on the Liberian-flagged oil tanker Pacific Zircon happened on Tuesday night off the coast of Oman, a Middle East-based defence official told the Associated Press. Continue reading...

PM awaiting formal advice after pledge made when tax affairs came under scrutiny over wife’s non-dom status