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Lawyers hope to appeal against decision to block access to documents about Timor-Leste espionage operation

This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war hereMore from AFP:In the village of Yakovlivka, 55-year-old Ukrainian soldier Andriy hid in a ditch as shells fired by encroaching Russians whistled past.“Our guys have stopped firing back,” he whispered after glancing up and down the road. Continue reading...

Anthony Albanese calls Labor frontbencher’s comment about Liberal leader-to-be a ‘mistake’

Leaked copy of draft shows Beijing wants more involvement in policing, cybersecurity and marine mappingChina is pursuing a sweeping regional economic security deal with Pacific nations that would dramatically expand its influence and reach into those countries, in a pact that has western countries and some Pacific leaders deeply worried.The wide-ranging deal lays out China’s vision for a much closer relationship with the Pacific, especially on security matters, with China proposing it would be involved in training police, cybersecurity, sensitive marine mapping and gaining greater access to natural resources. Continue reading...

Prime minister says ‘the Pacific is our home’ as Beijing plans a regional security pact with almost a dozen island nationsJacinda Ardern says New Zealand is “ready to respond” to security needs in the Pacific, after it emerged China is planning a Pacific-wide security deal with almost a dozen island nations.The prime minister, who is touring the US, said she believed the Pacific could meet its security needs internally, implying it should do so without intervention from China or elsewhere. “On anything related to security arrangements, we are very strongly of the view that we have within the Pacific the means and ability to respond to any security challenges that exist and New Zealand is willing to do that,” Ardern said. Continue reading...

Report in wake of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson killings proposes new specialist teamsChild protection services in England face a shake-up after an independent review of safeguarding failures that led to the killings of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and the toddler Star Hobson.The review’s central proposal is the creation of specialist child protection teams including social workers, mental health workers, police officers, paediatricians and child psychologists to oversee cases where children are at serious risk of harm. Continue reading...

Democratic gubernatorial candidate confronts Republican Greg Abbott during press conference, saying: ‘You are doing nothing’Beto O’Rourke publicly confronted Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, during a press conference on Wednesday about a mass school shooting in the town of Uvalde where 19 children and two teachers were killed.As seen in a video of the press briefing published online, an off-camera O’Rourke is heard approaching the press conference table where several government officials, including Abbott, are seated onstage. Continue reading...

Frontbencher says PM ‘getting away lightly’ after Sue Gray says she did not fully investigate alcohol-fuelled gathering

Group includes children and pregnant women as exodus from crisis-hit Haiti growsA ship carrying more than 800 Haitians who were apparently trying to reach the US has landed instead in central Cuba, in what is thought to be the largest group yet in a swelling exodus of people from the crisis-stricken Caribbean country.The Communist party newspaper Granma quoted Red Cross officials in the province of Villa Clara as saying the 842 people crammed on to the vessel had been given medical attention and were being housed at a tourist campground. Continue reading...

Outspoken leader thought to have resisted board’s attempts to split the roles of chair and chief executiveThe boss of JD Sports has stepped down with immediate effect just months after the retailer was fined more than £4m for breaching the competition regulator’s rules with clandestine meetings with a takeover target.The company said Peter Cowgill, the outspoken chair and chief executive officer of JD who has led the group since 2004, would be temporarily replaced as chief executive by Kath Smith, its senior independent director who spent 25 years as managing director of the Adidas and Reebok brands. Continue reading...

Dictator’s son will take office from 30 June marking the dynasty’s return to the seat of powerFerdinand Marcos Jr was flanked by his family, including matriarch Imelda Marcos, as he stood at the rostrum in the Philippines Congress to be proclaimed president-elect, marking the dynasty’s return to the seat of power.Marcos Jr won almost 59% of votes in an election earlier this month, more than double that of his closest rival. His landslide victory followed a highly divisive campaign that was dominated by disinformation that sought to glorify the regime of his dictator father Marcos Sr, who plundered as much as $10bn dollars while in office, and presided over rife human rights abuses. Continue reading...

Analysis: Guided between meetings and stumbling across parties, PM projects meekness and irrelevance

The industry has not been able to manufacture enough to keep pace with rocketing demandMPs have launched an inquiry into the strengths and weaknesses of the UK semiconductor industry and its supply chain, after months of global shortages and disruption that have hit production of cars, electronics and home appliances.The announcement of the business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) committee’s inquiry comes just days before a decision is expected in the controversial proposed takeover of the UK’s largest microchip manufacturer Newport Wafer Fab by a Dutch company owned by Chinese-backed Nexperia. Continue reading...

Premier says ‘we are proud to be a francophone nation in North America’ but English-speaking critics threaten legal actionQuebec’s government has successfully passed sweeping French language protections that critics warn will reshape all aspects of public life.Bill 96, which passed on Tuesday afternoon in the province’s national assembly, will require new immigrants and refugees to communicate with provincial officials exclusively in French six months after arriving or face a loss of services. The bill also limits the use of English in the legal system and caps enrolment at the province’s English-language schools. Continue reading...

PM tells media after publication of Sue Gray report that other gatherings he attended were ‘part of my job’

Belarusian private soldiers are first international mercenaries to face war crimes charges since invasion began

Zelenskiy calls situation in Donbas ‘extremely difficult’ as Russia tries to carve up Ukrainian-held territory

Alistair Phillips-Davies pledges £24bn of investment as his company reports 15% rise in profitsThe chief executive of the energy supplier SSE has said a windfall tax could damage Britain’s progress on building up domestic sources of electricity and gas as he pledged £24bn of investment.Alistair Phillips-Davies has said a proposed one-off levy on energy companies could hinder work to build windfarms and other sources of domestic supplies. Continue reading...

Retailer to shut 32 more stores in next three years, and expects profits to flatline in year aheadShoppers are expected to rein in spending seriously in the autumn, after enjoying holidays abroad and the jubilee celebrations this summer, the boss of Marks & Spencer has said, as the retailer said profits would flatline amid “consumer uncertainty”.Steve Rowe, the outgoing chief executive of the food, clothing and homewares retailer, said M&S’s costs were rising by between 5% and 9%, depending on the product category, adding “a chunk of that is going to get passed on” to customers. Continue reading...

Artist and poet played leading role in cultural explosion that followed end of Franco dictatorshipThe Spanish photographer, artist and poet Ouka Leele, one of the greatest and brightest talents of the Movida Madrileña cultural explosion that followed the end of the Francisco Franco dictatorship, has died at the age of 64.Born Bárbara Allende Gil de Biedma in Madrid in 1957, Leele began drawing, painting and devouring history of art books at an early age. After studying photography, she alighted on what would become her trademark style – an often riotous fusion of monochrome photographic images overpainted with gaudy watercolours. Continue reading...

No 10 insiders given time to read printed copies of report before it is published at approximately 11amSue Gray’s final report into Downing Street parties has been sent to No 10, and is expected to include damning descriptions and several photographs of gatherings that broke lockdown laws.A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Sue Gray has provided her final report to the prime minister.” It is understood that the report is about 40 pages long. Continue reading...

‘Make No Doubt’ videos aim to provide young people with tools to give and ask for consent, launched one week before NSW law change

Isabela Carolina Camelo-Gomez strangled and stabbed her mother, but continues to deny any involvement

From Monday about 1.5 million aged 16-64 qualify for fourth dose after updated advice that excludes people without serious risk factors

Doctors call for international help as Ethiopia civil war leaves terminally ill being treated with paracetamol in Mekelle hospitalDoctors caring for cancer patients at the main hospital in Tigray say they have only two chemotherapy drugs left in date and are treating terminally ill people with expired medication and paracetamol. Eighteen months of war have left the sickest in society suffering agonising deaths, they say.For the first time in 11 months, doctors at the Ayder referral hospital in Mekelle took receipt of an oral chemotherapy drug earlier this month as part of an airlift by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Until then, they had had only one, Doxorubicin, still in date. Continue reading...

State-backed broadcast has strategic and practical justifications but some see it as dangerous monopolyIn an age of social media and satellite television, the singular wartime news bulletin evokes images of families tuning in to the radio during the second world war. But in Ukraine, the state-backed broadcast has remerged, albeit with a 21st-century spin.Shortly after Russia invaded, the country’s main TV channels started broadcasting the same content 24 hours a day, nicknamed the United News telemarathon. Each channel has a daily slot on the broadcast, which is shown simultaneously on all the channels. Continue reading...

Gazprombank’s Igor Volobuyev and diplomat Boris Bondarev are among the Russian elite to oppose Putin’s invasion of UkraineIgor Volobuyev spent two decades working in the heart of the Russian business establishment, first for Gazprom and then for its affiliate Gazprombank, where until February this year he was vice-president.Then Vladimir Putin launched his war on Ukraine in late February, and Volobuyev decided he could no longer stand living in Russia. He packed a small rucksack of possessions and a stack of cash, and flew out of the country on 2 March, pretending he was going on holiday. Continue reading...

Wang Yi will visit eight countries in 10 days, but media access to his diplomatic push has been severely restrictedPacific journalists have raised serious concerns about secrecy surrounding the upcoming marathon tour of the Pacific by China’s foreign minister, who will be visiting eight countries in 10 days.Wang Yi will visit Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste and Fiji between 26 May and 4 June, on a tour of the region that has been labelled “extraordinary and unprecedented” by Pacific experts. Continue reading...

Policies passed after Cole Miller’s death from one-punch attack have also not adversely affected hospitality venues, review says

Murphy, who came to Congress representing Sandy Hook’s district, called ‘bullshit’ on Republicans for focusing on mental health not guns

This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war hereThe turmoil caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has underlined the need for a free Indo-Pacific region, Joe Biden has said, at the start of a meeting with regional partners that Beijing has criticised as part of a US-led attempt to contain China.Biden, and the leaders of a loose alliance known as the Quad – India, Japan and Australia – reaffirmed their commitment to a “free and open” Indo-Pacific during talks in Tokyo on Tuesday. The comments came one day after the US president said Washington would be ready to intervene militarily to defend Taiwan, prompting China to accuse him of “playing with fire”. Continue reading...

‘Shocking’ report finds more than 60% change their language, hairstyle, clothes or diet to fit inWomen of colour feel forced to change their behaviour, and in many cases their names, because of widespread, structural racism in the workplace, new research has found.Three-quarters of women of colour have experienced some form of racism at work, while just over a quarter have faced racial slurs, according to a significant report by the gender equality organisation the Fawcett Society, and the race equality thinktank the Runnymede Trust. Continue reading...

Other rules around lobbying to be tightened up to avoid repeat of Owen Paterson scandalAn attempt to limit the amount of time MPs can spend on second jobs has been dropped, with other rules around lobbying tightened up to avoid a repeat of the Owen Paterson scandal.Changes to the MPs’ code of conduct were considered by the Commons standards committee after outcry over Paterson’s outside interests and the revelation that the former attorney general Geoffrey Cox accrued more than £6m as a lawyer since entering parliament. Continue reading...

Kevin Hollinrake insists opposition to scheme to accommodate 1,500 people at former RAF base is not about nimbyism or racismA Conservative MP has accused the Home Office of using his North Yorkshire constituency as a “sacrificial lamb for national policy”, as a controversial accommodation centre for 1,500 asylum seekers is set to open there.The Home Office says the site – the RAF Linton-on-Ouse airbase, which ceased military operations in 2020 – will accommodate its first 60 asylum seekers by 31 May. Continue reading...

Death toll puts the incident among Rio’s deadliest police operations in recent historyAt least 21 people have been shot dead and seven wounded during a police raid on a Rio de Janeiro favela to capture the leaders of a drug-trafficking organization.The deaths included a woman who was hit by a stray bullet in the exchange of gunfire between gang members and police in the Vila Cruzeiro favela. Continue reading...

Unit commander’s wife receives call saying prisoners have not been subjected to violence by Russian forcesUkrainian soldiers captured by Russian forces after the three-month siege of the Azovstal steel plant are being held in “satisfactory” conditions, according to the unit commander’s wife, amid uncertainty over the fate of the prisoners.Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov battalion, was able to briefly call his wife, Kateryna, who said she had also been told that the prisoners had not been subjected to violence. It was not immediately clear if Prokopenko had been able to speak freely during the conversation. Continue reading...

RMT workers at Network Rail and 15 operators back industrial action in coming weeksA summer of rail strikes across Britain moved a significant step closer after the RMT union announced an “overwhelming” vote in favour of industrial action.Its ballots of more than 40,000 railway workers closed on Tuesday evening, and 89% voted in favour of a strike, the RMT said, on a turnout of 71%. Continue reading...

It is reported between 30 and 40 staff attended to mark the final press briefing conducted by James SlackDetails have emerged of what appears to be another alcohol-fuelled social event inside Downing Street during lockdown, one that was seemingly not investigated by police or the official civil service investigation.According to the Mirror, between 30 and 40 staff drank alcohol and ate takeaway snacks to mark the final press briefing conducted by Boris Johnson’s then-spokesman James Slack, on 17 November 2020. Continue reading...

State television channel Moldova 1 and Russian state news agency RIA report detention of former president Igor DodonThe head of Moldova’s pro-Russian opposition party, former president Igor Dodon, has reportedly been detained on corruption charges, in a move likely to anger the Kremlin.State television channel Moldova 1 and Russian state news agency RIA both reported the detention, citing senior anti-corruption prosecutor Elena Cazakov. Continue reading...

Judy Huth, who alleges Cosby assaulted her at Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was 16 and he 37, sues for damages in civil suitJury selection in a civil trial against Bill Cosby began in Los Angeles this week, nearly a year after the actor was freed from prison when his conviction on charges of drugging and sexually assaulting another woman were overturned.The trial in Los Angeles concerns allegations by Judy Huth, who has accused Cosby of sexually abusing her at the Playboy mansion in 1975 when she was 16 and he was 37. She had initially alleged that Cosby assaulted her in 1974 when she was 15, but later revised that claim. Continue reading...

Measures could be announced as soon as Thursday as households face price cap rise of more than £800Rishi Sunak is scrambling to finalise a package of measures that could be announced as soon as Thursday aimed at alleviating the cost of living crisis, after the energy regulator said annual bills are likely to shoot up by more than 40% in October.Ministers are under intense pressure to act after the Ofgem chief executive, Jonathan Brearley, wrote to the chancellor on Tuesday to tell him that the energy price cap, which puts a ceiling on domestic bills, is likely to hit £2,800, an increase of more than £800, after a sharp rise in April. Continue reading...

Russia determined to hang on to its ‘unsinkable destroyer’ as Ukraine tries to win vital landmass back

Company says service will be rolled out in six states and could receive more than 1m packages by drone annuallyAs many as 4m American households will be able to get food, groceries and supplies from Walmart delivered by flying, remote-controlled drones by the end of the year, according to the retail chain.Walmart announced that its delivery service with the operator DroneUp will be rolled out in six states, making it the country’s first large-scale drone delivery program. Continue reading...

Russian oligarch, who bought British news outlet for £1 in 2010, ‘directly enabled’ Putin’s war, says Canada

Nicole Short describes her ‘terror’ as Bayoh, who later died in custody, came towards her in KirkcaldyA retired police officer who was allegedly punched in the head by Sheku Bayoh has told the inquiry into his death that she believed he exhibited “superhuman strength” by lifting three other officers off the ground as he struggled against their restraint.Nicole Short, who burst into tears when asked to confirm her name at the start of the day’s proceedings, described being “overwhelmed by terror” as the “frightening” Bayoh came towards her with his fists up. Continue reading...

Freezing of licence fee means the broadcaster, which has already lost 1,200 staff, must cut programmesThe BBC is preparing to announce further cuts to its output before the end of the month, with the corporation’s staff waiting to see whether their jobs will be on the line.The public broadcaster has already undergone multiple rounds of redundancies and cuts over the past decade as a result of continuous below-inflation licence fee increases. It now needs to find a further £285m in savings as a result of the announcement in January by Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, that the licence fee would be frozen at £159 for the next two years. Continue reading...

Campaigners protest against ‘government of shame’ after minister accused of rape by two women is kept in placeEquality campaigners have accused Emmanuel Macron of betraying his promise to stamp out violence against women and girls after the French government kept in place a new minister accused of rape by two women.Feminist groups led by the Observatory of Sexist and Sexual Violence in Politics organised a street demonstration in Paris on Tuesday against what they called a “government of shame”, after Damien Abad, the minister for solidarity and people with disabilities, remained in his job despite the rape allegations. Continue reading...

The president, who experts say has been irked by US-Greek relations, called off meetings aimed at easing tensions between the Nato membersA pledge by Turkey’s president to cut all ties with his Greek counterpart – and a suggestion that the prime minister was dishonourable and lacking character – has raised fears of renewed tensions between the two Nato members.Calling off key talks between the countries, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Kyriakos Mitsotakis of deliberately antagonising Turkey when he addressed the US congress during a visit this week to Washington. Continue reading...