President is accused of trying to cover up theft of millions of US dollars hidden at his game farmThe South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is facing the most serious personal challenge of his four years in power after claims he tried to cover up the theft of millions of US dollars hidden at his game farm.The scandal – labelled Farmgate by South African media – could potentially derail Ramaphosa’s efforts to win a second term in power and destabilise Africa’s most developed economy. Continue reading...

London mayor says appointee must understand extent of ‘cultural and organisational problems’ in MetThe London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has warned the candidates wanting to lead the Metropolitan police they must publicly admit the force’s systemic failings, with formal interviews due to begin next week.Two senior police figures have reached the final stages of the process to be the commissioner of Britain’s biggest and most controversial force. Continue reading...

Andy Inglis ran BP’s exploration and production division before leaving after Deepwater Horizon disasterThe executive who oversaw BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster has landed a $6.2m (£5m) payout at his new employer despite the death of a worker on an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico.Andy Inglis ran BP’s exploration and production division before leaving in the wake of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, which killed 11 workers in one of the worst ever environmental disasters. Continue reading...

As airport reduces summer capacity to ward off potential chaos, easyJet flights will be most heavily affectedGatwick airport has announced it will reduce its summer capacity, after dozens of last-minute cancellations wrecked holidaymakers’ half-term travel plans. The announcement means airlines have to review their schedules, and could mean some passengers have their flights cancelled. EasyJet, which operates half of the slots, says it is reviewing the details.When will easyJet decide on cancellations? Continue reading...

Colchester barracks incident came after other cases and could be seen to denigrate women, says head of armyHundreds of paratroopers have reportedly been banned from an annual Nato deployment to the Balkans after videos emerged of an orgy at a military barracks.In a letter to generals and commanding officers, the new head of the army, Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, said he was not willing to “risk the mission or the reputation of the British army” by sending them overseas. Continue reading...

Airport accused of panicking airline customers after limiting flights to 825 a day in July and 850 in AugustEasyJet has insisted it will get the vast majority of its passengers away this summer on the day they booked, after Gatwick was accused of panicking airline customers by announcing capacity cuts.Flights currently on sale and scheduled will exceed the new limits on almost one in two days across July and August at London’s second airport, suggesting about 500 cancellations in total. Continue reading...

Met Office issues level three warning in London, south-east and east England and Royal Ascot takes unprecedented step of relaxing dress code

Armed forces says Russian ship twice entered Danish waters on Friday, during democracy festivalA Russian warship has twice violated Danish territorial waters north of the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm where a democracy festival attended by senior lawmakers and business people was taking place.Denmark called the action on Friday an unacceptable provocation. Continue reading...

Organisers decide with ‘deep regret’ Ukraine is not capable of staging song contest, so Britain could step inEurovision could be coming to the UK in 2023 after the song contest’s organisers concluded Ukraine is not capable of hosting it, a decision that has angered the Ukrainian government.Ukraine won this year with Kalush Orchestra’s Stefania, as viewers across the continent came together to vote for the song and show solidarity with the nation after Russian’s invasion. Continue reading...

Half-term travel chaos and cost of living crisis fuel 30% surge in last-minute inquiries for summer breaks in Britain

ONS figures show pandemic is not over, say experts, with Omicron variants probably to blameCoronavirus infections are rising in the UK, new figures have revealed, with experts noting the increase is probably down to thethe rise of BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants.The figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), based on swabs collected from randomly selected households, reveal that in the week ending 11 June an estimated one in 50 people in the community in England are thought to have had Covid – around 1.13 million people. Continue reading...

Former soldier Collin Reeves, who cruelly killed his neighbours, told a psychiatrist life ‘felt dark all the time’On the night of 21 November last year, Collin Reeves sat down on the stairs of his home in the Somerset village of Norton Fitzwarren and broke down in tears.He was in a terrible place. Since leaving the army four years before, Reeves had flitted between unsatisfying jobs, missing the structure and sense of purpose he had found in the military and dwelling on the horrors he had seen in Afghanistan. Continue reading...

Collin Reeves killed Jennifer and Stephen Chapple with ceremonial dagger as their children slept upstairsA former soldier has been found guilty of murdering his nextdoor neighbours with a ceremonial commando dagger after a dispute over parking, moments after his wife told him she wanted a trial separation.Collin Reeves carried out a “brutal and savage” attack on Jennifer and Stephen Chapple at their home in the Somerset village of Norton Fitzwarren while their two children slept upstairs. Continue reading...

Commission also recommends candidate status for Moldova but gives more guarded response to Georgia

Concerns mount that all three men may have been captured by Russian or pro-Russian forces

UK’s largest supermarket gains market share but reports ‘changing customer behaviour’Tesco said customers are putting fewer items in their baskets and are switching to cheaper own-brand alternatives as they face “unprecedented increases in the cost of living”.The UK’s largest supermarket said it had gained market share from the other “big four” chains – Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s – but sales in the three months to 28 May fell 1.5% on the same period last year when the UK was in lockdown. Continue reading...

Kigali government seeks to shift narrative with carefully managed tours of processing facilities and accommodation for deporteesRwanda has been caught in the eye of a British political storm this week, and its officials are not happy with how the country has been portrayed.It was preparing to welcome asylum seekers on Tuesday until a dramatic 11th-hour ruling by the European court of human rights. Continue reading...

ABC chair says in media lecture she was ‘hissed at’ and accepted only after achieving success

Campaigners will ask online fashion retailer if it will pay back an estimated £125m in underpaid wagesBoohoo will be challenged by campaigners over paying “very low” prices to suppliers and a lack of compensation for underpaid workers at UK factories making its clothing.Workers in factories in Leicester that supply Boohoo could be owed as much as £125m in underpaid wages as some of the retailer’s suppliers previously paid workers below the minimum wage, activists from Labour Behind the Label and ShareAction have estimated. Continue reading...

Analysis: Asos and other retailers report rise in ‘wardrobing’ as buyers order many items but keep only a few

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells says warnings about China’s influence were ignored and blasts NSW Liberals over preselections

Upswell publisher Terri-ann White says she is distressed by controversy around former Miles Franklin prize longlist novel The Dogs

Chair of influential group seeking investment in north of England says ‘we have to keep public finances in order’The chair of an influential group of MPs has echoed comments made by the cabinet minister Michael Gove, who has warned the UK must maintain control of public finances in the face of “tough times ahead” for the country and the global economy.Jake Berry, the chair of the Northern Research Group, a pressure group of Tory MPs calling for increased investment in the north of England, said it was right that “we have to keep public finances in order”. Continue reading...

Australian Medical Association president says three months extra Covid support ‘will not fix a decade of hospital underfunding’

A dozen locations raided as ATO says 70,000 instances detected of GST fraud method popularised via social media

Man reportedly fell down escalator after getting off flight without helper, but airport says staff shortages ‘not a factor’An investigation has been launched into the death of a disabled plane passenger who reportedly fell after getting off without a helper at Gatwick airport.The Sun cited a source who said the man and his wife required special assistance to disembark and the passenger fell down an escalator after making his own way into the terminal. Continue reading...

Zumbo, who has pleaded not guilty to 20 charges including sexual touching, insisted on driving woman to work so Liberal ‘spies’ wouldn’t see her catch bus

Abemaciclib can improve chances of certain type of cancer not returning after surgery by more than 30%Thousands of women in England with breast cancer are to benefit from a new pill on the NHS which reduces the risk of the disease coming back.The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has given the green light to abemaciclib, which cuts the chance of breast cancer returning after a patient has had surgery to remove a tumour. Continue reading...

Russia expected to use security council veto to block resolution to keep open Bab al-Hawa border crossing into Idlib from TurkeyThe last remaining UN humanitarian aid route into Syria looks set to be shut down in a vote at the body’s security council next month, another casualty of the collapse in relations between the west and Russia.On 10 July the council is due to vote on whether to keep open the Bab al-Hawa crossing from Turkey, which helps service rebel-held Idlib. Continue reading...

Labor says decision called into question the legal basis for former government’s ‘absurd attempt to regulate funded class actions out of existence’The federal court has removed a barrier to class actions imposed by the former Coalition government, a decision the new attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has welcomed as a “victory for ordinary Australians” seeking to pursue justice against big corporations or governments.In 2020, the former government imposed a costly regulatory burden on litigation funders – entities that bankroll notoriously expensive class actions – to define them as managed investment schemes.Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Continue reading...

PM opts to continue to prevent release of documents related to meetings with state leaders despite his previous criticism of the practice

Economists say while property prices could come down by up to 20%, affordability has ‘never been worse’

The leaders of France, Germany and Italy have vowed to support Kyiv’s bid to join the EU as Lavrov accuses the west of ‘dragging Ukraine into Nato’

This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war hereChildren born in Ukraine’s Kherson region since 24 February will automatically receive Russian citizenship, according to a statement by an official.Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-imposed military-civilian administration in the occupied Kherson region has told Russian news agency RIA Novosti:Children born after 24 February in the Kherson region will automatically receive citizenship of the Russian Federation. Plus, orphans will also be registered as citizens of the Russian Federation.All of the main bridges over the Siverskyy Donets River, which link the contested town of Sieverodonetsk and Ukrainian-held territory, have now highly likely been destroyed.Ukraine has probably managed to withdraw a large proportion of its combat troops, who were originally holding the town. The situation continues to be extremely difficult for the Ukrainian forces and civilians remaining east of the river. Continue reading...

Zumbo is accused of by five women of 20 charges including sexual touching and indecent assault and pleads not guilty to all chargesA young woman has told a court the office manager of former MP Craig Kelly spent years kissing and sexually touching her – but she was still shocked by one incident that brought her to tears.The woman had been out to a dinner with Francesco “Frank” Zumbo to secure a reference from her boss she had worked with for three years, she told Sydney’s local court on Thursday. Continue reading...

Number of flights in August will be below pre-pandemic levels to ensure those on sale are ‘deliverable’Gatwick airport will reduce its summer capacity to ward off potential chaos, after dozens of last-minute cancellations wrecked the travel plans of holidaymakers over the platinum jubilee and half-term holiday.London’s second busiest airport will limit the number of daily take-offs and landings to 850 in August – about 50 more than the average in early June, but more than 10% below its pre-pandemic maximum. Continue reading...

Leicester court found gross negligence at Greenfeeds Ltd led to deaths of Nathan Walker and Gavin Rawson in 2016The managers of a food waste plant have been imprisoned and the company fined £2m after two staff members drowned in a tanker of pig feed.Nathan Walker, 19, died after falling into the tanker while cleaning it at Greenfeeds Ltd in Normanton, Leicestershire, a few days before Christmas in 2016. Continue reading...

Internet users will also be given tools to restrict cookie consent boxes under proposed data legislationNuisance call firms face fines of up to £17.5m and internet users will be able to limit the appearance of pop-up cookie consent boxes under a government overhaul of the UK’s data rules.The financial punishment for cold callers will increase from the current maximum of £500,000 and will be brought in line with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which can issue a fine of up to £17.5m or 4% of a company’s global turnover. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Victorian Labor premier reveals he was encouraged to work with Liberal counterpart in NSW by their ‘mutual friend’

Owner of Telegraph Media Group could face prison for his failure to pay £50m in divorce battleSir Frederick Barclay, whose fortune was estimated as £6bn as recently as May, faces the possibility of being sent to prison at the age of 87 after a high court judge ruled that he must stand trial for the non-payment of part of a £100m divorce settlement.The court heard that the owner of the Telegraph Media Group had considered applying for legal aid to fight a divorce battle with his wife of 34 years. Continue reading...

System to enforce ministerial code under review as ethics adviser resigns over Partygate and steel tariffs rowBoris Johnson is considering scrapping the role of ethics adviser after the resignation of Lord Geidt, who accused him of making a mockery of his position overseeing standards in government.The prime minister’s official spokesperson said Johnson would not immediately start looking for a replacement for Geidt, but would instead review the system of enforcing the ministerial code. Continue reading...

Conservative candidate in Yorkshire byelection, Nadeem Ahmed, says Imran Ahmad Khan was ‘one bad apple’The Conservative candidate in the Wakefield byelection has said voters should still vote for the party despite Imran Ahmad Khan’s conviction for sexually assaulting a boy as “we still trust GPs” after Harold Shipman killed 250 people.Nadeem Ahmed was asked why people should vote Conservative after Khan was sentenced in May to 18 months in jail for molesting a 15-year-old boy. Khan, 48, had plied him with gin at a party in 2008. He was expelled from the party and later resigned from the Commons, triggering the byelection in the West Yorkshire constituency on 23 June. Continue reading...

Palaszczuk government under pressure ahead of state budget after several years of 2.5% pay rises for workers

Experts concerned authorities are coercing travellers to hand over passwords to phones and other devices or copying data unlawfully

Symbolic visit of German, French and Italian leaders comes as Russia continues attacks across country

Investors vote against company’s remuneration policy for third consecutive yearInforma, the FTSE 100 events business, has suffered a bruising shareholder revolt against a £2.7m pay package handed to its chief executive Lord Carter, the former Ofcom boss and aide to Gordon Brown.More than 70% of investors voted against Informa’s remuneration report at the company’s annual meeting in London on Thursday. It is the third consecutive year that shareholders have voted against an aspect of the company’s pay policy. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson ‘carefully considering’ whether to appoint new ethics adviser after Lord Geidt’s resignation