Former NSW deputy premier is suing Google over a series of videos by Jordan Shanks that he says led to his resignation

Police say Williams’ family have been grieving ‘a long time’ and are happy an arrest was made

Hamro’s leader promises new start for Indian hill station after years of strikes and insurgenciesIndia’s romantic hill station Darjeeling has evoked images of beautiful tea-growing gardens but also, for those who follow its politics, of industrial strikes and violent insurgencies.No more, says the leader of a new political party that swept to power in recent municipal polls, vowing to end years of agitation that have blighted the region’s main sources of income: tea and tourism. Continue reading...

Popularity of ‘finfluencers’ providing stock tips and flaunting lavish lifestyles is rising as younger demographic looks to invest

Need for damage to be serious and imminent before Facebook and Google take action means ‘chronic’ problems build, watchdog says – citing mistrust of vaccines

Posters of Kraftwerk, Neu! and Can span movement’s roots in the counterculture scene of 1968A motley train of shaggy-haired musicians is gliding into the future on a hastily sketched highway, brandishing bongos, vegetables and flaming guitars.The poster for a 1971 gig by German-English-Swiss trio Brainticket, on display at Berlin’s small Bröhan Museum until 24 April, visually sums up the essence of a German musical movement so forward-looking at its height, its country of origin is only now starting to recognise its legacy. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. You can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

Grattan Institute report finds ‘consistent pattern’ of transport funding going to political battleground states

Resolution Foundation says pegging benefits to inflation will target help to needy better than scrapping NI riseRishi Sunak should consider raising benefits and pensions to keep pace with inflation, research has suggested, as the chancellor faced increasing pressure to tackle the cost-of-living squeeze in this week’s spring budgetary statement.Increasing benefits by an extra five percentage points, by 8.1% rather than the 3.1% currently planned, would give four times as much help for low-to-middle income households for every pound spent as scrapping the planned national insurance rise, the Resolution Foundation said. Continue reading...

Conservationist detained since 2018 left behind when Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori releasedMorad Tahbaz, the British-Iranian-American citizen left behind last week when Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were allowed to return home to the UK, has been taken from Evin prison to a hotel in Tehran after representations by the British and American governments, the Foreign Office has said.The department added that it was lobbying the Iranian authorities at the highest levels to allow him to return to his Tehran home immediately as the Iranian government had previously committed to do. Continue reading...

Letter to business secretary calls firm’s sacking of 800 workers ‘scandalous’ and a criminal offenceLabour has urged the business secretary to launch legal action against P&O Ferries over its “scandalous” decision to sack 800 workers without warning, which the party said is a criminal offence.Shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh, deputy leader Angela Rayner and shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, asking if he will begin proceedings for what they called the “scandalous action” of the ferry company. Continue reading...

Unicef ambassador’s 71.5m followers shown tenacious perinatal work with pregnant women and newborns in besieged city

Leading thinktank finds cuts made during pandemic have harmed the UK as well as recipient countries

Zelenskiy says parties such as Viktor Medvedchuk’s Opposition Platform for Life are ‘aimed at division or collusion’

Chancellor says rising energy prices mean ‘it’s not going to be easy’ after consumer expert Martin Lewis gives stark assessmentRishi Sunak has repeatedly declined to say how many more people could be pushed into fuel poverty by rising energy prices, saying only that people should not be scared.The chancellor is facing increasing pressure over cost of living issues in the run-up to Wednesday’s spring budgetary statement, with particular concerns that a rise in energy bills next month, followed by another in October, will be devastating for household budgets. Continue reading...

Britain credited by the world’s defence ministries in arming Ukrainian troops with the most effective weaponsIt has become a common sight in the first three weeks of the invasion of Ukraine – Russian tanks, transporters and supply trucks burnt out at the side of the road, picked off by lightweight weaponry. While intrepid Ukrainian troops have been deploying the tactics, Britain has played a role in supplying the tech and the knowhow. While Britain’s response to the refugee crisis in Ukraine has been heavily criticised, it is now widely acknowledged in the world’s defence ministries to have played a leading role in arming Ukrainian troops with the most effective weapons, as well as training.“We can criticise British foreign policy at times, but we actually led,” said Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies, King’s College London. “There has been very close cooperation with the Ukrainians for a while, so there was a good idea of what they’d need, but it also had a good anti-tank weapon to send them. It was the first to send substantial equipment before war began, and it has made a difference.” Continue reading...

Imran Khan seeks to bolster domestic support amid threat from opposition coalition and cooling relations with militaryAddressing the crowds at a public rally in Punjab last week, Pakistan’s prime minister was on the attack. Western leaders, Imran Khan said, treated Pakistan as their “slave” and presumed that “whatever you say, we will do”.Days before, it had been announced that Khan would be facing a vote of no confidence in parliament at the end of March, after more than 100 members of Pakistan’s united opposition successfully tabled a motion to oust him. The vote will take place on Friday 25 March. Continue reading...

Alan Duncan’s employer Vitol has stake in vast Arctic exploration project backed by the Putin regime

Wagner Group connected to white supremacists, Tech against Terrorism investigation finds

The Gales were nervous about inviting the Koletvinovs into their home. But one week on, everyone is sharing language lessons and traditional dishes

‘We are a stronger and a better country than many acknowledge’, says retiring health minister

Primetime host rejects suggestion he is pushing pro-Putin rhetoric – and he’s still hugely popular with viewersLast week, two Fox News journalists died in Ukraine, and the news channel grieved along with the rest of the country amid anger at the Russian onslaught. Republicans, too, rapidly shed past views on Russia and some called for no-fly zones and supplying Ukraine with Polish MiG fighter jets as Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion ground on.But the far-right Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the alternately flabbergasted and outraged primetime host and Trumpist standard-bearer, carried on presenting his conspiratorial show with such a seeming lack of regard that the Kremlin itself reportedly considers his equivocations over the causes of the conflict vital to its propaganda apparatus. Continue reading...

ALP Senate leader Penny Wong calls for politics to ‘take a backseat’ ahead of Kitching’s funeral on Monday

Mariupol council says civilians being sent to camps where their phones and documents are checked; Ukraine says 190,000 civilians have been evacuated from the frontline since the invasion began

Colombo unable to fund import of printing paper, leaving millions of students unable to take part in term assessmentsSri Lanka has cancelled school exams for millions of students after running out of printing paper, as the country contends with its worst financial crisis since independence in 1948.Education authorities said on Saturday the term tests, scheduled a week from Monday, were postponed indefinitely due to an acute paper shortage, with Colombo short on funds to finance imports. Continue reading...

Prime minister says vote is ‘famous recent example’ of ‘instinct of the people … to choose freedom’

The west hopes support for the invasion of Ukraine is wavering. But as Friday’s rally showed, protesters remain in a minority

Fifty miles from Kyiv, doctors prepare a bomb shelter for the casualties to arrive on their doorstep, while their own lives are on the line

Ukrainian forces hold out against larger Russian force but lose access to Sea of Azov

Ukrainian punk band Beton win blessing of the Clash to record new version of song to raise funds for support network• Russia-Ukraine war: latest developmentsThe Clash have given their blessing to a new version of their song London Calling by a Ukrainian punk band called Beton. Kyiv Calling, recorded near the frontline, has lyrics that call upon the rest of the world to support the defence of the country from Russian invaders.All proceeds of what is now billed as a “war anthem” will go to the Free Ukraine Resistance Movement (FURM) to help fund a shared communications system that will alert the population to threats and lobby for international support. Continue reading...

Critics say race is an issue in treatment of African students fleeing war in Ukraine

The author tells why he spent five years on a new draft of his 2008 novel Starbook to give more emphasis to one of its key themesSelf-criticism, perhaps even regret, is common among writers looking back at old work, but the novelist Ben Okri has now gone so far as to rewrite a whole published novel. And it is a book he already liked quite a lot.The Booker-prize-winning Nigerian author has spent much of the last five years re-crafting his 2008 story Starbook, a mystical romance set in his homeland. A new version, complete with a new title and cover, is to be published this summer as The Last Gift of the Master Artists, and Okri believes that he has given more emphasis to transatlantic slavery, and will now offer his readers a “more considered” narrative. Continue reading...

Walt Disney World apologises after Texas high school drill team chants ‘Scalp ’em, Indians, scalp ’em’ during performanceWalt Disney World apologised after a Texas high school drill team performing at the entertainment giant’s Florida theme park wore fringed outfits and chanted: “Scalp ’em, Indians, scalp ’em.”“The live performance in our park did not reflect our core values and we regret it took place,” a spokesperson, Jacquee Wahler, said in a statement. Continue reading...

Peter Malinauskas to become state’s 47th premier as Liberal government deserted by voters after just one term• Get our free news app; get our morning email briefingLabor has won the South Australian election, with the premier, Steven Marshall, conceding defeat to the opposition leader, Peter Malinauskas, on Saturday night.The Labor party was on track to win 25 seats and form a majority government after it recorded a 7.3% swing in its favour. Continue reading...

Australia records 28 Covid-related deaths, with 12 in NSW, 10 in Queensland, four in Western Australia and two in Victoria

Anoosheh Ashoori and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe are free but other families in the west are waiting anxiouslyDotted across Europe and America are families of as many as 17 dual nationals still held in jail in Iran, watching nervously to find out whether their loved ones will follow Anoosheh Ashoori and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on a plane to freedom, or be left behind.Many fear their freedom is not being made a precondition of the west agreeing a nuclear deal with Iran in the talks nearing a climax in Vienna. Without an acknowledged debt to repay like the UK’s, some of their countries may have trouble striking deals, and that worries the families. Continue reading...

Labor leader says it is ‘a fact’ that he never received a bullying complaint from Kitching before she diedThe federal opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, says the late senator Kimberley Kitching never raised complaints of bullying with him as he labelled political debate about her death not constructive.Reports have emerged about the stress Kitching had been under within her own party before her death from a suspected heart attack, with Labor senators Kristina Keneally, Penny Wong and Katy Gallagher named in media reports as having ostracised her. Continue reading...

Trio appeared to get changed shortly before arrival at space station and one said every crew could choose their own suit

Politicians and trade union leaders join rallies in Dover, Hull, Liverpool and Larne over mass sackingAngry protests against P&O Ferries have taken place at ports across the UK after the sacking without notice of 800 workers in a move the archbishop of Canterbury denounced as a sin.Trade unions leaders and politicians of all sides joined sacked P&O workers in Hull, Dover, Liverpool and Larne to protest against the company’s decision to replace all its crew with cheaper agency workers. Continue reading...

Chancellor promises end to Tory tax rises and hints at help with cost of living in spring statementRishi Sunak has said going from “crisis to crisis” has been “not great” for Boris Johnson or anyone else, as the chancellor signalled an end to tax rises and more help for struggling families in next week’s spring statement.Sunak gave his outlook at the Conservatives’ spring conference in Blackpool, where he was interviewed by a fellow Tory MP, Paul Maynard, who asked him how he had coped with “one thing after another” including the Covid pandemic, supply chain disruption and the war in Ukraine. Continue reading...

Forty-nine-year-old charged with four counts of indecent exposure, which allegedly took place last yearSarah Everard’s killer, Wayne Couzens, has been charged with four counts of indecent exposure, prosecutors have said.The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the alleged offences occurred in the weeks before he kidnapped Everard. Continue reading...

Joan Lawrence will ‘never give up on hope’ that mystery of 35-year-old going missing in 2009 can be solvedThe mother of the missing university chef Claudia Lawrence has said “if you give up on hope, you may as well give up altogether” as she marked the 13th anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance.Lawrence, 35, has not been seen since she failed to turn up for work at the University of York in March 2009. Continue reading...

Remuneration package includes £142,000 wage increase and £2.4m in bonuses for financial performanceThe pay of BP’s boss, Bernard Looney, ballooned to nearly £4.5m in 2021, after soaring oil prices transformed the company into a “cash machine”.Looney, who in February announced BP was selling its 20% stake in the Kremlin-controlled oil company Rosneft after coming under pressure from the UK government, enjoyed an inflated pay packet thanks to £2.4m in bonuses based on financial performance. Continue reading...

Described as ‘outstanding and fearless’ by Bobi Wine, tributes have been paid to Sadurni, whose work featured in the Guardian and New York TimesSumaya Sadurni Carrasco has died while travelling to take photographs for the Guardian’s Saturday magazine in northern Uganda. Thomas Mugisha, an NGO worker, also died in the accident on 7 March.Sumy, as she was known, was a talented, driven and courageous photojournalist with a rare gift for friendship. At just 32 years old, she had built a powerful body of work, which had been published in some of the world’s best-known publications; in 2020 she was shortlisted for the Guardian’s agency photographer of the year. She also leaves a legacy of knowledge and inspiration that she passed on to young photographers as a Uganda Press Photo award mentor, a teacher at Makerere University and a Canon trainer. Continue reading...

Blasts heard early on Friday morning in city 50 miles from Polish border

Inquest into death of Warlpiri man Kumanjayi Walker to start in September; call for inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women; advice for asthma sufferers during flood clean-up; at least 26 Covid deaths recorded. This blog is now closed

Rebels not sure if they have enough support to defeat home secretary’s ‘clearly ridiculous’ borders billPriti Patel’s plans to process asylum seekers abroad are facing a Conservative rebellion next week, with MPs calling the proposal “clearly ridiculous” ahead of a vote on the nationality and borders bill.Amendments circulated among senior Tories include attempts to scupper government plans to set up offshoring centres and a proposal to instead create a global resettlement scheme to accept 10,000 people a year from war-torn regions. Continue reading...

Analysis: the world faces the possibility of a dramatic shift in the geopolitical balance of power as Beijing mulls support for Russia over the Ukraine war

This blog is closed