Convoy of cars, trucks and ambulances will leave London for the Poland/Ukraine border on ThursdayWith a people under attack in dire need of help, and medical supplies vital to treat the wounded, doctors from across the NHS have been gathering kit, drugs and equipment to take to Ukraine.On Thursday a convoy of cars, trucks and ambulances will start the long drive from London to the Poland/Ukraine border, carrying tons of much needed stock donated by hospitals, GP surgeries and drug companies. Continue reading...

Deputy prime minister raises prospect of closing Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany, and says rejecting Russian oil would be ‘catastrophic’ for world

Value of country’s fakes tripled from 2019 to 2020 as it became main source of counterfeit designer clothes stopped at EU bordersPhotos of fake Gucci bags, Louis Vuitton sweatpants and Nike sneakers are flaunted on the social media accounts of a Turkish store with more than 155,000 followers on TikTok. There are thousands of comments under the posts in English, Italian, Bulgarian, Polish, German, Spanish and French.Turkey is the third biggest exporter of counterfeit products to the EU after China and Hong Kong, according to data on the value of goods seized. Falls in the value of the Turkish lira and the deterioration of the Turkish economy are further fuelling demand as such items become cheaper to traders buying in euros. Continue reading...

Nigerian medical student escapes to safety but Indian coordinator remains trapped in hostel with wife and young babyAgainst a constant backdrop of shelling and air raids, more than 1,200 international students remain trapped in the besieged city of Sumy, eastern Ukraine. Diplomatic efforts to evacuate them and create a safe corridor appear to have stalled.Many of the students have run out of water, resorting at times to boiling ice, and are running out of food. In their desperation, many are contemplating taking a treacherous journey out of the city to Poltava, 110 miles to the south. Continue reading...

Millions of people are on the move, heading for Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova and Romania. It is Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since the second world warAfter four days on the road, sleeping in her car, Ludmila Lyskevska was in a defiant mood. “Putin has gone bonkers. He wants Ukraine to be part of his imperium,” she said, stretching her legs as snow fell from a white sky. “He’s managed to unite the whole country against him.”Lyskevska was travelling in a three-car family convoy. The group was part of a vast caravan of vehicles waiting to leave war-stricken Ukraine and cross the border into Poland. Over the course of a 20-minute conversation, her group advanced a mere 100 metres. They had been queueing for 20 hours. Behind her, more cars arrived. Continue reading...

Russian shelling is stopping civilians from leaving Kyiv, Mariupol, Sumy, Kharkiv, Volnovakha and Mykolayiv, Ukraine foreign ministry says

Ukrainian intelligence says major general in Russia’s 41st army died outside Kharkiv along with other senior officers

Expert says pigs are ‘worst invasive wild mammal on the planet’, carrying diseases, destroying crops and contaminating waterThe Canadian city of Edmonton may soon be hogtied with a problem that it won’t be able to barbecue its way out of.Wild pigs have been spreading across central Alberta’s prairies and if left unchecked, could soon find themselves in the river valley of Edmonton. According to Ryan Brook, a University of Saskatchewan professor studying the pigs, the creatures are an “ecological trainwreck” and would cause “absolute destruction” if they make their way to the river valley, which is abundant in water and forest cover. Continue reading...

Firefighters from multiple brigades mobilised after blaze broke out on 17th floor of building in WhitechapelTwenty fire engines and 125 firefighters were called to a fire at a block of flats on Whitechapel High Street on Monday.Crews tackled a fire on the 17th floor of the building. The London fire brigade mobilised its 64-metre ladder for the incident and said its control officers took more than 50 calls about the blaze. Continue reading...

Unlike other western nations, NZ has so far refused to change its visa rules in response to the crisisA group of “desperate” New Zealanders with Ukrainian friends and family have called on the government in Wellington to allow visa-free travel for people from Ukraine, as other western countries loosen their entry rules to allow in more of those fleeing the Russian invasion.New Zealand’s government has so far resisted calls to change its refugee system in response to the crisis, which the UN says has caused more than 1.3 million Ukrainians to leave their country. Continue reading...

MPs vow to toughen up economic crime bill rushed through House of Commons on MondayOligarchs or kleptocrats who try to sell off property in order to avoid it being listed in a new public register may be forced to declare their details upon sale, a minister has said, as MPs vowed to toughen up a new bill targeting hidden wealth.Ministers have promised sweeping changes to toughen up the economic crime bill, which was rushed through the House of Commons on Monday, as MPs also demanded the closing of loopholes allowing false reporting of assets. Continue reading...

US defence official says it is ‘noteworthy that Putin believes he needs foreign fighters’Russia has been trying to recruit Syrians to fight in Ukraine to bolster Moscow’s flagging invasion, according to the Pentagon.A senior US defence official said it is unclear how many Syrians Vladimir Putin is seeking to recruit, but said “we find it noteworthy that he believes he needs to rely on foreign fighters”. Continue reading...

Tuesday: Autopsy results reveal Shane Warne died from natural causes. Plus: controversial Netflix series Byron Baes to air this weekGood morning. The Amazon is approaching a tipping point, data shows, which would have “profound” global implications. International Women’s Day today takes a focus on gender equality in the face of the climate crisis, which feels also pertinent on home shores today. Heavy rains and strong winds are expected to continue to batter the east coast again.Heavy Russian shelling was preventing civilian evacuations from six cities, Ukraine’s foreign ministry has said, just hours after Moscow announced the opening of “humanitarian corridors” that Kyiv dismissed as immoral and unacceptable after it emerged only two led to elsewhere in Ukraine, with all others heading straight to Russia or pro-Russian Belarus. Meanwhile, Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak faces a lengthy ban for wearing a “Z” on his uniform, a symbol in support of the invasion of Ukraine, on the medal podium of a World Cup event. Continue reading...

Musician Dizzee Rascal, real name Dylan Mills, smashed a photographer’s camera outside court on Monday after he was found guilty of assaulting his ex-fiancee. Mills hurled the camera across the road outside Wimbledon magistrates court just moments after a verdict of guilty was returned for a charge of assault against Cassandra Jones, the mother of his two children

Footage shows people lining up outside Kharkiv train station – and later clambering over the tracks in darkness – in a desperate attempt to flee Ukraine. As of Sunday night more than 1.5 million people have fled abroad, with 1 million crossing into Poland, according to the UN Continue reading...

UK prime minister says he will announce an energy supply strategy soon but adds that UK must go ‘step by step’

New national police lead says forces must create a ‘call-out culture’ to root out sexism and misogynyPolicing attracts some men who want “to exert and coerce” vulnerable people, the new national police lead on violence against women has admitted, as she urged officers to create a “call-out culture” to tackle sexist and misogynistic behaviour.Deputy chief constable Maggie Blyth, who took up the post of national lead for violence against women and girls (VAWG) at the National Police Chiefs’ Council five months ago, said it was wrong to dismiss abusive, violent or sexist officers as a “few bad apples”. Continue reading...

‘We are not getting lumped with their mess’, Newcastle mayor says of prospect of basing nuclear fleet in city while Wollongong mayor also concerned

Contenders in the running to play the star in a new biopic are facing gruelling training to land the partAge: It’s been going on for months.Appearance: Immersive course in singing like Madonna, dancing like Madonna and acting like Madonna. Continue reading...

What if Henry VIII’s wives were a pop group? The makers of the smash hit recall how Catherine of Aragon was very much Beyoncé, Anne Boleyn had Lily Allen vibes – while Jane Seymour was a sort of AdeleIn 2017, Cambridge University’s musical theatre society invited applications for an original show that it could take to the Edinburgh fringe. Toby Marlow and I were third years at the university, and had talked about doing a musical together for ages, so he applied, saying he would write a show with pop music and lots of women at its centre. Representation of women on stage was in the cultural conversation – later that year #MeToo happened. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Critical defence select committee report to come amid growing Tory unease over No 10’s planThe credibility of the government’s plan to put the Royal Navy in charge of coordinating efforts to control small boats in the Channel is expected to be questioned by an influential parliamentary committee.A report by the defence select committee, to be delivered shortly, will raise doubts over whether plans to put the Royal Navy in charge have been rigorously tested. Continue reading...

People escaping bombardment of cities such as Mariupol include 142,300 crossing border on Sunday alone

Response to invasion of Ukraine by three of big four accountancy firms puts pressure on Deloitte

Critics compare Israeli military actions of Palestinian territories with Russian invasion of Ukraine but pro-Israel groups dismiss allegations as false parallelsThe US and some of its European allies are facing accusations of double standards for supporting sanctions and international war crimes investigations against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine while blocking them over Israeli military actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.But pro-Israel groups in the US have dismissed the allegations by accusing critics of exploiting Ukrainian suffering to draw false parallels. Continue reading...

The official London tube map has only three stops named after women. Together with the actor Emma Watson and the author Rebecca Solnit, I’ve been working on a feminist alternative. Here’s the story behind our contribution to International Women’s DayWhen I was a baby feminist, I would argue with friends that public space was political. I had been radicalised by my teenage years, sick to the back teeth of street harassment from men who seemed to think that the streets were theirs to roam freely, while women were relegated to decoration. It wasn’t a regular occurrence, but it happened enough times to enrage me. Walking home from school in London, in uniform, I had been followed, had my arm snatched and had been approached at least once by a man who displayed stalking tendencies. As I grew older, I understood these actions as displays of dominance and I was disgusted. Alongside my indignation, I was crushingly disappointed. I had been raised in this city and hated that this kind of behaviour was an impediment to my teenage desire for autonomy and freedom.I had been navigating public transport by myself for years at that point, and it took me everywhere I wanted to go. Once I had exhausted my immediate surroundings on foot, I’d take the Piccadilly line to gigs at the now bulldozed Astoria on Charing Cross Road. I’d jump on the Hammersmith and City line, a portal to dancing all day at Notting Hill carnival. The Circle line made me feel like an intellectual in the museums of South Kensington. There was no option back then to outsource travel plans to a clever little app, so in order to go anywhere I, like everyone else, would have to study the tube map to find out how to get to my destination. If I was feeling brave, I’d sometimes jump on the tube at Turnpike Lane and work it out as I went along, peering at the mini maps inside the train carriage and looming awkwardly over whoever was sitting in the seat beneath. I didn’t need a car. The map in my pocket opened up my city. Continue reading...

Basil Matsika hopes his joyful murals of Mbare’s music and sports stars will inspire others to look beyond the area’s poverty and crimeStreet artist Basil Matsika paints murals of local musicians and daily life in the streets of Mbare, one of Zimbabwe’s oldest townships, in the capital Harare. With his brush and paint jar, he says he communicates deep sentiments of hope amid the overwhelming landscape of poverty.While many see Mbare as a crime-ridden neighbourhood, Matsika, 40, chooses to see beauty in the grimy, patched walls of the Matapi flats, which have become his canvas for his giant murals. Continue reading...

We throw out £2.1bn-worth of fresh fruit and veg each year because it’s mouldy, gone soft or is out of dateAbout £2.1bn-worth of fresh fruit and vegetables is thrown away in UK homes each year because it has gone soft, mouldy or is out of date. Continue reading...

Literary and artistic movement enjoying another golden age, with international events and exhibitions

War has sharpened the split between Ukraine and Russia’s Orthodox churches, with some historic sites in Ukraine still loyal to MoscowAs war kicked off in Ukraine, soldiers at a military airstrip in the west of the country went hunting for the origin of a laser pointer they feared was marking out targets on their base.They found it in a nearby church. Behind the thick walls of the building in Kolomyia, run by monks loyal to Moscow, they also discovered a large stockpile of food and alcohol, and three guns. Continue reading...

Hopes of establishing a humanitarian corridor out of besieged city of Mariupol dashed for second day running

A family has been killed while trying to flee the town of Irpin and Volodymyr Zelenskiy has vowed to punish Russian forces for the attack

As election campaign enters final stages, the two leading candidates have been accused of pandering to sexism to win the votes of aggrieved young men

The islands, 800km east of New Zealand, had been among several other isolated nations and territories that had so far evaded the virus

In his latest address Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on the west to do more as he spoke of the destruction across Ukraine and the suffering faced by his people. 'We will not forgive. We will not forget,' he said. 'We will punish everyone who committed atrocities in this war on our land.'In Irpin, a town about 25km (16 miles) north-west of the capital of Kyiv, men, women and children trying to escape heavy fighting in the area were forced to take cover when missiles struck nearby, according to witnesses

Volunteers are spending hours flying over submerged power lines and the stench of decaying cattle, delivering urgent aid to their towns

Tugan Sokhiev resigns without stating his position, saying he could not choose between ‘my beloved Russian and beloved French musicians’The Bolshoi Theatre’s music director and principal conductor Tugan Sokhiev announced his resignation Sunday, saying he felt under pressure due to calls to take a position on the Ukraine conflict.The Russian said in a statement he was resigning “with immediate effect” from his post at the Moscow theatre, as well as his equivalent position at France’s Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse. Continue reading...

International Atomic Energy Agency says Russian military orders of staff at nuclear plant violate international safety protocolsStaff at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are being told what to do by the Russian military commander who seized the site last week, in violation of international safety protocols.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expressed “grave concern” at the situation at the six-reactor plant, the largest in Europe. The agency was told by the Ukrainian nuclear regulator that “any action of plant management – including measures related to the technical operation of the six reactor units – requires prior approval by the Russian commander”. Continue reading...

As the invasion of Ukraine entered its second week, protests against Russian aggression were held all over the world Continue reading...

Demonstrators take to the streets in 53 cities to denounce Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine

Prime minister to say Australia faces its ‘most difficult and dangerous security environment in 80 years’

Analysis: lack of reliable information has made it hard to assess the Russian military’s successes and failures

Analysis: With Tory MPs calling for him to quit and a police investigation into lockdown parties, the prime minister seemed to be in perilOne month ago, Boris Johnson’s premiership seemed to be in peril. “Coming into work felt like going to a funeral every day,” one No 10 aide recalled. “You could feel the guilt in the building from people who thought ‘we’ve let him down’.”Faced with a trickle of Tory MPs openly calling for the prime minister to quit and a police investigation into lockdown parties, the politician who had always managed to wriggle free appeared this time to have no way out. Continue reading...

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya says Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko is ‘not controlling our military any more’

The outpouring of sympathy and help for Ukrainian refugees has prompted debate about European attitudes to identity and ethnicityIn 1857, the English poet and Chartist leader Ernest Jones wrote a series of articles in the People’s Paper about the “Indian Mutiny” of that year. It was, he observed, no “mutiny” but a “national insurrection” that Britons should support as much as they had supported similar struggles in Europe. Britons were “on the side of Poland” when it “struggled for its freedom against Russia”. If Poland was “right”, Jones insisted, then “so is Hindostan”.I was reminded of his argument as I read and listened to some of the commentary about Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. The invasion is brutal and unacceptable, an assault on democracy and sovereignty. We should oppose it just as we should oppose the Saudi assault on Yemen. We should support the people of Ukraine just as we should the people of Syria. Continue reading...

Artists say firm with murky ethical record is stealing their designsVanessa Bowman paints the world around her: the 19th-century village church, her back garden, the leaves on the trees in the fields where she walks her dog.Once she has chosen a scene from her rural Dorset idyll, she puts brush to canvas, sometimes poring over the details for days in her studio. Continue reading...

A scientific experiment hopes to restore vital nutrients to the ocean by using fake excrement that would once have been produced by the endangered mammalIn a few weeks an international group of scientists will launch an unusual marine research project. They will dust the surface of the Indian Ocean with artificial whale faeces.The aim of this excremental experiment is straightforward. It is to determine if it is possible to reboot marine ecosystems that have been starved of nutrients and in the process restore dwindling fish populations. It is also hoped the project will help in the battle against the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Amendment to the economic crime bill comes after criticism that UK has been slower to act than US or EU

Nicole Flender talks attending New York’s fame school; living in Manhattan Plaza and supporting her children’s careersIn November, when Pauline Chalamet debuted in The Sex Lives of College Girls as Kimberly, many viewers were surprised to learn that Timothée Chalamet had an older sister, let alone one who acts. Although Pauline had made her feature film debut alongside Pete Davidson in Judd Apatow’s comedy The King of Staten Island a year before, it was her leading role in the HBO Max comedy-drama series that served as her big break. Pauline’s humorous performance as a dorky, sheltered, school-loving college student was sweet and tender and with the show having just been renewed for a new season, it also solidified the Chalamet siblings’ standing as a force to be reckoned with.Such is the cultural positioning of the Chalamets, that when I meet their mother, Nicole Flender, on a gray Tuesday afternoon at The Drama Bookshop in Manhattan, we lower our voices when mentioning Timothée to avoid being overheard by anyone shopping in the bookstore. Continue reading...

The New York congresswoman is the subject of an admiring biographical portrait. Love her or not, her story is impressiveThis book should have been titled Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez But Were Afraid to Ask.Whether you love her or loathe her, the former Sandy Ocasio has an irresistible story, told here in a brisk four-chapter narrative followed by brief sections on everything from a make-up video she made for Vogue to her evisceration of Mark Zuckerberg at a congressional hearing. Continue reading...

As happened with Covid, the compulsive need to keep up with the Russian invasion is taking a toll on our mental healthThe pace of the crisis in Ukraine has created a brain-tangling complexity for anyone trying to understand what is going on. Now doomscrolling is back in ways not seen since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.Mental health experts are warning that public engagement comes with a cost in terms of anxiety that should not be ignored. Paul Salkovskis, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Oxford, who worked on measures to help people deal with Covid-related anxiety, said: “Clearly there are some people who are already anxious, who will be significantly more anxious, as happened with Covid – we saw a big increase in some subtypes of anxiety in the clinic. There will be some of that with this situation, but I don’t think it’s going to be the dominant response.” Continue reading...