The actor and director answers readers’ questions about his performance-capture film roles, playing sax at parties in pre-hipster Shoreditch and being mistaken for Michael SheenHas performance capture affected your physical condition? ajyates33It’s kept me fit, especially the more physical roles like Caesar [in the Planet of the Apes films], who goes from an infant chimpanzee right through into adulthood. I’ve always been quite a physical person and enjoy mountaineering, climbing and cycling. But those roles take it out of you, for sure. Continue reading...
I was told I was a coward if I resisted female genital mutilation. For decades since then, I have worked, and risked everything, to protect other girlsI was 14 when my mother and grandmother announced that I was going to have my clitoris, my labia majora and my labia minora cut out. They said that if I resisted I was a coward. In my culture, the worst thing you can be called is a coward.I was never naive. I grew up as a Maasai girl in Kenya in the 60s and 70s. At some point in my childhood, I became aware that there was a rite of passage into womanhood. I was to have my vulva mutilated by an elderly woman using a blunt instrument. But I was also part of the first generation of Maasai girls to be sent to school, where I met girls from communities who didn’t practise female genital mutilation (FGM). I learned from them that you can grow to be an adult with your vulva intact. That was what I wanted. Continue reading...
Drugmaker’s total revenues increased by 41% last year with help from $4bn Covid jab incomeAstraZeneca forecast higher 2022 sales and lifted its annual dividend for the first time in a decade after record revenues last year, but warned the boost from its Covid-19 products would decline.The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker said it made almost $4bn (£2.9bn) last year from the Covid jab it developed with Oxford University. It moved away from its not-for-profit pricing in November, when it signed new contracts in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. The shot, called Vaxzevria, has not yet been approved by the US regulator. Continue reading...
Ryusuke Hamaguchi brings a gentle warmth to this ingenious collection of three stories united by themes of fate and mysteryRyusuke Hamaguchi is a Japanese film-maker whose work I first encountered in 2018 with his doppelgänger romance Asako I & II and indirectly via last year’s experimental chamber-piece Domains, whose screenwriter Tomoyuki Takahashi has worked with Hamaguchi. Now he has unveiled this ingenious, playful, sparklingly acted and thoroughly entertaining portmanteau collection of three movie tales.Their themes and ideas are emerging as keynotes for this director: fate and coincidence, identity and role-play, and the mysteries of erotic pleasure and desire. There is a rather European flavour in the mix – one of its characters is a specialist in French literature – and I found myself thinking of Emmanuel Carrère and Milan Kundera. And although there is no formal connection between the stories (other than the thematic echoes) the simple act of juxtaposition creates something pleasingly cohesive. Continue reading...
Party’s biggest donor has criticised Labour-run council for hiring agency refuse lorry driversThe head of Unite, Labour’s biggest donor, has threatened to completely pull funding for the party over an ongoing pay dispute involving bin lorry drivers in Coventry.About 75 refuse workers started a two-month strike over pay at the start of February, after talks with Coventry’s Labour-run city council failed to achieve a resolution. Continue reading...
Marking 30 years of their debut album, Generation Terrorists, a look back at the Welsh rockers’ best bits: from the song about the Spanish civil war that kept Steps off No 1 to their glorious duetsManic Street Preachers were always Guns N’ Roses fans: on A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun, they collaborated with the band’s bassist Duff McKagan. Charmingly perverse as ever, they turned in one of their poppiest latterday melodies, liberally decorated with metal guitar. Continue reading...
Boris Johnson has said the Ukraine crisis has entered 'the most dangerous moment' on a visit to Nato’s headquarters as Russia continues its military buildup on the borders of its southern neighbour.Military analysts estimate Moscow has massed more than 135,000 troops on the borders of Ukraine, both in Russia and in Belarus – and some now believe nearly all the necessary elements are in place if Putin wanted to attack.Nato's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said a political solution was still possible but warned Russia would 'pay a high price' if it chose confrontation
There’s nothing romantic about flying pesticide-drenched blooms halfway across the world. Here’s how to show both your love and your eco-friendly credentials this yearThe last couple of years have seen flower fans branch out (pun intended), with plant and bulb sales booming during the pandemic. Yet, when it comes to Valentine’s Day, traditional red roses can be harder to resist than the lure of a forbidden love affair. A dozen of these long-stemmed flowers might once have signalled the height of romance, but after a quick look at the environmental impact they don’t smell quite as sweet for UK-based buyers. So how can you make sure you are giving an ethical bunch on 14 February? Continue reading...
by Jordan Bryon, Christopher Cherry, Emma Graham-Harr on (#5W05Y)
After the recent Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, millions of teenage girls have been forbidden from receiving a high school education. Taliban officials have claimed the ban is temporary, but said the same thing the last time they were in power more than two decades ago. Back then, girls of all ages never returned to school. Today, much has changed in the country, and a new generation of girls and women possess radically different aspirations than they were previously allowed to hold. An anxious population waits to see to what extent the Taliban has changed, too
Fifteen questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes every Thursday – how will you fare?The Thursday quiz was criticised the other week in the comments for being too down and self-deprecating in its opening blurb. What an unfair charge. So here are 15 more questions on general knowledge and topical trivia for you. You may need a cup of tea, because the repetitive in-jokes are sorely in need of some refreshment. Oh I see what they meant. Anyway, there are no prizes, it is just for fun. There is a hidden Doctor Who reference to spot for a bonus point. Let us know how you got on in the comments.The Thursday quiz, No 42If you do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, please feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com but remember, the quiz master’s word is always final, and also a picture of David Tennant is not a “hidden” Doctor Who reference. It is more cryptic than that. Continue reading...
Since recapturing Afghanistan, the Taliban have largely if inconsistently closed down girls’ schooling – but have found a new generation ready to fight for the right to studyWhen the Taliban reached Parveen Tokhi’s home province of Zabul in mid-August and asked to use her school as a temporary barracks, the headteacher was frightened but clear about what she had to do.She spent the bleak years of the first Taliban government in the 1990s stuck at home like almost all Afghan women, barred from education and work. She was determined that the same shadow wouldn’t engulf another generation. Continue reading...
If BJP holds Uttar Pradesh it would bolster ruling party’s claim for third victory in 2024 parliamentary pollsIndia’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has begun voting in the first of a series of local elections that will be a test of the popularity of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and his ruling party.With a population almost as big as that of Brazil, keeping power in the bellwether state would bolster the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in its claim for a third successive victory at nationwide parliamentary polls due by 2024. Continue reading...
Labour leader says he was never accused in public of being ‘paedophile protector’ before Johnson remarkKeir Starmer has blamed Boris Johnson’s slur about Jimmy Savile for inciting a mob that accosted him outside parliament on Monday.The Labour leader said he had never before been accused in public of being a “paedophile protector” until the prime minister falsely accused him of failing to prosecute Savile when he was director of public prosecutions (DPP) a week before the attack. Continue reading...
Did the defence minister not hear the Asio boss warn that stoking community division has ‘the same corrosive impact on our democracy as foreign interference itself’?Peter Dutton’s incendiary question time intervention suggesting China had picked Anthony Albanese as its election candidate plumbed new – and dangerous – depths.For weeks, Scott Morrison and his defence minister have been suggesting voters must not be lulled into a false sense of national security bipartisanship. Only the Coalition, their argument goes, can be trusted not to “appease” China. Continue reading...
Kyi says she begged soldiers to release her son, but they refused. Footage of her mourning beside his body has been viewed widely, just one of many similar storiesKyi kneels on the ground, pleading for her son to wake up. Crouched beside a riverbank, she rocks back and forth, shaken with grief. Her son’s body, which has washed ashore, is motionless in the shallow water. One of his wrists is tied with rope. “My boy, I know it would be nice if you respond to me,” she cries.It’s a video that has been seen widely within Myanmar – one Facebook video has been viewed more than a million times – but is also a scene that is tragically common. Videos and evidence of military killings are continually shared online – adding to the vast files of evidence being collected by rights groups, but also to the daily trauma that people are faced with. Continue reading...
The success of Knives Out and Murder on the Orient Express has led to a full-throated return of the keep-em-guessing murder mysterySurprise is not much of a factor in Death on the Nile, Kenneth Branagh’s second gaudy, glossy all-star adaptation of an Agatha Christie chestnut. As with its predecessor, 2017’s marginally worse Murder on the Orient Express, this old-school mystery pulls from a source text so well-known that its twists have practically become embedded genre tropes; even if you don’t know the oft-told story, you can guess your way through it on cliches and character types alone.Decked out with chintzy CGI, stiff performances and enough processed cheese to fill the Nile, it’s not exactly a good film — even “proficient” feels like a stretch — but it is an oddly comforting one. Watching Branagh’s absurdly moustachioed Hercule Poirot waddle through the motions of supposedly expert crime-solving — as bloodied, satin-clad corpses pile up around him — offers equivalent satisfaction to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle on a rainy Sunday: you know what the outcome is going to be, but there’s something soothing in putting it all together. If it’s a murder-mystery you aren’t already familiar with, so much the better, but the genre’s process-based pleasures are consistent either way. A good whodunnit, or even an attractively bad one, is the fictional equivalent of Marie Kondo organising your sock drawer. Continue reading...
Parliamentary report finds ‘compelling evidence’ of trafficking and highlights missed opportunities to protect vulnerable people later stripped of citizenshipThere is “compelling evidence” that British women and children currently detained in camps in north-east Syria were trafficked to the country against their will, according to a new parliamentary report.After a six-month inquiry by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on trafficked Britons in Syria, the report published on Thursday highlights how systemic failures by UK public bodies enabled Islamic State trafficking of vulnerable women and children as young as 12. Continue reading...
by Elias Visontay (now) and Tory Shepherd (earlier) on (#5VZEY)
Defence minister tells question time it is ‘open and obvious’ who China will back in federal election; bills in the religious discrimination package unlikely to be voted on until after the election; nation records at least 56 Covid deaths as WA reports highest daily case numbers. Follow all the day’s news
Amnesty International decries ‘systematic policy of repression’ as Maduro clamps down on enemies real and imaginedJuan Carlos Marrufo Capozzi, an electrician and former soldier from Valencia, Venezuela, and his wife María Auxiliadora Delgado Tabosky, were at home when agents from the South American country’s military intelligence unit barged in.Soldiers with rifles sifted through their paperwork and hard drives, before taking the couple away, leaving Marrufo’s distraught teenage daughter from a previous marriage behind. That was in March 2019, and they haven’t tasted freedom since. Continue reading...
by Sirin Kale. Photographs by Antonio Olmos on (#5VZY7)
In despair at problems in her area, mother-of-four Michelle Dornelly set up a food hub that has fed thousands – many of them refused by food banks. But the unpaid, full-time work takes a heavy tollWhen Michelle Dornelly is hoisting heavy crates of food into and out of her van, she thinks about her building. When her shoulders ache at night and she spots new bruises on her legs, she thinks about her building. She thinks about her building when she contemplates her living room, which is so full of tins that her children long ago stopped using it to watch TV, instead sitting in their bedrooms.Her building. A place where Dornelly could run the Hackney Community Food Hub, in east London, seven days a week. Where she could store the supplies she keeps in her living room. Where they could run workshops for families and take deliveries from their supermarket partners.Working at the hub is full-on at the best of times – and particularly hectic around Christmas. Continue reading...
In his new show Forbidden America, the presenter meets white nationalists, trigger-happy rappers and other inflammatory figures. Here, he argues that, rather than no-platforming them, we need to hear what they sayIn 25 years of presenting documentaries, I’ve made it something of a specialty to go to places and listen to people whose views represent something troubling, even dangerous. The first segment I ever made on TV, for Michael Moore’s TV Nation, was about millennial cults and involved a trip to western Montana, where I spoke to two neo-Nazis in a trailer. For several hours, they explained how some time in the not-too-distant future there would be global racial conflict, leading to Jesus Christ returning and banishing the different races to separate planets in some cosmic version of old-school southern segregationist policies. Late in the evening, when it had grown dark outside, they made me a cup of tea, which I appreciated. They seemed a little warmer towards me and I asked whether, after the inevitable race war, I might be able to make occasional visits to the black people’s planets, but it was still a non-starter.In the years since, I’ve made many more hours of documentaries on a variety of subjects, some of them focused on more innocent kinds of cultural oddity, such as infomercial gurus or swingers’ parties; others on more serious social themes of crime and mental health. But there has always been a strand in my work of being curious about the side of life deemed – in that rather woolly pejorative buzzword – “problematic”. Continue reading...
New Zealand capital’s wardens earn ‘very unusual’ public support after slapping fines on vehicles parked inconsiderately during protestsNew Zealand officialdom is wielding a new frontline force against the Ottawa-inspired anti-vaccine convoy occupying the capital’s inner city: parking wardens.Since Tuesday, Wellington has faced traffic delays and closed streets, as a collective of anti-vaccine-mandate protesters left cars, vans and buses parked in the capital city in their effort to occupy parliament’s lawn. Continue reading...
Foreign secretary told MPs laws would be in place by 10 February but nothing has been put to parliamentThe British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, will meet her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on Thursday with her plan to have put the UK’s “toughest sanctions regime against Russia” on the statute book in time for the trip having fallen through.Truss told MPs the laws would be in place by 10 February, but nothing has been put to parliament, raising suspicions among opposition MPs that government lawyers are struggling to frame the sweeping and unprecedented new laws. Continue reading...
Anna Leporskaya’s Three Figures sent for restoration after guard doodled on it with a ballpoint pen on his first dayA valuable avant garde painting has been vandalised by a “bored” security guard who drew eyes on faceless figures in the artwork on his first day working in a Russian gallery.Anna Leporskaya’s Three Figures was painted between 1932 and 1934, and had been insured for 75m roubles (A$1.3m, £740,000). It was on display as part of an abstract art exhibition at the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center in Ekaterinburg when the guard drew eyes on it using a ballpoint pen. Continue reading...
The lax rules contradict other major awards shows as report says high-profile actors may have had an influenceThe Oscars will reportedly not require proof of Covid-19 vaccination in order attend the in-person ceremony in Hollywood on 27 March.Instead, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will require guests to provide a negative PCR test or a negative rapid antigen test on the day of the event, the Hollywood Reporter and Variety reported on Wednesday. Attendees are encouraged to be vaccinated and those who are not will have to comply with stricter testing requirements in order to attend. Continue reading...
Apology comes as city enforces new measures including closure of hairdressers and addition of malls to vaccine pass systemHong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, has said she is “deeply sorry and anxious” about the lengthy wait for residents to get tested or enter isolation facilities after a record number of new coronavirus cases left authorities scrambling.Hong Kong’s daily Covid-19 infections nearly doubled to a record 1,161 cases on Wednesday as the global financial hub battles a rapid surge that could pose the biggest test yet of its “dynamic zero” policy. Continue reading...
Two hundred pairs of Louis Vuitton and Nike Air Force 1 shoes smashed expectations in Sotheby’s online auctionAn auction of 200 pairs of the Louis Vuitton and Nike Air Force 1 sneakers created by late American designer Virgil Abloh have fetched a total of $25m, Sotheby’s said.The most paid for one of the pairs was more than $350,000 – size 5 – during an online sale that ran from 26 January 26 to 8 February, the auction house said on Wednesday. Continue reading...
by Helen Livingstone (now) , Nadeem Badshah, Lucy Cam on (#5VYH1)
This blog is now closedSweden scraps almost all of its few restrictions and stops most testing; Spain’s King Felipe tests positive after displaying mild symptoms
‘Elsy’ was sentenced to 30 years for aggravated homicide over miscarriage and is fifth such woman to be released since DecemberEl Salvador has released another woman imprisoned for aggravated homicide who after suffering an obstetric emergency was accused of aborting her pregnancy in a country where abortion under any circumstances is banned.The woman, who activists helping her identified only as Elsy, had served more than a decade of a 30-year sentence. She was the fifth woman released before completion of her sentence since late December of last year. Continue reading...
Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer to separately visit Nato headquarters amid whirlwind diplomacy in face of Russian threatsBritain has placed 1,000 troops on standby to deploy to eastern Europe if there is a refugee crisis prompted by any Russian invasion of Ukraine, ahead of a trip by Boris Johnson to Nato headquarters and Poland on Thursday.UK officials warned there was a risk of “a humanitarian disaster” if Russia were to invade. The US has warned there could be a massive displacement of 1-5 million people, with refugees most likely to enter Poland. Continue reading...
Students wrongly accused of deception should be helped to clear names, says shadow ministerThe Home Office was accused of presiding over a “shocking miscarriage of justice” by MPs during an urgent debate on the English language testing scandal which saw thousands of international students wrongly accused of cheating in an exam they were required to sit as part of their visa application process.Those students who were wrongly accused of deception, many of whom were subsequently detained and deported, should now be helped to clear their names, shadow Home Office minister Stephen Kinnock told parliament. Continue reading...
Controversial legislation passes lower house despite Liberal moderates defecting to help add more extensive protections for LGBTQ+ studentsThe Morrison government has passed the religious discrimination bill in a marathon all-night sitting of the House of Representatives, despite Liberal moderates defecting to help add more extensive protections for LGBTQ+ students.The Liberal MPs Bridget Archer, Trent Zimmerman, Katie Allen, Fiona Martin and Dave Sharma crossed the floor against the government, helping Labor and the crossbench add protections for LGBTQ+ students into the Sex Discrimination Act. Continue reading...
Analysis: As Macron tries to revive 2015 agreement, Ukraine believes it is impossible to fulfil as it could hand power to RussiaIn the often acrimonious back-and-forth between Russia and Ukraine in recent years, “fulfilling Minsk” has become something of a meaningless mantra: all sides agree to abide by the 2015 Minsk accords in public, but neither has any real intention of implementing the provisions of the agreement.Yet in his intensive peacemaking efforts this week, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, appears to be pinning his hopes on a renewed attempt to breathe life into the seven-year-old agreement. Continue reading...
Broadcaster and husband hit by claims they plan to cull wallabies and chop down trees on Inchconnachan islandFirst they were hit by claims they planned to cull wallabies on the Scottish island they are buying, triggering uproar.Now the broadcaster Kirsty Young and her husband, the Soho House founder Nick Jones, have been hit by another hurdle: a formal objection from the Woodland Trust against their plans to chop down scores of trees on Inchconnachan, an idyllic, heavily wooded island on Loch Lomond. Continue reading...
Potentially deadly infectious disease, endemic to West Africa, not seen in UK for 10 yearsTwo people in England have been diagnosed with Lassa fever, and a third “probable” case is under investigation, the UK Health Security Agency has said.It is the first time cases of the potentially deadly infectious disease, caused by the Lassa virus, have been identified in the UK for more than a decade. Continue reading...
Several suffered from hypothermia during journey and some fainted from exposure to exhaust fumesAustrian police found eight people from Turkey hidden in life-threatening conditions in a narrow wooden pallet box attached to the underside of a lorry.Police said the group had been trafficked from Romania via Hungary. Several of them suffered from hypothermia during the trip in freezing temperatures, and some fainted because they were exposed to exhaust fumes for hours. Continue reading...
Arrest for Helen Bailey’s murder set alarm bells ringing, and one vital clue to Diane Stewart’s death remainedIn the dock in both of his trials – both for murder, both of women he had professed to love – Ian Stewart cut an unimpressive figure. Shabby, hesitant, inexplicably dull – he seemed unremarkable in every way.On Wednesday the 61-year-old was unmasked as a serial killer, found guilty of the murder of his wife Diane five years after being convicted of the 2016 murder of his fiancee Helen Bailey. Continue reading...