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Peers rejected measures in police, crime, sentencing and courts bill targeted at activists

A program in Washington state is intended to trigger an effective search and raise awareness of the problemFour years ago, Debra Lekanoff was busy traveling across the nation in her role as governmental affairs director for the Swinomish Tribe when her daughter came to her, worried.The 14-year-old had just learned some of the troubling details of the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and was concerned that her mother, who is Alaska Native and tended to travel alone, might one day not make it home. Continue reading...

Yang Maodong held ‘on suspicion of inciting subversion of state power’ two days after death of his wifeA Chinese human rights activist and writer who was detained following repeated pleas to be allowed to visit his terminally ill wife has been formally arrested days after she died for allegedly “inciting subversion of state power”.Yang Maodong, who goes by the pen-name Guo Feixiong, was formally arrested on Monday last week by the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau, two days after the death of his wife, Zhang Qing. Continue reading...

Did the iconic three-note sequence come from Stravinsky, the Muppets or somewhere else? Our writer set out to – dun, dun duuuun! – reveal the mysteryThere’s surely only one thing that unites Russian composer Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, the 1974 comedy horror Young Frankenstein and The Muppets’ most recent special on Disney+. Regrettably, it is not Kermit the Frog. The thing that appears in all of these works has no easily recognisable familiar name, although it is perhaps one of the most recognisable three-beat musical phrases in history. It starts with a dun; it continues with a dun; it ends with a duuun!On screen, a dramatic “dun, dun duuun” has appeared in everything from Disney’s Fantasia to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to The IT Crowd. In 2007, a YouTuber scored a video of a melodramatic prairie dog with the three beats, earning over 43m views and a solid place in internet history. Yet though many of us are familiar with the sound, no one seems to know exactly where it came from. Try to Google it and … dun, dun, duuun! Its origins are a mystery. Continue reading...

New to marriage and my job, an almighty row threatened both. But my colleagues’ stoic determination to ignore the cacophony was the silver liningHaving personal conversations at work, in the days before mobile phones existed, could be perilous. Usually, you had to duck into an unoccupied desk space or wait until everyone was at lunch. But I worked on a trading floor – each desk crammed next to another, with everyone eating lunch there, too. Perilous didn’t begin to cover it.In addition, phones rang constantly, people shouted across the room or at each other, and market information was broadcast over the Tannoy while overhead TVs blared CNBC and Bloomberg News. Private conversations had to wait. Continue reading...

Australian government defends handling of women’s safety plan after initially opening up consultation for a fortnight in summer

Justice secretary says allegations that Boris Johnson lied about No 10 lockdown party are ‘nonsense’

Abdullah says guards who risked their lives for the British cannot understand why they have been abandonedAbdullah*, 34, was a security guard for the British embassy, employed under contract by GardaWorld, and had a senior management role, looking after other locally employed embassy guards. He and about 180 colleagues had hoped to be evacuated to the UK at the end of August, but the evacuation was stopped by a bomb at the airport. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) made a clear commitment that all GardaWorld staff would be allowed to travel to the UK, but this has not happened.We’ve heard nothing from the Home Office or the FCDO and life is becoming very hard for everyone who worked for the British embassy. Surviving when there is no income and no work is very difficult. We’re still hoping we will get an email about evacuation plans, but we haven’t heard anything. The UK government is helping footballers and writers to leave the country, but there has been no help for us. We feel like we should be first in line because we risked our lives for the British government. It’s a huge disappointment for all of us. Continue reading...

Party vows to vote against proposal, which would allow DUP leader to work at Westminster and StormontLabour has called on the government to immediately withdraw a proposed law that would allow the Democratic Unionist party leader to “double job” at Westminster and Stormont.The shadow Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Kyle, said Labour would vote against the government and had tabled the amendment to the Northern Ireland (ministers, elections and petitions of concern) bill, having “clearly failed the sufficient consensus” among Northern Ireland parties to support the move. Continue reading...

Villagers rely more on the forest’s resources, threatening its ecosystem – and leaving them more vulnerable to cyclones

Prime minister, who has denied it’s hypocritical to deport Novak Djokovic while government MPs spread misinformation, says Covid vaccinations ‘save lives’

I was struck by how few authors I could name who are women. With Makewana, the ‘mother’ responsible for rain, as our namesake, my group set out to end the literary droughtI have often tried to imagine what Makewana, the original female rainmaker of ancient Malawi, must have looked like.There is a statue of her with long hair at Mua Mission in Dedza, since to cut her hair would have signified drought. Continue reading...

Methods used in Sky Net program range from family intimidation to state-sanctioned kidnappings, says rights groupChinese authorities captured more than 2,500 “fugitives” from overseas and brought them back to China during the pandemic, under a program using methods ranging from family intimidation to “state-sanctioned kidnapping”, according to a new report.Human rights group Safeguard Defenders estimates in its report published on Tuesday that the continued repatriations now total more than 10,000 since Beijing launched operation Fox Hunt in 2014, followed by Sky Net in 2015. Continue reading...

Despite decreasing positivity rates, hospitals continue to struggle amid a surging patient load and staff shortagesNew York City and some north-eastern US states appear to be seeing rapid decreases in their numbers of Covid-19 cases in recent days, raising the possibility that the Omicron wave has now already peaked in some parts of America.In New York City the rolling seven-day average of new cases was less than 28,000 a day on 16 January, down from an average of more than 40,000 on 9 January. Continue reading...

The 40 images paint a much fuller picture of the damage to the country following a volcanic eruption and tsunamiAerial images prepared by the New Zealand defence force for the Tongan government have been leaked online and show some areas have had “catastrophic” devastation inflicted by the tsunami and volcanic eruption while others were relatively unscathed.The 40 aerial pictures show some areas blanketed with ash, with damaged buildings, while others show parts of the country that appear unscathed. Continue reading...

The market in this prized commodity is worth billions – but are the supposed benefits worth the cost to global ecosystems?Scanning the shelves and internet for fish oil is a dizzying task. There are dozens of brands available and, although the typical consideration for the popular supplement is that quality matters most, it is not the only factor.These prized products travel a long way before being labelled as “pure” and “fresh” – starting with the industrial-scale grinding down of a tiny fish that is crucial for healthy ocean and food systems. Continue reading...

I had always done my best to avoid ‘all-nighters’ – but as the hours spun out I began to enjoy the surreal experienceI was sent to Brussels early in my ill-fated career as a City solicitor, to an office in a stunning Belle Époque building with a murky colonial past and beautiful stained-glass windows. It was thrillingly foreign, with office lunches that put Boots’ meal deals to shame and sparkling wine at the weekly “tea time”. I was delighted, but convinced it was a clerical error. Foreign postings were supposed to reward the best; I devoted most of my time and energy to evading work.I was also irrationally terrified of the fabled “all-nighter”, a corporate law rite of passage. I think I believed that, gremlin-like, something terrible would happen if I was exposed to spreadsheets after midnight – I would reveal I didn’t actually understand them, perhaps. I had developed hacks to ensure this never happened: dodging notorious taskmasters, fibbing about my workload, and leaving my computer on when I went home. Continue reading...

University of Exeter ordered to pay compensation to physicist Dr Annette Plaut, who was sacked after 29 yearsA senior academic who says she was sacked from her post in a university’s physics department because of her loud voice has been awarded more than £100,000 after winning a claim for unfair dismissal.Dr Annette Plaut told the Guardian she had a “naturally loud voice” that came from her middle European Jewish background and claimed it was the combination of her being “female and loud” that had led to her dismissal from the University of Exeter. Continue reading...

Threat of new volcanic eruption could prevent access by repair ship, which is en route from 4,000km awayThe mission to repair the undersea communications cable that connects Tonga with the rest of the world could take up to a fortnight, the cable operator has warned, due to risks that a subsequent volcanic eruption could endanger a repair ship.Thousands of families remained without word from loved ones across Tonga, four days after the massive eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano sent tsunami waves across the archipelago, and blanketed islands in ash. Continue reading...

Whedon denies allegations of threats and cruelty detailed by Buffy and Justice League actors, saying he has been made to seem like an ‘abusive monster’Joss Whedon, Buffy creator and director of films including The Avengers and Justice League, has responded to multiple allegations of misconduct, denying claims from actors including Gal Gadot and Ray Fisher that he threatened and belittled them on set.In a lengthy interview with New York magazine, Whedon responded to the stream of allegations made against him, which began to gain momentum in 2020 when Fisher detailed his experiences on the set of Justice League. Whedon stepped in to direct the film after the departure of Zack Snyder. Continue reading...

Doctors say Australia must coordinate Covid-19 data nationally and pick up the game on testing, tracing, isolating and quarantining

Police allege staff at the beleaguered airline ‘conducted unnecessary activities’ during home isolation as China presses on with zero-Covid strategy

Un-jabbed older people in Greece face penalties starting at a €50; UK cases continue downward trend

Distraught couples face prospect of cutting guest lists from more than 600 people down to just 20 after coronavirus variant took hold

Police thank public for help in finding 18-year-old last seen at Windsor nightclub at 2am on SundayA woman who went missing after last being seen in a Windsor nightclub has been found “safe and well”, police have said.Marnie Clayton, 18, was found in Basingstoke, Hampshire, on Monday afternoon after she was last seen at Atik nightclub in William Street, Windsor at about 2am on Sunday, Thames Valley police said. Continue reading...

Continuing disarray on the left ahead of the presidential election is a sorry spectacleIn better times, the French left used to draw inspiration from the old Popular Front phrase, “les lendemains qui chantent” (the tomorrows that sing). These days that kind of optimism – along with any sense of unity among progressives – is just a poignant memory.With less than 100 days to go before the first round of the French presidential election, the jockeying for position among the flatlining candidates of the left has become a fractious sideshow, as the campaign continues to be dominated by the right. At the weekend, the Socialist former justice minister, Christiane Taubira, became the latest hopeful to formally throw her hat into the ring. She joins the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo – also a Socialist – France Unbowed’s veteran hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the Green candidate, Yannick Jadot, and an assortment of fringe figures. None of the candidates has managed to break through the 10% barrier in polls and none has a chance of making it through to the second round of voting; yet all remain in the race, vying to take votes from each other. “Singing tomorrows” have given way to a cacophonous clashing of stubborn egos. The result is that the 30% or so of voters who identify as being on the broad left are being effectively disfranchised. Continue reading...

Move likely to stoke invasion fears as war games also planned near borders of Nato members Poland and LithuaniaRussia has begun moving troops to Ukraine’s northern neighbour Belarus for joint military exercises, in a move likely to increase fears in the west that Moscow is preparing for an invasion.The joint military exercises, named United Resolve, are to take place as Russia also musters forces along Ukraine’s eastern border, threatening a potential invasion that could unleash the largest conflict in Europe for decades. Continue reading...

Ireland’s minister for justice promises new strategy by March and a zero-tolerance approachCampaigners have called for the end of the “scattered” approach to gender-based violence in Ireland after the murder of 23-year-old Ashling Murphy.Irish police are still hunting for the killer of the primary school teacher, who was strangled on a canal path near the town of Tullamore while out jogging on Wednesday afternoon. Continue reading...

As the €866m Elbphilharmonie celebrates its fifth anniversary, what could have been a costly mistake has become a symbol of the German city. London, take noteFive years ago the world felt a very different place. Pandemics belonged to disaster movies; the UK was reeling from the divisive Brexit vote but, with Theresa May newly installed as prime minister, the hope was that she might succeed in a soft Brexit and, in London; Simon Rattle’s imminent arrival as the London Symphony Orchestra’s chief conductor was eagerly anticipated and along with it the city’s transformative new Centre for Music.Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie opened in January 2017 with a glittering gala attended by celebrities and dignitaries. The spectacular concert hall was praised for its bold design, its superb acoustics and its “exceptionally exceptional exceptionalness”. But in London the hope – back then – was that the city’s own new concert hall would one day also be a world-leading arts venue to compete with Hamburg’s. Continue reading...

Military preparing options for No 10 but use of warships to turn back refugees seen as disproportionate

Yemen’s Houthi forces claim strikes, which follow pressure on Iran to kickstart nuclear talks with USHouthi forces in Yemen have claimed responsibility for an apparent drone attack in Abu Dhabi that killed three people and is likely to raise regional tensions as a crucial phase nears in nuclear discussions with Iran.The strikes, which also injured six people, left flames billowing from an oil storage site near the airport of the United Arab Emirates’ capital. A separate explosion, which is also thought to have been caused by a drone, caused minor damage. Two Indian nationals and one Pakistani were killed amid the fireballs. All the wounded were reported to be lightly hurt. Continue reading...

Survey finds widespread discontent as MPs inundated with emails about Downing Street parties scandalThere is “massive anger” among grassroots Conservative party supporters over the Downing Street parties scandal, the head of a leading group has said as its survey found 40% thought Boris Johnson should resign.Ed Costelloe, chairman of Grassroots Conservatives, said it had been years since the group last polled its supporters and followers but it felt compelled by the “unique” nature of the public mood. Continue reading...

Éric Zemmour drew widespread outrage in September 2020 after a tirade against child migrantsA French court has found the far-right presidential candidate Éric Zemmour guilty of racist hate speech for a tirade against unaccompanied child migrants.Zemmour drew widespread outrage in September 2020 when he told the CNews channel that child migrants were “thieves, killers, they’re rapists. That’s all they are. We should send them back.” Continue reading...

Australia and New Zealand have sent surveillance flights to Tonga after the eruption of an underwater volcano that triggered a tsunami. In dramatic footage, the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano could be seen erupting a day before, sending thick plumes of ash and smoke into the sky

Remaining heirs and publishing company Primary Wave settle case with US tax agency, with estate valued at twice original appraisalThe estate of the late pop singer Prince, including his catalogue of songs, has been valued at $156.4m (£114m), nearly twice an earlier appraisal.The estate’s administrator, Comerica Bank, agreed on the figure with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the heirs to Prince’s estate. The singer died in 2016 without a will, and his estate will pass to three of his siblings as well as the publishing company Primary Wave, who in August 2021 bought out rights to the Prince catalogue from another three heirs, two of them deceased. Continue reading...

As she prepares to star in the new ‘American Downton’, the 69-year-old actor talks about her blue-collar roots, her friendship with Stephen Sondheim — and the pleasures of late-career fame

21 January 1922: It is hard to enjoy ‘the most healthy of British sports’ when it means so many men, horses, and dogs pitted against one smaller creaturePerhaps a country diarist may be allowed to comment on the correspondence about foxhunting, especially as one advocate of thesport signs himself “Nature Lover.” He affirms that the fox “expects to be hunted,” but do we know that animals really expect anything? All we feel sure about is that they have good memories of past experiences, and instinctively or consciously try to avoid danger; personally I do not believe that they look ahead, and therefore do not fear the future however much they suffer from fear in the present. Further, this writer argues that a ballot of foxes on an alternative issue of extinction or a hunted life would give a majority for the latter. To this I agree, for we can only judge from a human standpoint; how many of us would prefer extinction? We should greatly prefer a life free from peril; so surely would the fox.Years ago, when crossing a Cheshire park, I heard the approaching pack and saw the hunted fox within a few yards of where I was standing. Panting, bedraggled, dead-beat, a picture of abject misery, it could hardly drag itself along, and the hounds were close behind. Suddenly it turned, doubling round a bush, and, dodging with marvellous skill, passed safely through the heavier hounds, and reached a withy bed. But it was its last effort, and to my sorrow they killed it there. Ever since then all my sympathy has been for the fox, and I could never enjoy “the greatest, most manly, natural, and healthy of British sports,” when it means so many men, horses, and dogs pitted against one smaller and weaker creature. “Put yourself in the animal’s place,” says another correspondent; we should hardly then claim that the fox enjoys the hunt. Continue reading...

Switch to drinking at home rather than in pubs during Covid pandemic partly to blameMillions of Britons are causing themselves “silent harm” through hazardous drinking at home, experts have warned, as figures reveal levels of “higher risk” alcohol consumption have soared during the pandemic.While the new figures concern England only, the phenomenon has been seen in all parts of the UK. Continue reading...

Communications blackout from undersea cable’s apparent damage prompts some to turn to Facebook livestreams from outside Tonga for updatesSince the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcano erupted on Saturday, Seini Taumoepeau has barely slept.“I would say I’ve had four hours [of sleep each night] at the most,” says Taumoepeau, a Tongan-Australian artist and activist based in Sydney. Continue reading...

Blanket of ash hinders communications from towns believed to have been inundated by waves as first surveillance flights departsNew Zealand and Australia have sent planes to assess the damage from a huge undersea volcanic eruption and tsunami that hit the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday.The eruption sent a thick blanket of ash into the sky, contaminating water supplies, cutting off communications and initially preventing surveillance flights assessing the extent of damage. Continue reading...

Omicron is now the dominant variant of Covid-19 in Australia and since its emergence late last year scientists and governments have been racing to learn more about it. So what do we know about how Omicron impacts the human body? And how effective are public health measures like masks, testing and vaccines against it?

Waves rush over island country while tidal surges are felt by small Pacific neighbours plus New Zealand, Australia, US and JapanTsunami waves caused by an undersea volcano have flooded the Pacific Island country of Tonga, where entire towns have been inundated with water and scientists warn the main island could be blanketed in volcanic ash.Videos shared on social media after the eruption showed people running for higher ground as the one metre high floods hit coastal areas and made their way farther inland while the sky darkened with ash. Continue reading...

Freight train marks first time during pandemic that North Korea is known to have opened land borderA North Korean cargo train has reportedly pulled into a Chinese border town in what would be the first confirmed crossing since its anti-coronavirus border lockdowns began.North Korea has not officially reported any Covid-19 cases and has imposed strict anti-virus measures, including border closures and domestic travel curbs since the pandemic began in early 2020. Continue reading...

Prosecutor says dead include security forces and ‘armed bandits’, with toll dramatically increased from previous figuresThe violent unrest in Kazakhstan that began with peaceful protests in early January has left 225 people dead, authorities have said in a dramatic increase on previous tolls.“During the state of emergency, the bodies of 225 people were delivered to morgues, of which 19 were law enforcement officers and military personnel,” Serik Shalabayev, the head of criminal prosecution at the prosecutor’s office, told a briefing on Saturday. Continue reading...

Acclaimed novelist reveals she became almost silent as a child due to stressNovelist Deborah Levy first discovered writing as a kind of therapy when her voice disappeared as a child, she has revealed.Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, the popular British writer, acclaimed for her Booker Prize-shortlisted novels Swimming Home and Hot Milk, said her voice gradually got quieter during her schooldays in South Africa. Continue reading...

Food relief organisations say they are helping more people than ever before. But this is not a good news story. Head of news, Mike Ticher, introduces an investigation into underlying inequality in Australia that predates the Covid crisisYou can read the original article here: ‘We need to be alarmed’: food banks in overdrive as politicians allow Australians to go hungry Continue reading...

Activists are gaining support for move to hold popular vote to decide who stands in presidential electionA group of political activists will make one desperate last attempt this month to save the bitterly divided French left from an electoral catastrophe in the presidential election with a “people’s primary” to designate a single candidate.The Primaire Populaire was initiated by young people dismayed by the fractures that could mean no leftwing or socialist figure will reach the second round of the election in April. Continue reading...

Veterans say ‘arbitrary’ powers contained in proposals going before the Lords would have silenced their pensions campaignGurkha activists have launched a scathing attack on Priti Patel’s controversial policing bill, describing it as “highly dangerous” and warning that it would criminalise their future campaigning work.Gurkha groups, who recently protested outside parliament for equal military pensions with the British soldiers they served alongside, say the bill would crush similar campaigns because of its intention to restrict the right to protest. Continue reading...

Capitalism’s great trick is to make us long for the useless and unnecessary. Under the bright lights, I felt that itch starting upAll I can say is that I should have known better. No, my decision to visit the branch of Amazon Fresh that has just opened near where I live was not at all a good match for the sweeping month-long programme of mindfulness and joy-sparking I tentatively set in motion for myself on 1 January. But there I was all the same, curiosity having got the better of me. And yes, the result was predictably awful. As any wellness guru worth the name could doubtless have told me, this way lay simmering despair and an almost overwhelming desire to buy a packet of Jacob’s Mini Cheddars.I still have no idea how Amazon got the go-ahead to set up a branch of the grocery wing of its rampaging empire in the grade-II listed building it now inhabits: an old tram depot that when I first came to this part of London was the home of lots of little antique shops (RIP). There was, I seem to remember, a bit of a kerfuffle over its alcohol licence, but in the end it got the green light, in spite of the fact that there are already three large supermarkets mere metres away. Now it stands there rather mournfully, its lurid sign seemingly aiming to attract either those who simply cannot be bothered to cross the road, or those who prefer to keep on their headphones as they shop. (Amazon Fresh’s USP is that it has no tills, so customers need not speak to a single soul.) This, I have read, is one of 10 branches in the capital so far; by 2025, the company hopes to have 260 across the UK. Continue reading...

Kyiv’s middle-class professionals ready to take up arms againThe mood last week in Ukraine was eerily calm, despite talk of war. The first winter snow blanketed Kyiv. Many were still celebrating Orthodox Christmas – which falls on 7 January – or had left town for the holidays. Bars and restaurants rang out with Dean Martin’s Let It Snow!, while the fir trees in Independence Square looked like a mini-Narnia.Sure, Russia might invade at any moment. But, as Ukrainians wearily point out, the country has already been at war for eight long years, ever since Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and kickstarted a brutish conflict in the east of the country, which has claimed nearly 14,000 lives. Friday’s dawn cyber-attack on government websites was merely the latest in a series of hostile acts. Continue reading...