Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones were killed by convicted terrorist at event at Fishmonger’s HallCambridge University has scrapped a programme that taught prisoners alongside students after the deadly 2019 Fishmonger’s Hall terrorist attack was carried out at one of its events.Jack Merritt, 25, who was employed by the Learning Together programme at the time, and Saskia Jones, 23, who was one of its volunteers, were killed by the convicted terrorist Usman Khan at an event to mark the fifth anniversary of the scheme. Continue reading...
While some of us are both, many of us are neither. The urge to separate us out is used to marginalise people around the worldIt took me a long time to embrace my Māori identity.On my mother’s side, I whakapapa (relate, through ancestry) to Kāi Tahu, the largest iwi (tribe) of Te Waipounamu (the South Island of New Zealand), but I grew up believing I was only Pākehā (NZ European). I spent most of my childhood living with my Pākehā father. Even though my Māori ancestry was mentioned occasionally, I resisted the suggestion that I was Māori. I didn’t grow up on a marae (Māori village), or speak te reo – and I didn’t look like the Māori kids I knew. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth, Rupert Neate and Peter Walker on (#5TV8Z)
Michael Gove says new statutory protection will cover all works required to make buildings safe – not just claddingNew legislation will protect leaseholders from the costs of all post-Grenfell building safety defects, not just combustible cladding, the government has said.The secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, Michael Gove, told parliament the government would give leaseholders statutory protection that extends to all works required to make buildings safe. The move followed anger at reports that officials were only planning to force developers and materials manufacturers to pay to replace combustible cladding on buildings taller than 11 metres. Continue reading...
PC David Carrick to appear at Westminster magistrates court as new charges bring total to 29 alleged crimes against eight womenA Metropolitan police officer accused of a string of sexual offences is facing charges linked to another four alleged victims including six counts of rape, prosecutors have said.PC David Carrick, 47, will be charged with nine more offences, the Crown Prosecution Service announced on Monday, meaning he is accused of 29 crimes against eight women in total between 2009 and 2020. Continue reading...
Residents in Ukraine’s capital defiant, with many ready to fight – but they also have other concernsAt weekends Yevgeny Tereshchenko goes to the woods outside Kyiv and practises his shooting. “We need to be ready, morally and physically,” Tereshchenko explained, showing off a video in which he springs athletically into action and fires a rifle several times.A Ukrainian army officer until two years ago, Tereshchenko is preparing for a possible Russian attack. If Moscow does launch a further military operation against Ukraine, assuming diplomatic talks fail this week, he and his friends are ready to fight, he said. “There are a lot of us. It’s our house, our country,” he pointed out. Continue reading...
‘The idea of wearing checked shirts came from Bruce Springsteen – plus you could buy them cheap at Millets!’I knew [singer/guitarist] Stuart Adamson when he was in Skids and I was in the Delinquents and all the bands in Dunfermline used to rehearse in stables next to each other. When Skids were doing their third album he said to me: “Wouldn’t it be great to do a twin guitar thing?” I thought he was just being nice. Then after Skids split he knocked on my door and said: “Remember that conversation? Do you still want to do it?” Continue reading...
Prof Faizullah Jalal, an outspoken critic of Afghanistan’s ruling group, was arrested for alleged remarks on social mediaSupporters of a prominent university professor, and one of Afghanistan’s most vocal critics of the Taliban, are calling for his release after he was arrested on Saturday.Faizullah Jalal, a professor at Kabul University, was detained by the Taliban after the group claimed he was responsible for a series of messages on social media attacking them. Continue reading...
The benefits of exercise for those with osteoporosis are great, and many exercises may be safe – so long as you avoid the risk of fallingAgeing brings with it inevitable physical declines, including loss in bone density which can lead to osteoporosis. This condition affects 3.8% of Australians, although many people don’t know they have it until they have a bone fracture. Importantly, it can be prevented and managed through lifestyle factors including exercise.“Physical activity is one of the most effective tools to counter age-related health conditions,” including osteoporosis and osteoarthritis (which impacts the joints), says accredited exercise physiologist Richelle Street. Continue reading...
Secretary of state Antony Blinken says week of talks is moment of truth for Vladimir PutinFormal talks are under way between US and Russian officials in Geneva over the fate of Ukraine, amid low expectations and high tensions driven by fears that the Kremlin will order an invasion.The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, and his delegation arrived under Swiss police escort at the US diplomatic mission in Geneva for face-to-face talks with Wendy Sherman, the US deputy secretary of state, and her team. The talks adjourned for lunch and then began an afternoon session. Continue reading...
Kay Rufai hopes to reduce youth violence and racial stereotyping in his project for Coventry city of cultureStories of the disintegrating relationship between the police and young black people are endless, but an artist behind an unlikely new project hopes he can help break down barriers.Kay Rufai was enlisted by West Midlands police last year to be their artist in residence – thought to be a first for a police force. He has spent several months taking photographs and film of officers and young, mostly black people who have had dealings with the police. The images were then presented to police in order to spark a conversation and “challenge their preconceptions”. Continue reading...
by Tom Phillips Latin America correspondent on (#5TVHR)
Regime suffers symbolic blow as little-known Sergio Garrido secures victory in Barinas governorship electionVenezuela’s opposition has claimed a rare and highly symbolic victory over Nicolás Maduro’s regime after defeating the government candidate for the governorship of Hugo Chávez’s home state of Barinas.Maduro had hoped his former foreign minister Jorge Arreaza would win control of the region, which is considered the cradle of Chávez’s “Bolivarian revolution”, in Sunday’s election. Continue reading...
People who fled Taliban are starting to arrive in northern France in hope of reaching UKAfghans who fled the Taliban risk dying in freezing temperatures in Calais, NGOs have warned.People who left Afghanistan after the US withdrawal this summer have started to arrive in northern France in the hope of reaching the UK by crossing the Channel in dinghies. But charities have raised the alarm that conditions are deteriorating sharply, putting thousands of lives at risk. Continue reading...
Adult educationist whose anthology Two Centuries of African English helped transform approaches to literature in the continentLalage Bown, who has died aged 94, was appointed to her first teaching post in the new University of the Gold Coast (Ghana) in 1949. Although only 22, she immediately questioned the department’s British literature-oriented curriculum, believing that poems such as Wordsworth’s Daffodils (I wandered lonely as a cloud) had little meaning for African students, and that it was important for them to encounter writing by and about African people.Challenged by the department’s senior members, who doubted that such texts existed, she bet them a bottle of beer that she could produce numerous passages written in English by African authors over the previous 200 years. Within two weeks she won her beer, and mimeographed copies of the relevant works were distributed to students and teachers. Continue reading...
Via hand-painted sex dolls and Maga hats, Jessica Kingdon slyly tracks China’s shift from global factory to consumer societyIn a street market in China, factory recruiters with loudspeakers compete for the attention of job seekers, yelling like they’re selling vegetables: “Seating working available!” “Air conditioning!” Others list restrictions: “No tattoos. No hair dye.” One advertises a salary: $2.99 (£2.21) an hour. Outside the market, inspirational slogans are plastered across billboards extolling the Chinese dream. “Work hard and all your dreams will come true.” When you’re paid $2.99, that’s a lot of hard work.So begins this brilliant documentary by Chinese-American director Jessica Kingdon, which slyly observes China’s transition from the world’s factory to a massive consumer society. It’s a film in the tradition of Koyaanisqatsi or Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s Our Daily Bread. Shot in more than 50 locations in China, it splits more or less into three sections: factory workers, China’s growing middle class and the filthy-rich elite. There’s no voiceover or obvious narrative, just a stream of vignettes – at times an almost surreal compilation of images strung together. Continue reading...
Peng Jingtang was chief of staff of Armed Police Corps, part of China’s paramilitary police forceA general who led China’s anti-terrorism special forces in Xinjiang has been named as the new chief of the People’s Liberation Army’s garrison in Hong Kong, state media have reported.The appointment comes as China toughens its rule in the international business hub, which underwent huge and sometimes violent street protests in 2019. Beijing imposed a controversial national security law in Hong Kong in 2020. Continue reading...
We would like to hear your suggestions for what the Queen’s platinum pudding should be this yearAs part of the celebrations for the Queen’s platinum jubilee, Fortnum & Mason is launching a competition for pudding recipes that celebrate the Queen’s 70 years on the throne.We would like to hear your suggestions for what the Queen’s platinum pudding should be. Continue reading...
Carlos Santana, Jefferson Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young also appear in 26 minutes of home video at event that marked end of hippy dreamTwenty-six minutes of unseen footage of the vast and notoriously violent Altamont music festival held in northern California in 1969 have been unexpectedly uncovered.The home-movie footage – which is vividly shot on 8mm film, but frustratingly silent – has been published by the Library of Congress on its website. Continue reading...
Critics say series of charges over Covid rules and walkie-talkie possession designed to remove her as political threatAung San Suu Kyi has been handed a four-year jail sentence by a military court in Myanmar over various offences, including illegal possession of walkie-talkies, the latest judgment in a series of cases that could lead to her spending the rest of her life in detention.She has been held by the military since 1 February, when it ousted her democratically elected government, plunging the country into chaos. The 76-year-old has since been targeted with a slew of charges that her lawyer has previously described as absurd. Continue reading...
Campaigners argue that tracking journeys does nothing to tackle male violence and may be open to abuseWomen’s safety campaigners have called the Home Office’s backing of an app that allows users to track their friends’ journeys home “insulting to women and girls”, arguing that it does nothing to tackle the issue of men’s violence against women.The new app provides anyone walking home at night with a monitored route on their phone. If the walker moves more than 40 metres from the route or stops for more than three minutes, the app asks if they are OK. If there is no reply, nominated “guardians” – normally friends and family – receive a notification on their phones to say there has been a deviation. They can then check on the person in question and alert the police if they are unable to do so. Continue reading...
Artist, poet and singer, Dieynaba Sidibé, AKA Zeinixx, has made her way to the top of the country’s male-dominated hip-hop scene and wants her messages of hope to inspire young womenWhen Dieynaba Sidibé discovered graffiti, it was love at first sight. She was 17 and had already begun experimenting with painting and drawing.“It was on TV. I was sitting in my living room and I saw people doing big walls and I thought, ‘This is what I need’,” the Senegalese artist says, one hoop earring shaking as she laughs. “I don’t like small things. I was doing big canvases, and I said to myself: ‘A wall is a bigger surface for expression’.” Continue reading...
The former Communard says he knows every word to Jesus Christ Superstar – what else does he listen to away from the pulpit?The first song I remember hearing
World No 1 immediately released from detention, but immigration minister considering cancelling visa againNovak Djokovic will be immediately released from immigration detention in Australia, after the federal circuit court ordered a decision to cancel his visa be quashed.But the Australian government’s counsel, Christopher Tran, has revealed the immigration minister will consider exercising a personal power to cancel Djokovic’s visa meaning he is not guaranteed to stay and compete in the Australian Open. Continue reading...
He has been detained at airports and told never to return to Iran. But the director refuses to be silenced about outrages in his own country – and in the west. Could this cost him another Oscar at this year’s awards?Withdrawing your film from the Oscars would be career suicide for most directors, but in November Asghar Farhadi appeared to do precisely that. Shortly after Iran’s state-controlled film board put his movie, A Hero, up for the best international feature Oscar, Farhadi released a statement on Instagram saying he was “fed up” with suggestions in Iranian media that he was sympathetic to the country’s hardline government. “If your introduction of my film for the Oscars has led you to the conclusion that I am in your debt,” he wrote, “I am explicitly declaring now that I have no problem with you reversing this decision.”Farhadi, it could be argued, can afford to make such a gesture. He has already won two international feature Oscars – for A Separation in 2012 and The Salesman in 2017 – and many more awards besides (A Hero won the Grand Prix at Cannes last year). Such achievements inevitably convey national hero status. At the same time, he seems to have trodden a careful line when it comes to his country’s oppressive regime. Other Iranian film-makers, such as Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof, have paid a heavy price for criticising aspects of Iranian society, from prison sentences and house arrests to travel bans. Farhadi seems to have been spared similar treatment. Hence the accusations that he was “pro- government”. Continue reading...
Jane Campion’s Netflix drama and HBO hit triumph as stars distance themselves from Hollywood Foreign Press AssociationThe Power of the Dog and Succession were the big winners at an unusual, stripped-back Golden Globes.Traditionally, the ceremony is a glitzy telecast with A-listers in attendance but after a year of controversies surrounding diversity and amoral practices, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association lost its footing in the industry, with publicity firms, studios and celebrities choosing to distance themselves. Continue reading...
Dr Nick Wilson and Dr Michael Baker say country’s ‘traffic light’ Covid protection framework is ‘not fit for purpose’Two of New Zealand’s most prominent Covid-19 experts have warned that the country is unprepared to prevent the health system from being overloaded by an Omicron outbreak, with likely fatal consequences.Otago University’s Dr Nick Wilson and Dr Michael Baker also said it was only a “matter of weeks” before the highly transmissible variant seeped into the community due to border failures. Continue reading...
Sohail Ahmadi, who was being raised by a local Kabul taxi driver, will hopefully now travel to the US to live with his parentsAn infant boy handed in desperation to a US soldier across an airport wall in the chaos of the American evacuation of Afghanistan has been found and reunited with his relatives.The baby, Sohail Ahmadi, was just two months old when he went missing on 19 August as thousands of people rushed to leave Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban. Continue reading...
Saget was found unresponsive in an Orlando hotel room on SundayBob Saget, the actor and comedian most famous for his role in the much-loved 80s sitcom Full House, has died at the age of 65.The Orange County sheriff’s office confirmed Saget’s death on Twitter on Monday, saying he had been found unresponsive in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, Florida on Sunday. The sheriff’s office confirmed that no cause of death had been determined, saying in a statement there were no signs of foul play or drug use. Continue reading...
Fortnum & Mason’s judges include Mary Berry and event will form part of celebrations for 70-year reignFortnum & Mason is launching a competition to find a dish celebrating the Queen’s 70 years on the throne, marking the beginning of official jubilee festivities.Much like Poulet Reine Elizabeth, more commonly known as coronation chicken, invented by Le Cordon Bleu London for the Queen’s coronation banquet in 1953, it is hoped the Platinum Pudding competition will serve as a long-lasting reminder of the 95 year-old monarch’s reign. Continue reading...
Some people could still be missing after the accident on Furnas Lake in Minas Gerais state, police saidA towering slab of rock broke from a cliff and toppled on to pleasure boaters drifting near a waterfall on a Brazilian lake on Saturday, leaving 10 people dead.Police said that there was a possibility that some people were still missing on Sunday following the accident in Minas Gerais state. At least 32 people were injured, though most were released from hospitals by Saturday evening. Continue reading...
Instability may follow if the country’s technocrat prime minister leaves his post to become the next president. But sooner or later democracy must be resumedNo Italian has ever voted for Mario Draghi in an election, but given the opportunity it seems that many might choose to do so. Recent polls indicate that Italy’s technocrat prime minister, appointed last February by the country’s president, Sergio Mattarella, basks in stellar approval ratings of about 65%. As honeymoon periods go, this one has justified the “Super Mario” hype that accompanied Mr Draghi’s installation.The explanation for his success lies in the unaccustomed sense of stability and calm that the former head of the European Central Bank has delivered. Since taking office, following the mid-Covid implosion of a centre-left coalition government, Mr Draghi has presided with authority over a unity administration that involves every party apart from the far-right Brothers of Italy. Rome’s Covid recovery plan is being enthusiastically funded by the European Commission, whose officials see the prime minister as a safe pair of hands, and Italy’s handling of the pandemic on Mr Draghi’s watch has been assured. In comparison to France, where far-right demagoguery is setting the tone in the presidential race, or Britain, where the public has been scandalised by the behaviour in Boris Johnson’s Downing Street, Italian politics has distinguished itself in 2021 by being reassuringly, unusually dull. Continue reading...
Exclusive: FoI request shows screens that earn council rent of £2.4m a year consume more than 11,000kWh annuallyHi-tech advertising screens that have been criticised for blocking pavements in Manchester each use the same amount of electricity as three households, the Guardian has learned.The council-branded screens, which became a pedestrian bugbear when they were covered with mysterious grey boxes during their installation, earn the local authority £2.4m a year in rent from the advertising firm JCDecaux, plus 2.8% of the revenue from each advert. Continue reading...
Glasgow criminology students work with experts to crack seven unsolved missing person casesAn Italian newspaper, a book of finely drawn sketches, a half-remembered photograph glimpsed on social media: these are the fragmented details of lost lives that Scotland’s only student-led cold case unit must make sense of.The group of criminology students at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) are investigating seven long-term unidentified bodies in partnership with Locate International, a community interest company dedicated to helping the families of missing persons to find their loved ones. Continue reading...
The white marl cliffs in Sicily are famed for featuring in the Inspector Montalbano booksAn investigation is under way after the famed white limestone Scala dei Turchi cliff in Sicily was “shamefully defaced” with red powder dust.The Scala dei Turchi, or Turkish Steps, is one of Italy’s most visited tourist sites and features prominently in the Inspector Montalbano books by the late author, Andrea Camilleri. Continue reading...
A week of meetings lies ahead – and the wisdom of them largely comes down to whether you judge Russia to be driven by insecurity or expansionismSo high have the stakes been set by Russia over the future security architecture of Europe, and so imminent is the threat of war in Ukraine, that the three separate meetings arranged between Russia and the west this week are drawing comparison with some of the great western-Russian exchanges of the past, from Yalta in 1945 to Paris in 1960, over the future of Berlin, and Reykjavik in 1986.Vladimir Putin, with his keen sense of his place in Russian history, would probably revel in these comparisons. Indeed, the very scheduling of the three meetings – a bilateral security meeting with the US on Monday, a rare meeting of the Nato-Russian Council on Wednesday and an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting on Ukraine on Thursday – is seen by some as a mistake. Continue reading...
Militants opened fire and burned homes in Zamfara state after military airstrikes on hideoutsAt least 200 people are believed to have been killed in villages in the north-western Nigerian state of Zamfara, in some of the deadliest attacks by armed bandits at large in the region.Gunmen, themselves fleeing from airstrikes by the Nigerian army, attacked villages for days, opening fire and burning homes between Tuesday and Thursday. Some residents who fled returned to the villages on Saturday after the military organised mass burials. The state government said 58 people had been killed during the attacks, yet distraught residents reported far higher death tolls. Continue reading...
She has played the Queen and a gangster’s moll but her latest casting has sparked controversyNobody is quite what they seem. And actors? Well, for actors that’s the job. Dame Helen Mirren, as well as being herself for 76 years, has by now notably been Lady Macbeth, a London gangster’s moll, a thief’s wife, an alcoholic cop, an action hero, Prospero and also a British monarch at least four times. Now she takes on Golda Meir, the late prime minister of Israel, in a new biopic, and the casting has caused controversy.The choice of a non-Jewish actor to star as a woman with such a prominent place in the history of Israel has prompted irritation on both sides of the argument. Another illustrious dame, Maureen Lipman, was first to raise the issue – or “blast” Mirren, according to some reports last week – and then Dame Esther Rantzen defended the director’s choice. It is the latest instance of a ‘Jewface’ row, a backlash to the assignment of a major Jewish role to someone not from that minority background. Continue reading...
by Harriet Sherwood Arts and culture correspondent on (#5TTJP)
When George Devine’s family discovered a Japanese battle flag among his belongings, it led to a three-year quest for answers“I am not a man for soldiering, although I do tolerably well at it in a very minor role. But there is nothing about it that pleases me, and much that offends … It is a corrupter of morals in the widest sense and a gross waste of man’s time and effort.”These words were written by George Devine, the actor and founding artistic director of the Royal Court theatre, in a letter to his wife from Burma, where he served in the second world war. The views he expressed reflected what his family – and many in the arts world – regarded as his essential humanity and compassion. Continue reading...
With the economy in freefall and allegations of political interference, people have taken to the streets to advocate for federal futureIn his sun-filled office in north Nicosia, Şener Elcil is plotting his next protest. Anger, he says, is in the air in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.The economy is in freefall, thanks to the self-declared republic’s financial and political dependence on Turkey. Thousands have taken to the streets, spurred by inflation rates that have left many struggling to make ends meet; ahead of parliamentary polls later this month, calls for a boycott are mounting, while a blacklist of Turkish Cypriot dissidents, reportedly drawn up at the behest of Ankara, has spawned consternation and fear. Continue reading...
The new government risks being isolated, particularly in the EU where English remains the working language, warn criticsWhen a new five-party coalition took office in the Czech Republic a week before Christmas, it was expected to herald a reaffirmation of the country’s Europhile and western credentials after years of ambivalence and hedging under an outgoing populist government.Instead, the new administration – headed by Petr Fiala, a former political science professor who replaced the former oligarch Andrej Babiš as prime minister – has found its carefully crafted outward-looking image tarnished by embarrassing revelations about its members’ poor English-speaking skills. Continue reading...
The author is being held after tweets criticising President Yoweri Museveni and his sonUgandan satirical novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, who was named International Writer of Courage by PEN last year, has been illegally detained and tortured for criticising the president and his son, his lawyer said.Gunmen came to the writer’s house on 28 December after a series of tweets about the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, including one calling him a thief and his son and presumed successor “an incompetent pig-headed curmudgeon”. Continue reading...
To Paradise, the new novel from the writer of A Little Life, has been widely hailed as a masterpiece. But where did she get the unflinching eye she turns on America’s idea of itself?Hanya Yanagihara’s debut novel taught her not to give up her day job as a travel writer and editor. The People in the Trees was the story of a scientist jailed for sexually abusing children he adopted during his Nobel-winning research on a Pacific island. It impressed reviewers with its exhaustive inventiveness and its refusal to offer redemption or solace, but sold only a few thousand copies when it was published in 2013.Two years later, the Manhattan-based writer released a novel that was twice as long and even less forgiving. It was about the fallout, among four college friends, from the appalling childhood sexual abuse of one of their group, and it hit the jackpot, becoming one of those vanishingly rare literary break-outs. Victoria Beckham and Dua Lipa declared themselves fans, while an equally passionate group of readers condemned it as gratuitous, even “evil”. A Little Life sold a quarter of a million print copies in the UK alone, where it was shortlisted for the Booker and the Women’s prize for fiction. But far from giving up her day job, Yanagihara took on a bigger one, as editor-in-chief of T, the New York Times style magazine. Continue reading...
Picture of Isabella Clara Eugenia, Infanta of Spain, is likely to be by Sir Anthony van Dyck, finds Courtauld’s reportAs a leading art historian, Christopher Wright has uncovered several old master paintings in public and private collections over five decades. Now he has discovered that a copy of a painting by Sir Anthony van Dyck, which he bought for himself for £65 in 1970, may actually be an original by the 17th-century Flemish court painter to King Charles I.“I bought it from a jobbing dealer in west London,” he said. “I was buying it as a copy, as an art historian. I took no notice of it, in a strange way. The syndrome is the cobbler’s children are the worst shod. So the art historian’s collection is the least looked at.” Wright estimated the painting might be worth around £40,000, although some Van Dycks have fetched seven-figure sums. Continue reading...
World news | The Guardian