Bottega’s famous shade is the chic, punchy, sustainable colour of nowIt doesn’t take a genius to see why green feels aspirational at the precise moment in history when we humans finally seem to be twigging that a green future is the only future that is going to exist. Green is good. Green is the zeitgeist. So, what to wear? Green – but make it fashion.The expression “but make it fashion” means to add a splash of showbiz, but also a hit of sharpness. A dash of syrup, plus a squeeze of lime. If the taste is too vanilla, that’s not fashion. Which is how we have ended up with a colour-of-the-moment that symbolises nature, but actually looks a bit synthetic. The green that is everywhere right now is a flat, saturated, straightforward green. It is not the colour of moss or of olives or of sea foam. Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent on (#5TRT5)
Liz Truss and Simon Coveney meetup comes before talks on protocol with EU Brexit negotiatorThe UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and her Irish counterpart, Simon Coveney, have had a “good and friendly” first meeting over the vexed issue of the Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland, Irish government sources have said.They met for the first time over dinner in London on Thursday night and discussed the Northern Ireland protocol, the wider relationship with the EU, and UN security matters including the crisis in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Continue reading...
‘Like thousands of Australians, I tested positive today to Covid-19,’ Frydenberg tweeted, as the country reported a record 78,000 casesAustralia’s treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, has tested positive to Covid-19, he announced late on Friday.As the country deals with a massive rise in case numbers due to the spread of the Omicron variant, with more than 78,000 Covid cases reported in a single day on Friday, Frydenberg tweeted the news that he had joined the statistics. Continue reading...
New book by firebrand author features a Macron-like outgoing leader as well as real-life figures including far-right Éric ZemmourWith the French presidential campaign under way, one of the country’s most provocative writers, Michel Houellebecq, is back with a novel closely linked to the forthcoming election. The 65-year-old author of Atomised and Platform releases the French edition of his 730-page novel Anéantir (Destroy) on Friday, with a sizeable first print run of 300,000 copies.Anéantir begins during a fictional presidential election campaign in 2027. Marine Le Pen has stepped down as leader of the National Rally but far-right candidate Éric Zemmour is still sparking controversy. President Emmanuel Macron is another real-life figure who, while not named, seems to feature, as is Bruno Le Maire, the current economy minister. Le Maire, a friend of Houellebecq, is the inspiration for Bruno Juge, one of the story’s protagonists. Continue reading...
As companies extract wealth, villagers say they see little benefit and are instead exploited in quarries, live in homes damaged by blasts and are unable to farm polluted landA convoy of trucks laden with huge black granite rocks trundles along the dusty pathway as a group of villagers look on grimly.Every day more than 60 trucks take granite for export along this rugged road through Nyamakope village in the district of Mutoko, 90 miles east of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. Continue reading...
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev calls protesters ‘bandits and terrorists’ and says use of force will continueKazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, has said he personally gave the order to security forces and army to “open fire with lethal force” against protesters he called “bandits and terrorists”.In an uncompromising address on Friday, Tokayev said lethal force without warning would continue to be used against violent demonstrators, and also blamed “so-called free media outlets” for helping fan unrest. Continue reading...
After 75 years of performing live – including in mid-century minstrel shows – Rush’s joyful ‘folk funk’ is finally attracting wide acclaim. He talks about his tough childhood, his feud with James Brown and staying true to his Black audience
Nearly half the female prisoners in Argentina are serving time for drug possession. Photographer Magalí Druscovich visited the Unit 47 prison in Buenos Aires to find out their stories
Exclusive: Measure needed in light of judicial commission’s findings about role of firm, says Lord HainBoris Johnson should bar Bain & Company from lucrative government contracts in light of a judicial commission’s findings about the management consultancy’s “despicable” role in state corruption in South Africa, Peter Hain has said.In a letter shared with the Guardian, the former Labour minister and anti-apartheid campaigner urged Johnson to “immediately freeze all government contracts with Bain” and to advise all public bodies to do the same. Continue reading...
Decision to close public hammams – most people’s only chance for a warm wash – sparks anger in light of country’s mounting crisesThe Taliban sparked outrage this week by announcing that women in northern Afghanistan would no longer be allowed to use communal bathhouses.The use of bathhouses, or hammams, is an ancient tradition that remains for many people the only chance for a warm wash during the country’s bitterly cold winters. Continue reading...
In 2022 Jacinda Ardern must act on runaway house prices while the central bank should grab inflation by the neckMarch 2020 seems like an age ago. And also like it was yesterday. The month begun more or less like any other March in New Zealand. The weather was typically warm and dry, most people were back in the office or on site, and parliament was sitting after its generous summer recess. In most respects you could mistake March 2020 for March 2019. Except, on 4 March, the country recorded its second coronavirus case after a woman returning from northern Italy, where this strange virus had taken hold, presented with the infection at the border. The number of infections increased again and again as the month unfolded with 647 come 1 April.In the early days of March, government advisers and prime minister Jacinda Ardern were aiming, like the rest of the world, for either “herd immunity” or “flattening the curve”. But when the government’s chief science adviser presented advice on precisely what this meant for the health system – a quick collapse, essentially – Ardern went for the approach her advisers at the universities of Otago and Auckland were advocating: elimination. On 25 March the prime minister made her way to parliament’s debating chamber and in a historic speech announced a national state of emergency and a move to an alert level 4 lockdown. The speech helped generate unprecedented national solidarity. Continue reading...
Memorials to dictator are defended even by those who suffered; they want new generations to know he fostered island’s prosperity and independenceFred Chin fumbles with the combination lock on an old metal gate, the bright turquoise marred by rust spots and grime. On the other side is a long dark corridor and rows of cells. It was here that Chin was detained, tried and sentenced to 12 years in an offshore jail by the totalitarian regime that ruled Taiwan for almost 40 years.“In one and a half years I left this room four times,” says the now 72-year-old, gesturing to the whitewashed walls. “Three times for court, and the last time when I was sent to Green Island. 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, the door was closed.” Continue reading...
Other creators are on edge after arrest of influencer Titus Low, concerned their income streams could soon disappear because of ‘outdated’ laws“Technically, I would guess that 80% of people are criminals according to that law since most of us have downloaded porn before, or if you’ve ever sent a dirty pic to your partner, that too is a crime.”One OnlyFans content creator, who goes by the online handle LucyToday, is among the many in Singapore who fear what the future holds after police decided to charge fellow creator and influencer Titus Low Kaide with transmitting what the police alleged were “obscene materials”. It is the first time an OnlyFans creator has faced prosecution in Singapore for sharing such content via the platform, according to local media. Continue reading...
Company fined 50,000 yuan for ‘errors’ including failing to use China’s names for disputed South China Sea islandsBeijing has fined and issued a warning to 7-Eleven over its website listing Taiwan as a country and displaying maps it said contained erroneous borders for Xinjiang and Tibet.The Beijing municipal government fined the company 50,000 yuan ($7,842) for the “errors” including “wrongful act of assigning Taiwan province as an independent country”. Continue reading...
John Gonsalves wrote to his mother when he was stationed in Germany in 1945 but the letter would be lost until this yearA letter sent from a US soldier stationed in Germany to his mother in Massachusetts has been delivered 76 years after it was sent.Army Sgt John Gonsalves, 22 at the time, wrote to his mother in Woburn in December 1945 after the official end of the second world war, WFXT-TV reported Wednesday. Continue reading...
Freedom of the press might be included in some constitutions of Pacific countries, but it often only works in theoryI spent five years as the lone journalist on the remote Pacific island of Yap. During that time I was harassed, spat at, threatened with assassination and warned that I was being followed. The tyres on my car were slashed late one night.There was also pressure on the political level. The chiefs of the traditional Council of Pilung (COP) asked the state legislature to throw me out of the country as a “persona non grata” claiming that my journalism “may be disruptive to the state environment and/or to the safety and security of the state”. Continue reading...
Two other paramedics suffered serious injuries in collision with a cement lorry near Tonbridge, KentTributes have been paid to a 21-year-old paramedic who died after her ambulance was involved in a crash with a cement lorry in Kent.Alice Clark’s parents praised her as a “beautiful, kind, fun-loving daughter” who will be missed “more than words can say” while a colleague described her as “kind and dedicated”. Continue reading...
Zacatecas governor says bodies of people left in front of palace near Christmas tree showed apparent signs of beating and bruisingAn SUV filled with 10 bodies was left outside the office of a Mexican state governor in a public square lit up with holiday decorations, officials said on Thursday.The bodies were crammed into a Mazda SUV left before dawn near a Christmas tree in the main plaza of the state capital of Zacatecas. Continue reading...
Friday: Novak Djokovic’s time in immigration detention highlights plight of refugees held in same hotel. Plus: Norfolk Island grapples with its first Covid casesGood morning. Novak Djokovic awaits his Australian Open fate in a Melbourne immigration hotel. New South Wales hospitals are anticipating Covid-related admissions to triple. And deadly protests in Kazakhstan has hampered the bitcoin network.Novak Djokovic is awaiting his Australian Open fate in a Melbourne immigration hotel as he mounts a legal challenge against Australia’s decision to cancel his visa. Djokovic’s lawyers succeeded in a bid to stop him from being deported on Thursday with a full hearing in the federal court now scheduled for Monday. The tennis champion spent eight hours detained at Melbourne airport overnight before Australian Border Force officials announced he had been denied entry into the country on Thursday morning. They cited a failure to meet Australia’s Covid vaccination exemption requirements. Djokovic’s wrangling with authorities over entering Australia has inadvertently highlighted a different plight: those of the refugees and asylum seekers stuck for months, and years, at the Park Hotel which has been described by detainees as a “torture cell”. The Serbian president has accused Australia of “maltreatment” of the tennis star and Djokovic’s family said he is the victim of “a political agenda” aimed at “stomping on Serbia”. Continue reading...
The writer-director’s death at 82 leaves behind a legacy of impactful films, from The Last Picture Show to Mask, and also a deep love of the craftPeter Bogdanovich was the blazing night-sky comet of the New Hollywood generation whose trajectory got knocked off course a little, by personal tragedy and the contingencies of show business, but kept hurtling onwards with brilliant work and passionate cinephilia to the very end. His first four hits, Targets (1968) The Last Picture Show (1971), What’s Up Doc? (1972) and Paper Moon (1973) were somehow both thrillingly and authentically modern and yet also instantly belonged to the classic pantheon. With the touch of restless young genius, he seemed to reinvent pulp crime, the western, the road-movie and the screwball comedy – in short order.I remember Bogdanovich in 2018, frail and unwell as he then reportedly was, dominating the Venice Film Festival with two important movies showing there: his superb documentary about Buster Keaton (whose reputation and importance he typically boosted for the 21st century) and his edited, “salvaged” account of Orson Welles’s lost, sprawling movie The Other Side Of The Wind, in which Bogdanovich himself starred, satirising the trauma of the Hollywood old guard in having the baton prised from their grasp by the young Turks. And Bogdanovich sat at Welles’s feet, the way Truffaut sat at Hitchcock’s, and perhaps consciously assumed the mantle of the sorcerer’s apprentice, although learned the way all Welles’s associates learned, how capricious and hurtful Welles could be. But in his later years, taking a creative comfort in well-crafted comedy in the classic Hollywood style, he found himself being supported and bankrolled by younger protégés like Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach who were as awestruck by Bogdanovich as he himself once was of John Ford and Howard Hawks.
Amelia Gentleman honoured for coverage of Windrush scandal and Guardian for Panama Papers investigationThe Guardian has been awarded investigation and journalist of the decade in relation to articles on offshore finance and the Windrush scandal.The awards were made by the media industry publication Press Gazette to mark 10 years of its British Journalism Awards ceremony. Past attendees and newsletter subscribers were asked to vote. Continue reading...
Legal experts say new law would mean all cases about monument damage go before juriesThe acquittal of the Colston Four raises questions about new laws imposing 10-year jail terms for the toppling of statues, legal experts have said.On Wednesday, three men and a woman who helped pull down a monument to the slave trader Edward Colston at a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest were found not guilty by a jury on the grounds that they had a lawful excuse. Continue reading...
by Mark Brown North of England correspondent on (#5TQSF)
Neil Cole’s Museum of Classic Sci-Fi, hosted in cellar of his Allendale townhouse, holds costumes and props from numerous TV classicsAt first glance the Northumberland village of Allendale, with its pub and post office and random parking, is like hundreds of sleepy, charming villages across the UK. It’s the Dalek that suggests something out of the ordinary.Behind the Dalek is a four-storey Georgian townhouse. In the cellar of the house is a remarkable and unlikely collection of more than 200 costumes, props and artwork telling classic sci-fi stories of Doctor Who, Blake’s 7, Star Trek, Flash Gordon, Marvel and many more. Continue reading...
Travel agent and lawyers for 80 people agree undisclosed amount after 2015 Tunisian beach attack that left 38 deadDozens of Britons who lost loved ones and survivors of a terror attack at a Tunisian resort have reached a settlement with the travel company Tui, after launching a multimillion pound compensation case.The settlement for an undisclosed amount was reached “without admission of liability or fault”, according to a joint statement issued by the operator and a law firm acting on behalf of families, who had alleged that there was poor hotel security at the resort. Continue reading...
Saudi authorities accused of trying to cover up cause of explosion which left Philippe Boutron badly injuredA French rally driver who was seriously injured in an explosion in Jeddah last week has emerged from a coma, while his team have claimed Saudi Arabian authorities are trying to cover up the cause of the incident.Philippe Boutron sustained serious injuries in the blast outside a hotel near Jeddah’s international airport a week ago. The explosion damaged a support vehicle he was driving for the Sodicars Racing team that was competing in the Dakar rally. Continue reading...
Footage taken on the streets of Kazakhstan's biggest city, Almaty, appears to show guns being fired as unrest continues. Initially angered by a fuel price rise, protesters have been storming buildings and chanting against President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbayev. State buildings have been torched and eight security personnel reported dead in the demonstrations. The internet was shut down and peacekeepers from a Russian-led alliance of former Soviet states will be sent to Kazakhstan to help stabilise the country
NRC, which was accused of spreading ‘misinformation’, says it will struggle to reach those in need as Tigray conflict enters third yearEthiopia has lifted a five-month suspension of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s aid work after it cleared the organisation of allegations of spreading “misinformation”.The government ordered the NRC, along with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), to stop work for three months in July, including operations in the Tigray conflict zone. Both organisations were ordered to stop their humanitarian work in July but while MSF’s suspension was lifted in October, the NRC’s was extended. Continue reading...
Imperial War Museums exhibition will explore long-term legacy of the UK’s 1982 conflict with ArgentinaStriking images taken during the Falkland Islands conflict will go on display together for the first time in a new Imperial War Museums (IWM) exhibition which aims to highlight the long-term legacy of war.The photographs, by Paul Haley for the British army’s Soldier magazine, will feature alongside other exhibits, including online films, to mark the 40th anniversary of the 10-week undeclared 1982 war, with a focus on new awareness of its impact. Continue reading...
by Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor on (#5TQ8Q)
Rights charity Reprieve seeks answers from MoD over death of Abu Hamza al-Shuhail in Syria in OctoberBritain has been accused of reviving a policy of “targeted killing” after it emerged that the RAF had killed an arms dealer linked to Islamic State in a precision drone strike in Syria at the end of October.Reprieve, a human rights charity, asked “what are the criteria” used to justify who can be targeted in a “track and kill” drone strike, and called on ministers to tell the Commons why this strike was deemed necessary. Continue reading...
by Vincent Ni China affairs correspondent on (#5TQ81)
Only two PE teachers available to coach 2,600 students in one school, according to Chinese mediaTan Lili, the principal of Shanghai’s Baoshan No 2 central primary school, has been wrestling with a problem in recent months: her school does not have enough physical education teachers.She is not alone. Since China embarked in 2021 on a nationwide campaign to reduce academic pressures on children and increase the amount of active time they spent outdoors, primary and middle schools across the country have been struggling. In one school, according to Chinese media, only two PE teachers are available to coach 2,600 students. Continue reading...
by Sarah Martin Chief political correspondent on (#5TQ5J)
Scott Morrison refuses Serbian request to reconsider deporting the tennis starThe decision to deport tennis star Novak Djokovic has sparked diplomatic fallout, with the prime minister, Scott Morrison, dismissing pleas from the Serbian government for Australia to reconsider the move.Speaking after the Australian Border Force decision on Thursday, Morrison revealed that diplomats from the Serbian embassy in Canberra had made formal representations to Australia about the decision to deport Djokovic for failing to meet vaccine exemption requirements. Continue reading...
Launch was detected by militaries in the region, and was criticised by South Korea, Japan and the USNorth Korea test fired a “hypersonic missile” this week that successfully hit a target, state news agency KCNA reported on Thursday, as the country pursues new military capabilities amid stalled denuclearisation talks.The launch on Wednesday was the first by North Korea since October and was detected by several militaries in the region, drawing criticism from governments in the United States, South Korea, and Japan. Continue reading...
by Presented by Rowena Mason with Sonia Sodha, Peter on (#5TPWX)
Rowena Mason and Sonia Sodha look at the problems facing the NHS and schools, as the government lifts some restrictions. Plus, Peter Walker, Jon Henley and Severin Carrell look at how Westminster’s Covid-19 plan differs from the rest of the UK and Europe. Continue reading...
Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford, Sage Willoughby and Jake Skuse found not guilty over act of public dissent during Bristol protestAnti-racism campaigners tonight hailed a jury’s decision to clear protesters responsible for toppling a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston as a huge step in getting the UK to face up to its colonial past.Jake Skuse 33, Rhian Graham, 30, Milo Ponsford, 26, and Sage Willoughby, 22, did not dispute the roles they had played in pulling down the statue and throwing it in the River Avon during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest but all denied criminal damage. Continue reading...
Thursday: World no 1 Novak Djokovic held at Melbourne airport after being granted an exemption to play in the Australian Open. Plus: a guide to standup paddleboardingGood morning. Novak Djokovic spends hours at Melbourne airport over visa mix-up, data confirms Donald Trump’s enduring hold over vast sections of America and Covid concerns in a Sydney nursing home.The world No 1 men’s tennis player Novak Djokovic has been held at passport control in Melbourne for several hours, throwing fresh doubt over his participation at the Australian Open. It comes after the reigning Australian Open champion was announced he had been granted a Covid-19-related “medical exemption” by tournament organisers. Scott Morrison has said there would be no “special rules” for the Serbian, and if he failed to provide sufficient evidence to support his medical exemption the 20-time Grand Slam champion will be “on the next plane home”. Djokovic has refused to reveal his Covid vaccine status and has been an outspoken opponent of vaccination for the coronavirus. Continue reading...
Canadians will receive 140m rapid tests for free throughout January, Justin Trudeau saysCanadians will receive 140m rapid tests for free throughout January, Justin Trudeau announced on Wednesday, as the country struggles to cope with record-breaking Covid case numbers.“With the speed at which Omicron is propagating through our communities and through our country, it makes sense to have rapid testing,” said the prime minister. Continue reading...
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