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Bill to restrict restaurant, theatre and other access to vaccinated follows Macron’s pledge to ‘piss off’ those without jabs

Australian Open champion is challenging his deportation after the Australian prime minister said officials were ‘following the rules’

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

Aleksandar Vučić says ‘whole of Serbia’ is backing tennis player as debate rages over Australia’s handling of Covid vaccine exemption saga

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...

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...

The woman was allegedly denied entry to a hospital in the city of Xi’an because her negative Covid test was four hours too old

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...

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...

Workplace rules also tightened to require health passes for those 50 or over with minimum €600 fines for non-compliance

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...

Staff may embark on industrial action over Priti Patel’s ‘morally reprehensible’ ploy to turn back refugeesBorder Force officials could strike over Priti Patel’s “morally reprehensible” plans to turn back dinghies in the Channel, a union has said.The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents the vast majority of Border Force staff who would implement the “pushbacks”, has joined forces with the refugee charity Care4Calais to seek a judicial review of the policy, a tactic campaigners warn could put lives at risk. Continue reading...

My aunt Anne Mobbs, who has died aged 84, was a community organiser and activist who was fully committed to promoting social justice.Born into a Jewish family in Tottenham, north London, Anne was one of the five children of Miriam (nee Weinberg), a seamstress, and Nathan Wrightman, a carpenter. She and her two sisters were evacuated to Cornwall during the second world war, and after finishing her schooling she worked in secretarial roles at Granada TV, the BBC World Service and the National Film Theatre. Continue reading...

Asia can teach the UK much about keeping schools open during a pandemic, says Edward Vickers, while Jo Campion warns that deaf pupils are likely to fall behind because of the return of face masks in classComparing the experience of European education systems in handling the Covid-19 pandemic is doubtless instructive (Masks in schools: several EU countries already enforce them in primaries, 3 January). Your article presents the salutary examples of countries such as France, which imposed a mask mandate on all pupils over 11 last November, and Belgium, which since December has required all pupils over six to be masked.However, as an educational comparativist usually based in Japan, I read reports like this while inwardly screaming: “What about east Asia?” There has been some lurid coverage in the UK press of China’s draconian lockdowns. But we see very little discussion of the very different cases of Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, which have managed the pandemic far more effectively than their western counterparts, and with far less disruption to schooling. Continue reading...

Convicted murderer Gioacchino Gammino tracked down in Galapagar, where he had lived undetected for 20 yearsAn Italian mafia boss on the run for 20 years was tracked down to a Spanish town after being spotted on Google Street View.Gioacchino Gammino, a convicted murderer listed among Italy’s most wanted gangsters, was arrested in Galapagar, a town near Madrid, where over the years he had married, changed his name to Manuel, worked as a chef and owned a fruit and vegetable shop. Continue reading...

Sir Keir Starmer seems to have forgotten his principles, writes Keith Flett. How can the Queen be so out of touch, asks Dr Patrick HoyteKeir Starmer, while approving a knighthood for Tony Blair, notes that Iraq remains an issue for many (UK government urged to rescind Tony Blair’s knighthood, 4 January). The problem is that elevating the former prime minister to the Order of the Garter is an official attempt to say that the Iraq war doesn’t matter any more. The current Labour leader had it right when, as a QC and human rights lawyer, he wrote in the Guardian on 17 March 2003 that “flawed advice does not make the unlawful use of force lawful”. Many of us remember the point; it’s a pity Sir Keir seems to have forgotten it.

Asset freezes and visa bans after Dodik’s threat to withdraw Serbs from Bosnian national army and other state-level institutionsThe US has imposed new sanctions on the Bosnian Serb leader, Milorad Dodik, a television station under his control and two other officials for “significant corruption and destabilizing activities”.The sanctions, involving asset freezes and visa bans, follow Dodik’s threat to withdraw Serbs from the Bosnian national army and other state-level institutions, potentially destroying the 1995 Dayton peace treaty and opening the way for a return to conflict. Continue reading...

As well as revealing the full shortlist, newly opened archives show that the 1971 judging panel were concerned the Chilean winner’s politics were ‘incompatible with the purpose of the prize’Pablo Neruda may have won the Nobel prize for literature in 1971, but newly opened archives in Stockholm reveal the judging panel’s concerns about the Chilean poet’s “communist tendencies”.The list of writers in the running for the Nobel prize, and the deliberations of the secretive members of the judging panel at the Swedish Academy, are kept confidential for 50 years. But the newly opened archives show that, although 1971’s winner Neruda was praised by the prize-givers for “a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent’s destiny and dreams”, behind the scenes some members of the Swedish Academy were hesitant. Continue reading...

Thousands of Tigrayan migrants abused and deported from Saudi Arabia are forcibly detained in Ethiopia, Human Rights Watch says

Josep Borrell warns ‘severe costs’ would follow any aggression against Kyiv by Russian-backed separatistsThe European Union’s top diplomat has pledged “full support” to Ukraine on a visit to the frontline of the country’s war with Moscow-backed separatists.Josep Borrell is the first EU high representative for foreign policy to have visited the Donbass region since war broke out nearly eight years ago. Continue reading...

In one of our best Full Story episodes from 2021, we look at the formation of a vibrant and strange genre of music called hyperpop. Its growth has been spurred on by the internet – through Soundcloud, Twitter and now Spotify – and it has been linked to some of the most exciting young artists worldwide.Freelance music writer Shaad D’Souza speaks to Laura Murphy-Oates about the rise of hyperpop and what it tells us about the influence of big corporations such as Spotify.Read more: Continue reading...

Ahmed found guilty of two counts of attempted rape and one of buggery when he was a teenager in 1970sThe former peer Nazir Ahmed has been found guilty of serious sexual assault against a young boy and the attempted rape of a girl when he was a teenager in the 1970s.Ahmed, 64, was found guilty on Wednesday of buggery against a boy in Rotherham, and twice attempting to rape a girl. Buggery was the legal term for the specific sexual assault at the time of the offences. Continue reading...

Pope Francis suggested people who own cats and dogs instead of having children exhibit 'a certain selfishness', during a speech on parenthood and adoption at the Vatican.

Politicians challenge French president on ‘unfit language’ after his vow to put lives of 5 million without Covid jabs ‘in the shit’

Actor says Meir’s Jewishness is ‘integral’ to role and that Ben Kingsley would ‘never be allowed’ to play Nelson MandelaMaureen Lipman has criticised the casting of Helen Mirren as Golda Meir in a forthcoming film about the former Israeli prime minister, saying that the character’s Jewishness is “integral”.In comments reported by the Jewish Chronicle, Lipman said she “disagreed” with Mirren’s casting. She added: “I’m sure [Mirren] will be marvellous, but it would never be allowed for Ben Kingsley to play Nelson Mandela. You just couldn’t even go there.” Continue reading...

Hisham Abu Hawash, who has been held without charge for more than a year, began refusing food in AugustA Palestinian man on a hunger strike in protest against detention without charge has agreed to end his fast after a deal was struck for his release owing to fears of unrest if he died.Hisham Abu Hawash, 40, a construction worker from Dura in the West Bank, had previously served time in an Israeli jail after pleading guilty to terrorism offences related to membership of Islamic Jihad. He was rearrested and has been held without charge or trial for more than a year, and began refusing food in August. Continue reading...

Loan deal could renew pressure on Britain to repatriate ancient Parthenon marbles to AthensItaly is returning a fragment belonging to the Parthenon’s eastern frieze to Greece in a breakthrough deal that could renew pressure on Britain to repatriate the 2,500-year-old Parthenon marbles removed by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century.The marble fragment, which depicts the foot of a goddess, either Peitho or Artemis, peeking out from beneath an elaborate tunic, is currently held at the Antonino Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in Palermo, Sicily. It was originally bought by the University of Palermo from the widow of Robert Fagan, the British consul for Sicily and Malta, after his death in 1816. Continue reading...

‘It was clear that these two had each other in their lives, and that was pretty much it’In the 1970s I lived in SoHo in New York, which is not far from the Bowery, but the two districts were like separate universes. SoHo was full of artists and creative types but the Bowery was known as the place where you ended up when you were at the bottom of the barrel. There were a lot of flophouses and a lot of alcoholism and drug use. It was the darkest place in New York City for a long time.The Bowery Mission is a Christian rescue centre for homeless people. Only men are allowed to stay overnight but it feeds anybody. I used to go there around Thanksgiving and Christmas time to help serve dinner. The face-to-face contact and interactions I had with people meant that I always felt a real connection with them, and it also made me grateful for what I had in my own life. Continue reading...

Nicola Sturgeon softens measures despite record Covid cases after pressure from business

Nasser Sari has grown a huge social media after documenting life in one of the poorest French neighbourhoods. Now he wants to enter national politicsInfluence is not a word readily associated with St Jacques, the Gypsy quarter of the city of Perpignan. Yet, on a recent chilly night shortly before 8pm, the ineffable hand of influence is behind an outbreak of street theatre on the plane tree-lined oblong of Place Cassanyes. People are arriving in droves. By 7.50pm, there must be more than 200, mostly young men, in rowdy clusters. Smoking, yelling, stretching, one group doing can-can legs: it’s like Fast & Furious without the automobiles.One man in a red Adidas tracksuit is trying to line everyone up across the square’s breadth. A beacon in a sea of dark casual-wear, the influencer known as NasDas – St Jacques born and bred – is responsible for this circus. The previous night, NasDas posted to his 1.2 million followers a picture of one of his posse holding up a crinkled €500 bill, followed by footage of a previous Place Cassanyes footrace. Tonight is a rerun, only with a bigger prize. But this time the turnout is far bigger, too. Streaming live on Snapchat, he’s antsy: “On my mother’s life, I didn’t expect this kind of crowd – from Avignon, from Marseille, from everywhere.” Continue reading...

He experienced horrendous abuse in foster care, then suffered terribly years later when the case came to court. Now a police officer, he is determined to change how the system treats survivorsJon Needham looks like a copper. Tall, broad and imposing, he works in a lifetime offender management unit, where he deals with serious and organised criminals. So when he speaks, his gentleness comes as a surprise. “I joined the police because I was passionate about helping people,” he says. “It sounds like a cliche to say you want to make a real difference, but I genuinely mean it.”Needham gets paid for working with “nominals” – people who are on the police database (“That’s what the police call them, I call them people,” he says). But he is also transforming how his colleagues deal with victims of rape and sexual assault. Continue reading...

Yellow warnings issued for band of sleet, hail, snow and lightning that could cause power outages and travel disruptionForecasters say “thundersnow” that could disrupt travel and cause power outages is expected to hit the UK as a band of sleet, hail and snow showers passes through the country.The Met Office issued three yellow warnings for dangerous weather conditions, including lightning strikes from isolated thunderstorms and as much as 10cm of snow falling on the highest ground, from 10am on Thursday until 11am on Friday across Scotland, Wales and northern England.

Bolsonaro said he was discharged on Wednesday, two days after being admitted with intestinal obstructionThe Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been discharged from hospital, two days after being admitted with an intestinal obstruction, his latest health complication from a 2018 stabbing.“Being discharged now. Thank you all,” Bolsonaro posted on Twitter on Wednesday morning alongside a religious message and a photo of himself and his doctors giving a thumbs up. Continue reading...

A writer who had felt shut out from stage plays finds out how Curve Leicester’s A Chorus Line is presented with audio description and a guide to the costumesGrowing up, trips to the theatre for me involved squinting at the stage, unable to follow what was happening. Being partially sighted, plays have felt out of my reach. But now here I am standing on the stage at Curve theatre in Leicester, running my fingers along the delicate gold sequins of a costume for A Chorus Line. There are around a dozen of us at this pre-show talk for visually impaired people, which gives us a chance to familiarise ourselves with the performance we’ll be watching in an hour’s time.Before the pandemic, this pre-show talk would have taken the form of a touch tour, where we’d get to feel more of the costumes and set. Today we can only touch two costumes due to Covid safety precautions, but even through the thin gloves we wear, I can feel the texture, the snag of chiffon and sequins, and see details up close. Our guide, Nadine Beasley for Talking Sense Audio Description Services, tells us how the bright lighting in the show’s finale will make these outfits dazzle. Continue reading...

Pontiff says denial of fatherhood and motherhood diminishes people and takes away their humanityPope Francis risked the ire of the world’s childless dog and cat owners by suggesting people who substitute pets for children exhibit “a certain selfishness”.Speaking on parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican, the pontiff lamented that pets “sometimes take the place of children” in society. Continue reading...

From the Himalayas to Palestine; north London to south Devon, hiking gives the film-maker and climate activist a sense of belongingFrom the age of eight, I attended a little boarding school on the Derbyshire-Staffordshire border where I’d often get in trouble on a Sunday afternoon. The teachers would leave us to roam the edge of the grounds where we were supposed to pass time making fires, toasting marshmallows or playing cricket but my habit was to set out over the fences and stiles into the landscape and often, much to the teachers’ chagrin, no one knew where to find me.That was the point. To stand on unfamiliar ground and, for a moment, feel the world as something new brought with it a feeling I would crave and it formed a habit that stuck with me. By my mid-20s, I was a committed pedestrian, buoyed up by a privileged encounter on the streets of Whitechapel with east London’s resident visionary, Iain Sinclair, who warned against the underground as a way of getting around the city. He likened its subterranean networks to rabbit warrens that would cut us off from instinct and make it hard for us to know where (or who) we really are. Continue reading...

Forced from their homes by missionaries, the Ayoreo cling on in the Chaco. Now the Bioceanic Corridor cuts through the fastest-vanishing forest on Earth, refuge of some of the Americas’ last hunter-gatherersIn 1972, Catholic missionaries entered the Chaco forest of northern Paraguay and forced Oscar Pisoraja’s family, and their nomadic Ayoreo people, to leave with them. Many perished from thirst on the long march south. Settled near the village of Carmelo Peralta on the Paraguay River, dozens more died from illnesses. Still, the survivors kept up some traditions – hunting for armadillos; weaving satchels from the spiky caraguatá plant. “We felt part of this place,” says Pisoraja, now 51.Today, his community – and other indigenous peoples across the Chaco, a tapestry of swamp, savanna and thorny forest across four countries that is South America’s largest ecosystem after the Amazon – are confronting a dramatic new change.Mario Abdo Benítez, Paraguay’s president, and Reinaldo Azambuja Silva, governor of Mato Grosso do Sul state in Brazil, at the site of a new bridge across the Paraguay River, due to be completed in 2024 Continue reading...

The island nation struggles to keep the lights on but has inoculated 90% of population with home-developed vaccinesGeneral Máximo Gómez, a key figure in Cuba’s 19th-century wars of independence against Spain once said: “Cubans either don’t meet the mark – or go way past it.”A century and a half later, the aphorism rings true. This downtrodden island struggles to keep the lights on, but has now vaccinated more of its citizens against Covid-19 than any of the world’s major nations. Continue reading...

Support for España Vaciada in villages such as Milmarcos could threaten the old ruling duopolyJudith Iturbe grimaces as she thinks about August and what it means for the residents and rhythms of Milmarcos.At the height of summer, the population of this small and beautiful Spanish village, which sits close to Castilla-La Mancha’s border with Aragón, rises from just 44 to about 1,000. Continue reading...

Online video shows man claiming he is putting health secretary on notice for ‘harming’ people in BritainA 60-year-old man has been charged after reports of an anti-vaccine protest outside the health secretary’s London home.A video posted online appears to show a person delivering a letter with an anti-Covid-vaccine message to what they claimed was Sajid Javid’s home in Fulham, south-west London. Continue reading...

More than 6 million people with a concession card will be given 10 free rapid antigen tests over the next three months as Australia reports 64,000 cases

Manchester Airports Group and Airlines UK say such a move would not affect spread of Omicron

Sotrovimab must be given within five days of symptoms appearing, but doctors warn at-risk patients may not be identified in time