Thousands are still at the Taliban’s mercy in Afghanistan, and expert warns that ‘politically expedient’ initiative may now witherPriti Patel’s much-trumpeted scheme to allow Afghans to resettle in Britain has been starved of “appropriate resources”, according to officials, as a former senior diplomat voices fears that the UK government appears intent to let the initiative wither away before it has even started.The Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) was announced to great fanfare in August as the Taliban took Kabul, but four months on it has still not started. A senior Whitehall source with intimate knowledge of the scheme said it had been delayed because it had not received adequate support for it to launch. Continue reading...
by Rachel Stevenson in Fowey, Cornwall on (#5SYS2)
RNLI crews risk their lives daily helping people in British waters – regardless of where they might come from. We meet one of the new generation of life saversHurtling into town on a bike in the small hours of the morning wearing a tiger onesie might not be that unusual for the average 21-year-old. But if Amelia Luck from Fowey, Cornwall, is doing it, she isn’t rushing to a party or a rave – she is heading to the lifeboat station, responding to an emergency call-out that can come at any time of day or night.“When you hear that beep from the pager, your heart does a little jump and, well, you just run, no matter what time it is. You don’t know what situation you’re going to, you just go,” she said. Continue reading...
Roasted by critics for being clichéd and inane, the romcom is due to return with a ‘more mature’ heroineWhen Emily first came to Paris this time last year, it was a dark day for critics in the City of Light, who dismissed it as being full of tired cliches.Now the young woman from Chicago that the French loved to hate is back for a second season of the Netflix show Emily in Paris. This time she may have a better reception from Parisians; surprisingly, they seem to be growing fond of her. Continue reading...
Appeal Court to hear cases of individuals imprisoned on smuggling chargesThe UK government is facing a major legal challenge against its policy of prosecuting asylum seekers who steer boats across the Channel under smuggling laws.Since the start of 2020, Immigration Enforcement has brought 67 successful prosecutions related to piloting small boats. But after court challenges earlier in the year, the Crown Prosecution Service issued new guidance advising that passengers – even those who take a turn steering – are potentially vulnerable asylum seekers who should not be prosecuted. Continue reading...
This year’s Guardian and Observer campaign supports charities fighting global climate injustice. Here, we look at Practical Action, which helps small farms in Bangladesh
Riz Ahmed has never been afraid of a challenge – he famously learned drumming and sign language for his role in Sound of Metal. But his most fearless performance? Taking on Hollywood…This summer, Riz Ahmed took aim at Hollywood and the wider film industry. In a speech that was somehow both measured and searingly furious, the British actor called out the “toxic portrayals” of Muslim characters in TV and movies. Using research that he was directly involved in commissioning, Ahmed showed how Muslims, who make up almost a quarter of the world’s population, are either “invisible or villains” in our screen entertainment. He said that this omission resulted not just in “lost audiences” but “lost lives” because of the “dehumanising and demonising” ways that Muslims were often depicted. In fact, Ahmed noted, some of the most prestigious and awards-laden releases of recent years were “frankly racist”: specifically The Hurt Locker and Argo, both of which won best picture at the Oscars, and Marvel’s Black Panther, which earned more than $1bn at the box office.The speech in June, which launched an initiative called the Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion, was many things: timely, vital and, for some, eye-opening. But mainly, on Ahmed’s part, it felt brave, even risky. Actors typically don’t take potshots at their paymasters, the studios. They almost never single out specific, very successful films for criticism. Continue reading...
Rachel Zegler’s Maria alone justifies this handsome update of the classic Broadway musical hits – though not everyone is a perfect fitDo we really need a remake of West Side Story? Having won 10 Oscars (a record for a musical), including best picture, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’s 1961 screen incarnation of the 1957 Broadway musical hit remains a much-loved and much-watched “classic”; a self-consciously streetwise affair with weapons-grade earworm tunes and choreography that kids would try to mimic in school playgrounds for decades. Yet even the most ardent fan of the original would have to admit that time has not been kind to the sight of Natalie Wood playing a Latina. Hooray, then, for screen newcomer Rachel Zegler, who landed the lead role of Maria from an open casting call, and whose vibrantly natural performance almost singlehandedly justifies this “reimagining” from director Steven Spielberg.The story, which transposes the star-crossed lovers of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet from Renaissance-era Verona to postwar New York, hardly needs rehearsing. Suffice to say that Spielberg’s version opens with what could be an outtake from the later stages of Saving Private Ryan – an aerial view of what looks like a bomb site, over which a wrecking ball ominously hangs. This is the stamping ground of the Jets, the white gang fighting a turf war with their sworn Puerto Rican enemies, the Sharks. Continue reading...
Dr Rebecca Gomperts made waves providing abortion in international waters around the world. Now she’s prepared to help American womenIt’s Sunday morning, less than a week after the US supreme court signaled that it was ready to pave the way for new restrictions on abortion rights in the US, and I’m on the phone with a Dutch abortion provider who has watched the proceedings from half a world away.Dr Rebecca Gomperts tells me that she’s shocked with the situation in Texas, which recently enacted a near total ban on legal abortion – not because the state government passed the law, but because doctors in the state are largely complying with it. Continue reading...
The son of Oliver Postgate, creator of the 1970s show, reveals what was in the scripts for the delightful and puzzling swannee-whistle creaturesWhen Oliver Postgate, the late maestro of children’s television programmes, first invited young viewers to travel with him “in our imaginations across the vast starry stretches of outer space”, he was introducing many of them to a lifeform they would never forget: the Clanger.These little pink, knitted, nozzle-nosed aliens, Postgate suggested, were really rather like us, living out their lives on the “small planet wrapped in clouds” they called home. Now it has emerged they were much more like us than we thought. Continue reading...
The cable news giant spent lavishly on its primetime star until it emerged he had helped his brother respond to a billowing scandalCNN found itself at the center of the US news cycle this week, after its primetime host Chris Cuomo was abruptly fired for helping to shape the response of his brother, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo to multiple accusations of sexual harassment.The younger sibling, 51, lost three jobs in as many days – as CNN host, Sirius satellite radio jock, and a contract for a book provisionally titled Deep Denial – and now faces an investigation by outside lawyers for CNN, while the elder Cuomo, 64, faces a justice department investigation stemming from a damning report issued by New York’s attorney general. Continue reading...
The former chief of staff has written the most consequential Trump book – if not, thanks to the revelation of the great Covid cover-up, in quite the way he planned. In contrast, McEnany, Navarro and Atlas just play fast and loose with the truthThe Chief’s Chief is the most consequential book on the Trump presidency. In his memoir, Mark Meadows confesses to possibly putting Joe Biden’s life in jeopardy and then covering it up – all in easily digested prose and an unadorned voice. If nothing else, the book has provided plenty of ammunition for Donald Trump to have concluded that Meadows “betrayed” him.Trump has trashed The Chief’s Chief as “fake news”, derided Meadows as “fucking stupid”, and falsely claimed that the book “confirmed” that he “did not have Covid before or during the debate”. Continue reading...
PM faces mounting challenge to authority over plan B restrictions at the same time as a once safe seat hangs on a knife edgeBoris Johnson is facing the most testing week of his troubled premiership as a mounting Tory rebellion over new Covid-19 restrictions threatens his authority in parliament and a supposedly safe Conservative seat appears on a knife-edge ahead of a byelection on Thursday.After a tumultuous week for the prime minister, which saw him having to apologise over the way his officials joked about a rule-busting Christmas party in Downing Street last year and deny that he had misled his own standards adviser over the refurbishment of his flat in Downing Street, even some of his most loyal supporters are now privately raising questions about his chances of leading the party into the next general election. Continue reading...
After counselling you may feel strong enough to let your mum back into your life – on your terms and with your boundariesThe question Several times in my childhood I was sexually abused by different men, starting from age six. I was raised as the oldest child of a single mum who often struggled to cope. Having also raised kids on my own – both are now adults – I understand the challenges and exhaustions of sole parenting. However, I don’t understand a number of neglectful decisions she made, including leaving one or all of us in the care of unknown adults or, worse, adults who were suspected of abusive behaviour, for overnight stays.Understanding that Mum is emotionally vulnerable has meant my siblings and I don’t raise these issues with her in the interests of keeping the peace. Even so, in recent years Mum has made a habit of raising the issue of my assaults unprompted, to explain that she wasn’t a bad parent. Or she will invoke a conversation about how she was a good mother, then she brings up a traumatic incident that she insists wasn’t her fault. Continue reading...
Australia says it is ‘not a party’ to case and will ‘respect the UK legal process’ after court clears way for WikiLeaks co-founder’s extradition to USThe Australian government is staring down calls to intervene to secure Julian Assange’s freedom, after a British court cleared the way for the WikiLeaks co-founder to be extradited to the US to face espionage charges.The government said it was monitoring the Australian citizen’s case closely, but would “continue to respect the UK legal process – including any further appeals under UK law” – and emphasised Australia was “not a party to the case”. Continue reading...
by Nadeem Badshah (now); Lucy Campbell (earlier) on (#5SXZR)
UK health officials urge those eligible to get third vaccine dose; Taiwan and Mauritius detect first cases of new variantWhat’s the truth about lockdown-busting parties at No 10? Don’t ask Shagatha Christie, writes Marina Hyde in her column this week.Here are some extracts:There was simply no other place a Johnson government would ever end up but mired in rampant lies, chaos, negligence, financial sponging and the live evisceration of public service. To the Conservatives and media outriders somehow only now discovering this about their guy, I think we have to say: you ordered this. Now eat it.Regrettably, though, space constraints must end our recap of the week here. But on it all goes, as Omicron closes in. We’ll play out with a reminder that in a pandemic that has so far killed 146,000 of the Britons who these people are supposed to be in politics to serve, the absolutely vital public health message has now TWICE been most fatally undermined by people who worked at the very heart of No 10 with Boris Johnson. That is absolutely a disgrace, and absolutely not a coincidence. Continue reading...
Shattering depiction of Srebrenica massacre pips Florian Zeller’s The Father to top prizeThe Father, Florian Zeller’s disorientating and poignant dementia drama starring Anthony Hopkins, won best actor and best screenplay at this year’s European film awards – but was ultimately pipped to best film by Quo Vadis, Aida?, a shattering depiction of the calamitous 1992 UN attempt to prevent the Srebrenica massacre.Bosnian film-maker Jasmila Žbanić also won best director for the film – a pan-European endeavour involving 12 production companies from nine countries – while Jasna Đuričić won best actress for her performance as the beleaguered UN interpreter trying to save her family from being ethnically cleansed with other Muslims by Bosnian-Serb paramilitaries. Continue reading...
Web forums share locations of centres offering younger people coronavirus vaccinesYoung people not currently eligible for the Covid-19 booster jab have been receiving vaccinations from walk-in centres, clinics and pharmacies across the country that have chosen to ignore official government guidance.On online forums, under-40s have been suggesting to each other the places offering boosters to all over-18s. On Reddit, nearly 25,000 people are a member of the UK community GetJabbed, where they are sharing locations of clinics in cities including London, Manchester and Liverpool offering boosters to younger people. Continue reading...
Far-right José Antonio Kast and left-wing Gabriel Boric in tight race amid divided political landscapeChile’s presidential race is hurtling towards its conclusion with the two remaining candidates battling to secure moderate votes in a deeply divided political landscape.Far-right candidate José Antonio Kast secured a two-point victory in November’s first round, but polls show that Gabriel Boric – the leftwing former student leader he will face in the 19 December runoff – now holds a narrow lead. Continue reading...
Gulf regime accused of using glamour of show business to to distract attention from rights abuses within the country and beyondSaudi Arabia has opened its first international film festival amid accusations that the government is using culture to whitewash its poor human rights record, just days after similar controversy shadowed its first time hosting a Formula One race.The Red Sea festival attracted international stars including Hilary Swank, Clive Owen and Vincent Cassel. Saudi Arabia presented it as a moment of change for a country that only lifted a ban on cinemas four years ago, a position embraced by some of those walking the red carpet. Continue reading...
The cooperation fostered by Jacinda Ardern is in stark contrast to Australia’s political disunity and dysfunctional federationPre-Covid, when international travel was still common, many Kiwi travellers received a similar question wherever they happened to be around the globe: Jacinda Ardern, is she the real deal?The New Zealand prime minister’s devotion to a new breed of politics, one rooted in “kindness”, “compassion” and “cooperation” often seemed too saccharine to be true, especially at a time when a series of notorious bullies were voted into positions of power around the globe. Continue reading...
by Edward Helmore in New York and agencies on (#5SYBP)
Kentucky was hardest hit as four tornadoes, including a massive storm, devastated a town and collapsed a factory buildingSeven central and southern US states were picking up the pieces Saturday after a series of powerful tornadoes intensified by severe storms ripped across the region, leaving an estimated 70 to 100 people dead.Kentucky was hardest hit as four tornadoes, including a massive storm, devastated Mayfield, a small town 134 miles (215 km) north-west of Nashville, Tennessee. A candle factory partially collapsed when the tornado struck on Friday evening. Continue reading...
Officers were called after man with a gun was seen entering a bank and bookmakers in west LondonA man has died after sustaining gunshot wounds in an incident involving armed officers, close to Kensington Palace in London, the Metropolitan police has said.Officers were called to reports of a man with a firearm seen to enter a bank and bookmakers in Marloes Road, west London, shortly after 3pm on Saturday, Scotland Yard said. Continue reading...
MPs’ inquiry given further details of Britain’s mismanagement of Afghanistan exit with ‘people left to die at the hands of the Taliban’Further evidence alleging that the government seriously mishandled the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been handed to a parliamentary inquiry examining the operation, the Observer has been told.Details from several government departments and agencies are understood to back damning testimony from a Foreign Office whistleblower, who has claimed that bureaucratic chaos, ministerial intervention, and a lack of planning and resources led to “people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban”. Continue reading...
After the comfort food and rituals, Britons are embracing more traditions, such as the festival of Santa LuciaFrom Ikea to meatballs, hygge to Nordic noir, Scandinavia’s influence on the UK has been rising steadily for decades. But this Christmas, amid the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit, enthusiasm for the region and its traditions is hitting new heights.Scandinavian goods distributor ScandiKitchen closed online Christmas orders early this year after unprecedented demand for festive products including meatballs, glögg (mulled wine), pepparkakor (ginger biscuits), chocolate, ham and cheese. Continue reading...
Harriet Harman launches appeal for information on 32-year-old Czech national who was last seen on 28 NovemberA missing children’s hospital worker is believed to have disappeared on her way home from work, police said on Saturday, as Labour MP Harriet Harman launched an appeal for information on her constituent.Petra Srncova, 32, a senior nurse assistant at Evelina London children’s hospital in Westminster, was reported missing on 3 December by a concerned colleague, and officers are intensifying their efforts to try to find her. Continue reading...
The writer and actor puts the ghoul into yule with screen and stage roles reprising haunting classics from Charles Dickens and MR JamesClose the curtains. Light the fire. Then prepare to be terrified; it’s Christmas. For although the word “cosy” may be closely tied to festivities at this time of year, so it seems is the word “ghost”.In northern Europe people understandably cope with the shorter days and darker evenings by drawing in around a roaring hearth, metaphorical or otherwise. Light and warmth: it makes sense. But what kind of stories are told while friends and families gather together? The answer, of course, is the spookier, the better. Continue reading...
British government says move agreed during talks before Friday midnight deadline set by BrusselsThe UK and Jersey governments have issued further licences to French fishing boats to trawl British waters in an apparent attempt to ease cross-Channel tensions.The Brussels-imposed deadline of midnight on Friday for solving the post-Brexit fishing row passed without an agreement being announced. Continue reading...
The city’s picturesque past and vibrant present have made it a magnet for high-end productionsAn adrenaline-pumping knife chase through graffiti-sprayed lanes takes place in the comedy-thriller The Outlaws, while class tensions simmer at a lavish student ball in the legal drama Showtrial. The city providing the backdrop and inspiration for both these series is Bristol – a location now so popular with film and TV makers that crews are actually falling over themselves in the streets.The city council has been inundated with requests to film in the city’s dank alleys, high-rises and grand Georgian squares since the beginning of the year, according to Bristol Film Office, which is part of the city council. It has seen a 225% increase in drama production on pre-pandemic levels. In the first quarter of 2019/20 there were four major drama productions under way in Bristol – but this more than tripled to 13 in the first quarter of 2020/21. Since January, 15 high-end TV dramas have been filmed in the city. Continue reading...
State governor says dozens at factory thought to have been killed, with other incidents reported in Arkansas and IllinoisUp to 100 people are feared to have been killed after a devastating outbreak of tornadoes ripped through Kentucky and other US states on Friday night and early Saturday morning.The governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, said the state had “experienced some of the worst tornado damage we’ve seen in a long time”. There were reports of at least six fatalities, with officials warning this could rise be much higher as at least 30 tornadoes were reported across six states. Continue reading...
Store pulls dress from website and apologises ‘for upset caused’ after Twitter users connect name to child abuse novelJohn Lewis has pulled a child’s party dress named “Lollita” from its shelves after receiving criticism for stocking it. The Chi Chi London “Lollita” dress was on sale for children aged three to 11 years old on the retailer’s website for £50.The name is similar to Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel Lolita, which details child sexual abuse. It outlines how a middle-aged professor abuses a 12-year-old girl. Continue reading...
The celebrity chef, 56, shares his secrets for a happy relationship and the best sausage rollsLiving with my grandmother is probably my earliest memory, realising my mother had died and not really understanding it. Then, discovering food with my grandmother and learning to cook by her side. The most vivid memories are of standing in the kitchen and the smell of food. That stayed with me, the comfort of it.I’ve still got the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car my mother gave me for my fourth birthday. It was the last birthday present she gave me. That means a lot. It sits on my shelf. She was 31 when she died. They don’t really know what it was, whether it was heart disease of some type. People say to me: “Does it make you a different person?” I have no idea. Continue reading...
Former Tory Councillor David Turtle has been sentenced to 14 years in jail after driving into his wife outside their home in FranceA former Tory councillor has been convicted of killing his wife by deliberately running over her in his Mercedes at their home in France.David Turtle, 67, was found guilty of murder by a French court and sentenced to 14 years in jail. Continue reading...
Frances-Rose Thomas, 15, died at home after accessing content involving suicide on a school iPadThe parents of a 15-year-old autistic girl who died by suicide after her school did not monitor her online activity have described the circumstances of her death as a “catastrophic failure” as they warned the Department for Education (DfE) against complacency.Frances-Rose Thomas, known as Frankie, took her own life at home in Witley, Surrey, on 25 September 2018 after reading a story which involved suicide on a school iPad, which had no safety features.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org. Continue reading...
A 104-year-old woman has fulfilled her dream to learn to read. After starting in April, Kuttiyamma achieved 89% in literacy and 100% in mathematics in the Kerala state primary literacy exam last month, the oldest woman to do so.Kuttiyamma had been curious about reading and would often try to make out the alphabet herself, but when she was born in a village to a low-caste rural family, there was no education. Her neighbour Rehana John, a 34-year-old literacy trainer, persuaded her to start to learn to read. Previously, John’s oldest student had been 85
The writer who shot to fame when Joe Biden was sworn in as president has published her response to Covid-19• Scroll down to read Fugue, a poem from Gorman’s new collectionAmanda Gorman, who became the youngest inauguration poet in US history when Joe Biden was sworn in as president, says she is attempting to “preserve the public memory of a pandemic” in a new collection published this week.Gorman shot into the public eye when she recited her poem The Hill We Climb at the inauguration in January, speaking of how “there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it, / If only we’re brave enough to be it.” Continue reading...
In 1970, David Attie was sent to photograph the birth of the kids’ landmark TV show as part of a cold war propaganda drive by the US government. But these newly found images are just one part of the programme’s radical history“I’m still pinching myself that my dad, my own flesh and blood, had Ernie on one hand and Bert on the other,” Eli Attie says. “It is like he got to sit at Abbey Road studios and watch the Beatles record I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Attie’s father was the photographer David Attie who, in 1970, visited the set of Sesame Street in New York City during its first season. His images lay forgotten in a wardrobe for the next 50 years, until Eli recently discovered them. They are a glimpse behind the curtain of a cultural phenomenon waiting to happen. Here are not only Bert and Ernie but Kermit, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch with his original orange fur (he was green by season two). And here are the people who brought these characters to life, chiefly Jim Henson and Frank Oz, the Lennon and McCartney of Muppetdom. What also stands out in Attie’s images are the children visiting the set. As in the show itself, they are clearly so beguiled by the puppets, they completely ignore the humans controlling them.Eli himself was one of those visitors, although he has no memory of it. “I was in diapers, and as the story goes, I was loud and not to be quieted down, and was yanked off the set,” he says. His parents and older brother Oliver at least made it into the photos. Oliver was even in an episode of the show, in the background in Hooper’s Store, Eli explains, with just a hint of jealousy.Above: Bert and Ernie with puppeteers Daniel Seagren, Jim Henson and Frank OzLeft: Cast member Bob McGrath, an actor and musician, in a segment called The People in Your Neighborhood.Right: Henson (left) and Oz – the Lennon and McCartney of Muppetdom – operate puppets for a sketch titled Hunt for Happiness Continue reading...
Twenty years after first playing kick-ass hacker Trinity in The Matrix, Moss is returning to the role in The Matrix: Resurrections. Thankfully, she wasn’t asked to wear heels this time …When The Matrix asks us all to take the red pill again on 22 December, Carrie-Anne Moss, 54, will return to the role that made her famous. Moss first played Trinity, a motorbike-riding, badass, PVC-clad hacker, in 1999, and despite the character not surviving the original trilogy, she is back, along with her co-star Keanu Reeves, for the fourth instalment, The Matrix Resurrections, directed by Lana Wachowski, this time without her sister Lilly. Moss, who was born in Canada, started her career as a model and had several small parts on television and in films before The Matrix struck gold. She played Marvel’s first on-screen lesbian character, Jeri Hogarth, in the Netflix series Jessica Jones, and away from the acting world, she runs a “labour of love” lifestyle site called Annapurna Living. She lives with her husband and three children in the countryside in California, which means she does not see the current trend for Matrix-inspired fashion such as big stompy boots and tiny sunglasses out on the streets.Was returning to the world of The Matrix a tough decision?
She has been at the top of the industry for decades. Now she’s speaking out about the dark reality of life behind the scenesWhen Karen Elson was a young hopeful trying to make it in Paris, a model scout took her to a nightclub. After long days on the Métro trekking to castings that came to nothing, and evenings alone in a run-down apartment, she was excited to be out having fun. The music was good and the scout, to whom her agent had introduced her, kept the drinks coming. She started to feel tipsy. A friend of the scout’s arrived, and the pair started massaging her shoulders, making sexual suggestions. “I was 16 and I’d never kissed a boy,” she recalls. “It was my first experience of sexual – well, sexual anything, and this was sexual harassment. They both had their hands on me.”She told them she wanted to go home, and left to find a taxi, but they followed her into it, kissing her neck on the back seat. When they reached her street, she jumped out, slammed the taxi door and ran inside. The next day she told another model what had happened, and the scout found out. “His reaction was to corner me in the model agency and say: ‘I’ll fucking get you kicked out of Paris if you ever fucking say anything ever again.’” Continue reading...