Michael Yabsley unveils 10-point plan that includes scrapping public funding combined with tight caps on election spending

Asic says Australian Stock Exchange failed to follow own risk procedures in botched technology upgrade that stopped trade last November

Ján Kubiš gives no reason for resignation, having only taken post in war-torn country in JanuaryThe UN special envoy for Libya, Ján Kubiš, has quit just a month before crucial presidential elections in the war-torn nation – without giving security council members a clear reason for his sudden departure.“Mr Kubiš has tendered his resignation to the secretary general, who has accepted it with regret,” UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters, adding that António Guterres was “working on an appropriate replacement”. Continue reading...

A 55-year-old Caroline Springs man is being questioned in relation to missing pair Russell Hill and Carol ClayCharges are expected to be laid over the disappearance of missing Victorian campers Russell Hill and Carol Clay.A 55-year-old Caroline Springs man is being questioned after a dramatic arrest by specialist police at a remote campsite in Arbuckle Junction in Victoria’s high country on Monday night. Continue reading...

Crystelle, Chigs and Giuseppe have to conjure up a Mad Hatter’s tea party in the final … but who will take home the coveted cake stand?Please, I don’t want to see Matt Lucas singing the Flintstones theme tune again.May the mangos be ever in your favour. Continue reading...

Coroner says those around Alexander Tostevin should have realised his treatment plan was not workingOpportunities to reassess the risks a special forces soldier who took his own life posed to himself were missed, a coroner has reported.Coroner Brendan Allan said Cpl Alexander Tostevin was not neglected by his superiors or military mental health staff. The 28-year-old special forces soldier was found dead in his property in March 2018 after he killed himself. Continue reading...

Wednesday: Senator’s posts about vaccine side-effects spark concerns for public confidence. Plus: HG Nelson’s three beloved itemsGood morning. Health experts claims Liberal MP Gerard Rennick’s Facebook posts about vaccines could be “dangerous”. Covid cases continue to rise across Europe. And petrol and rental prices are putting financial pressure on Australians.Senator Gerard Rennick’s use of Facebook to push unverified stories about vaccine side-effects is potentially dangerous, a top health expert has warned, as fresh doubt is cast on the legitimacy of a story he helped promote. Rennick conceded to Guardian Australia that he does not verify the accuracy of the dozens of third-party claims he has published about severe vaccine side-effects. Associate professor and head of the AusVaxSafety program, Nick Wood, said: “The fact that he has admitted he hasn’t checked them and he’s just posted them on, that’s a problem. I think that is a danger because it feeds into: ‘is there a cover-up here, we’re not being told things’. That can potentially impact public confidence.” Continue reading...

Ardern is imperfect and her government often struggles to implement its agenda – but they excel at crisis management“If you want to know me, look at my surface”, Andy Warhol once said, or something along those lines. It’s an invitation to the obvious that should apply in politics, and yet the public regard politicians with – at best – a good deal of suspicion and, at worst, contempt. And who can blame them? In New Zealand the workers’ party (Labour) was responsible for introducing and administering neoliberalism in the 1980s, a dramatic break with their social democratic history that the Australian Labor party was also undertaking in the 1980s, the US Democrats in the 1990s, and UK Labour shortly after. As the old joke goes, capturing the distrust most people feel for left and right, “it doesn’t matter who you vote for, a politician always gets in”.But what distinguishes prime minister Jacinda Ardern from the politicians who bite at her heels is that the Warholian doctrine is probably true. At least in her case. In New Zealand’s double disasters – the Christchurch massacre and the Whakaari eruption – Ardern met each tragedy with immediate action, crisp and clear communication, and an extraordinary human care almost entirely absent in modern politics. She met with victims, their families took her into their own homes and at every opportunity she made an invitation to act in solidarity – from the country’s successful gun reforms to the “Christchurch call”, an international bid to stamp out violent extremism online. Continue reading...

Western nations urge citizens to fly out as Abiy Ahmed vows to lead troops in war against advancing Tigray rebelsThe US, France and Germany have called on their nationals to leave Ethiopia immediately as the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, vowed to lead his country’s troops “from the battlefront”, the latest turn in a devastating year-long war with rebel groups.The Nobel Peace prize winner said in a statement posted to Twitter: “I will mobilise to the front to lead the defence forces. Those who want to be among the Ethiopian children who will be hailed by history, rise up for your country.” Continue reading...

Two arrested as neighbours say there had been disputes about parking in areaA husband and wife were stabbed to death at their Somerset home as their children slept upstairs, police have said.Paramedics tried to save Stephen Chapple, 36, a teacher, and Jennifer Chapple, 33, who worked in a coffee shop, but they died of their wounds in their house in the village of Norton Fitzwarren, near Taunton. Continue reading...

Local leaders, particularly in vulnerable Māori communities, fear travellers could bring the virus with them

Interior ministry says they spent a further £9m on vehicles equipped with monitoring equipmentThe French government has bought another 100 vehicles to help stop people from travelling by small boats to England across the Channel as part of a deal with the UK government, it has been announced.Amid a deepening political row in parliament over the growing number of people taking the hazardous route, the interior ministry in Paris said on Tuesday that it had spent a further £9m on quad bikes, 4X4s, boats and vehicles equipped with monitoring equipment. Continue reading...

Covid surge in Europe before Christmas also delaying passengers’ early summer 2022 plans, says Michael O’LearyEuropean airlines face a slump in Christmas and early summer travel as the spectre of another wave of lockdowns puts people off booking holidays, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has warned.Austria’s decision to impose a third national lockdown from Monday, which could last until 12 December, to curb a surge in coronavirus cases and fatalities, has stoked fears of a wave of tighter travel restrictions being imposed across Europe. Continue reading...

With talks between governments deadlocked, fishers to decide on taking their own action, reports sayFrench fishers are set to take action within days, including blocking road and sea freight bound for the UK through Calais and other Channel ports, as a months-long dispute over licences to operate in British waters intensifies.French media reported on Tuesday that with talks between the two governments and the European Commission over post-Brexit fishing rights seemingly deadlocked, angry fishers in northern France would decide on Thursday what steps to take. Continue reading...

From next week, Australian borders will open to international students with valid visas. But after nearly two years of uncertainty, experts say some students won’t be returning, and the impact to broader Australian society will be felt for a long time.Audio producer Karishma Luthria speaks to international students about their life during the pandemic and whether they will return.Read more: Continue reading...

Government criticised for delay as suspects face charges relating to 269 deaths 30 months after attacksThe trial has begun of the 25 men accused of masterminding the 2019 Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, which killed almost 300 people when churches and luxury hotels were targeted by Islamic terrorist suicide bombers.The lengthy process to reach trial after more than two years has been heavily criticised by families of those killed and the Christian church in Sri Lanka, who have accused the government of failing to take proper action against those responsible. Continue reading...

In 2012 letter to Greek official, then London mayor said that ideally the sculptures would have stayed in AthensBoris Johnson believed in 2012 that the Parthenon sculptures should “never have been removed from the Acropolis,” and admitted that ideally they would continue to be seen in their entirety in Athens, a letter shared with the Guardian reveals.Writing to a provincial Greek official, the then mayor of London and future British prime minister noted: “This is a matter on which I have reflected deeply over many years. In an ideal world, it is of course true that the Parthenon marbles would never have been removed from the Acropolis and it would now be possible to see them in situ.” Continue reading...

Downing Street spokesperson responds to questions about PM’s health after rambling speech to CBI on Monday

Dr Hans Kluge describes situation as ‘very serious’ with increasing strain on health services

Despite their equal billing on the forthcoming Adam McKay disaster comedy, Lawrence says she is ‘extremely fortunate and happy with my deal’Jennifer Lawrence has defended the higher salary paid to Leonardo DiCaprio for Don’t Look Up, their forthcoming film for which they receive equal billing.Speaking to Vanity Fair, Lawrence said: “Leo brings in more box office than I do. I’m extremely fortunate and happy with my deal.” A recently published report in Variety suggested that DiCaprio will receive $30m (£22.5m) for the movie, and Lawrence will be paid $25m ($18.7m) – meaning DiCaprio’s fee is 20% higher. Continue reading...

Judge sentences 20-year-old to three years and seven months in prison for secession and money launderingA 20-year-old student activist who was arrested while attempting to seek asylum at the US consulate in Hong Kong has become the youngest person sentenced under the city’s draconian national security law.Tony Chung was sentenced to three years and seven months in prison after being convicted of secession and money laundering. Continue reading...

The famous diarist’s dedicated building, left to his Cambridge alma mater, could not be altered. So architect Níall McLaughlin created a magical solution“My delight is in the neatness of everything,” wrote Samuel Pepys in his diary in 1663, “and so cannot be pleased with anything unless it be very neat, which is a strange folly.”He was referring in part to the fastidious organisation of his magnificent collection of books. By the time of his death in 1703 he had amassed 3,000 of them, which he left to his alma mater, Magdalene College, Cambridge, to be housed in a dedicated building with his name above the door. He gave strict instructions that his library be kept intact for posterity, without addition or subtraction, its contents arranged “according to heighth” in the bespoke glass-fronted bookcases he had especially commissioned. The responsibility came with an added threat: if one volume goes missing, he instructed, the whole library must be transferred to Trinity. Continue reading...

With genitalia proudly exposed, the amphibian raced up the charts in 2005 and irritated much of the UK. Why has it been allowed a second chance? Its handler explains himselfFor a few months in 2005, you couldn’t move without encountering Crazy Frog. First sold as a ringtone, his nonsensical catchphrase, “Rring ding ding ding baa baa”, entered the national vocabulary. Then it became the most popular – and divisive – single of 2005, coupled with a CGI video of an explicitly naked frog on the lam in a futuristic cityscape. “The frog is irritating to the point of distraction and back again,” wrote BBC News. “And yet at the same, it’s strangely compelling.”The craze lasted for five Top 20 hits and then mercifully dwindled. The character was so hated that hackers found success with a virus offering to show users an image of him being killed off. But now the frog is staging a comeback. Next month, the once-ubiquitous amphibian will release a new single – a mash-up of a classic and a more recent song, the details of which the frog’s guardians are keeping under wraps, other than to say that both are popular on TikTok. Continue reading...

Album also outselling rest of UK Top 40 combined, while Taylor Swift’s All Too Well (Taylor’s Version) becomes longest song to reach US No 1Adele’s 30 is already the biggest-selling album of the year in the US, just three days after it went on sale.Using a metric that combines sales of vinyl, CDs and downloads alongside streaming, 30 has sold over 575,000 copies. Adele has overtaken the previous highest seller Taylor Swift, whose December 2020 album Evermore has sold 462,000 copies this year. Continue reading...

Official statistics show 8.5 births per 1,000 people in 2020, the first time under 10 in decadesChina’s birthrate has plummeted to its lowest level since 1978 as the government struggles to stave off a looming demographic crisis.Data released by the country’s national bureau of statistics shows there were 8.5 births per 1,000 people in 2020, the first time in decades that the figure has fallen below 10. The statistical yearbook, released at the weekend, said the natural rate of population growth – taking in births and deaths – was at a new low of 1.45. Continue reading...

ALP use final parliamentary sitting to home in on PM’s truthfulness and revisit Christian Porter matter under new Speaker

Defence minister says he wasn’t ‘pre-committing’ Australia to war; Labor’s caucus confirms opposition to voter ID bill; Jacqui Lambie calls Scott Morrison worst PM on record; Malcolm Roberts denies leaking Lambie’s phone number; Victoria reports 19 Covid deaths and 827 cases; NSW two deaths and 173 cases. This blog is now closed

Downing Street declines to praise home secretary over attempts to stem record crossings in small boatsPriti Patel is being put under “immense pressure” from Downing Street and Conservative MPs over government efforts to halt Channel crossings in small boats, with No 10 refusing to say the home secretary had done a good job.As figures revealed, the number of people making perilous crossings has tripled since 2020, Boris Johnson’s spokesperson twice declined to praise Patel’s strategy on Monday. He said the prime minister had “confidence in the home secretary” but would only say she has “worked extremely hard and no one can doubt this is a priority for her”. Continue reading...

• Reconstruction after Covid: a new series of long readsWhile the rich nations focus on booster jabs and returning to the office, much of the world is facing devastating second-order coronavirus effects. Now is the time to build a fairer, more responsible international system for the futureFor the past year and a half, people everywhere have been in the grip of a pandemic – but not necessarily the same one. In the affluent world, a viral respiratory disease, Covid-19, suddenly became a leading cause of death. In much of the developing world, by contrast, the main engine of destruction wasn’t this new disease, but its second-order effects: measures they took, and we took, in response to the coronavirus. Richer nations and poorer nations differ in their vulnerabilities.Whenever I talk with members of my family in Ghana, Nigeria and Namibia, I’m reminded that a global event can also be a profoundly local one. Lives and livelihoods have been affected in these places very differently from the way they have in Europe or the US. That’s true in the economic and educational realm, but it’s true, too, in the realm of public health. And across all these realms, the stakes are often life or death. Continue reading...

Lawyers say judgment demonstrates increasingly harsh stance taken by authorities over lese-majesty lawIt was last December that Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul, a Thai student activist, and her friends strolled into a shopping mall in Bangkok wearing crop tops. They ate ice cream and carried dog-shaped balloons. Phrases such as “I have only one father” were written in marker pen on their skin.Now, four of them are in pre-trial detention over the outing, which royalists say was an insult to the monarchy. Continue reading...

UK also reports 45 further Covid-related deaths; from today Greeks barred from all enclosed public spaces if they are unvaccinated

BBC programme is a compelling analysis of the troubled relationship between media and monarchyA few days before her wedding, Meghan decided she wanted to wear a particular tiara with emeralds. True, this isn’t the sort of issue that should trouble citizens of a mature democracy but when it comes to royals, Britain is neither mature nor, let’s face it, democratic. Indeed, Amol Rajan, the BBC media editor who presented the Princes and the Press (BBC Two), is a declared republican who once branded the royal family as “absurd” and the media as a “propaganda outlet” for the monarchy. As his measured, compelling analysis of the troubled relationship showed, he may have been right about the former, but the latter? Not so much. The media, we might conclude from his programme, may be driving the monarchy to self-destruct, which would, ironically enough, suit his earlier republican views.Back to tiaras. There was a problem: the Duchess of Sussex could not be allowed to wear the emerald tiara because it had some unfortunate history to do with Russia, according to the Sun’s former correspondent Dan Wootton. We never learned what that history was nor why it should matter. What we did learn from Wootton’s report is that Harry reportedly shouted at a royal dresser (who is a person, not a thing) that “whatever Meghan wants, Meghan gets.” This in turn prompted the Queen to tell somebody off. Continue reading...

Ridley Scott’s pantomimey soap entertainingly tracks fractures in the fashion world as Patrizia Reggiano plots to kill her ex, Maurizio GucciRidley Scott’s fantastically rackety, messy soap opera about the fall of the house of Gucci is rescued from pure silliness by Lady Gaga’s glorious performance as Patrizia Reggiani, the enraged ex-wife of Maurizio Gucci, grandson of the fashion-house founder Guccio Gucci. She singlehandedly delivers the movie from any issues about Italianface casting: only she can get away with speaking English with the comedy foreign-a accent-a. Every time Gaga comes on screen, you just can’t help grinning at her sly elegance, mischief and performance-IQ, channelling Gina Lollobrigida or Claudia Cardinale in their early-50s gamine styles. There is a truly magnificent scene in which Patrizia is wearing nothing but weapons-grade lingerie in the marital bathroom – and yet somehow Maurizio, played by Adam Driver, is somehow even more sexy in his demure monogrammed pyjamas.Until seeing this film I had no idea that in 1995, Reggiani, through a bizarre confidante and professional psychic called Pina Auriemma, played here by Salma Hayek, paid a hitman to kill Maurizio, so incensed was Reggiani by his infidelity and the resulting divorce. It is like hearing that Karen Millen thought about whacking her husband or finding out that the retailer Michael Marks planned to garrotte Thomas Spencer outside Marble Arch tube station. But there it is. Continue reading...

Senior party members concerned after chaotic fortnight, with PM said to be losing his grip over key policiesConservative MPs are increasingly worried about Boris Johnson’s competence and drive after he gave a rambling speech to business leaders and was accused of losing his grip over a series of key policies from social care to rail.Senior members of his own party said they needed Johnson to get the government back on track after a disastrous two weeks amid dismay about his performance at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference, where he lost his place in his speech for about 20 seconds and diverted into a lengthy tangent about Peppa Pig. Continue reading...

Using an experimental mapping method, the outbreak of Covid-19 across the two states can be plotted from the start of the pandemicThe coronavirus pandemic in Australia has caused almost 2,000 deaths and resulted in close to 200,000 cases.In the worst-hit states of New South Wales and Victoria, high vaccination rates have now reduced the rate of hospital admissions. Continue reading...

Survivors of group of 22 say they were deprived of their families and culture when taken from GreenlandSix Inuit who were snatched from their families in Greenland and taken to Denmark 70 years ago are demanding compensation from Copenhagen for a lost childhood.In 1951, Denmark took 22 children from its former colony away from their families, promising them a better life and the chance to return to Greenland as part of a new Danish-educated elite. Continue reading...

Dame Elish Angiolini to examine policing failures that allowed Wayne Couzens to attack 33-year-oldThe Home Office inquiry into the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a police officer will be chaired by Dame Elish Angiolini, formerly Scotland’s top prosecutor, the department has said.It will examine whether chances to identify her murderer, Wayne Couzens, as a danger to women before he attacked Everard in March 2021 were missed. Continue reading...

Huang Chia-lu responds to the news that a Chinese official is seeking election to Interpol’s executive committee, and urges the international community to support Taiwan’s participationYou rightly point out the concerns of human rights activists and international politicians that China could misuse Interpol’s capabilities to track down overseas dissidents if Hu Binchen is elected as an executive committee member (Chinese official seeks Interpol role, sparking fears for dissidents, 15 November). One should also note that Taiwan is not included in Interpol, meaning there is a missing part in the global fight against international crime and cybercrime.As cybercrime transcends borders, transnational cooperation is key to bringing international crime rings to justice. Taiwan’s police authorities have a hi-tech crime investigation unit and professional cybercrime investigators. Taiwan’s expertise will benefit global efforts to build a safer cyberspace. Continue reading...

Long-lost mosaic commissioned by Emperor Caligula disappeared from Italian museum during second world warA priceless Roman mosaic that once decorated a ship used by the emperor Caligula was used for almost 50 years as a coffee table in an apartment in New York City.Dario Del Bufalo, an Italian expert on ancient stone and marble, described how he found the mosaic in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday. Continue reading...

Analysis: Olympic committee is accused of engaging in a ‘publicity stunt’ by taking part in video callAs human rights organisations and the world’s media questioned the whereabouts of the Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, the International Olympic Committee opted for a “quiet diplomacy” approach, arguing that was the most effective way to deal with such a case.“Experience shows that quiet diplomacy offers the best opportunity to find a solution for questions of such nature. This explains why the IOC will not comment any further at this stage,” the Lausanne-based organisation said in an emailed statement on Thursday about the case of Peng, who disappeared from public view after she made an accusation of sexual assault against a former senior Chinese official. Continue reading...

Analysis: calls growing after Xinjiang allegations and Peng Shuai affair, but Beijing takes slights very seriouslyBoycotting the Beijing Winter Olympics in February may seem a simple, symbolic diplomatic gesture – when put alongside the allegations of labour camps in Xinjiang province and the apparent sexual exploitation of the Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai – but such is the contemporary economic power of China that the step will only be taken after much agonising.The threats and economic boycotts that Australia, Canada and more recently Lithuania have suffered at the hands of the Chinese for challenging Beijing’s authority in one way or another are not experiences other countries will want to copy lightly. Continue reading...

After Adele’s tearful reunion with a former teacher, four readers recall their own school memories“So bloody cool, so engaging.” That’s how Adele described her English teacher at Chestnut Grove school in Balham, south-west London, Ms McDonald, when asked who had inspired her.Answering a question from the actor Emma Thompson during ITV’s An Audience With Adele on Sunday, Adele said: “She really made us care, and we knew that she cared about us and stuff like that.” Continue reading...

‘Ralph Fiennes strode into the dressing room and said he loved the show – we booked him there and then. The whole thing was very kick-bollocks-scramble’Sean Foley, co-writer and performerIt was all [producer] David Pugh’s fault. In 1988 I’d set up a small two-person theatre company, The Right Size, with Hamish McColl, creating work that was somewhere between European physical theatre and British variety. We’d had some success; one of our shows had transferred to the West End. One day in 2001, David called us in and said, “I want you to make a show about Morecambe and Wise.” Continue reading...

Extra police dispatched and curfew imposed after week of ‘quasi-insurrectional’ unrest

In more than 80% of countries surveyed women were disproportionately hit, from loss of income to caring duties, report showsThe social and economic burden of Covid has fallen disproportionately on women around the world, the Red Cross has warned, in a stark analysis of the impact of the pandemic.Women were particularly affected by loss of income and education, rises in domestic violence, child marriage and trafficking, and responsibility for caring for children and sick relatives, according to the comprehensive report published by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) on Monday. Continue reading...

With fellow Europeans leaving the UK, and no British workers taking their place, Eleanor Popa’s job harvesting strawberries has gone from tough to tough and lonely. Will the farm survive another year?Eleanor Popa used to sleep in a six-berth caravan on the site of Sharrington Strawberries, a 16-hectare (40-acre) strawberry farm in Melton Constable, Norfolk. Now, there are only four people in her caravan: everyone else has left to work in EU countries. “My friends,” she says, “they went home, or to work in Spain and Germany. A lot of them did not come back to work this year.”Popa, who is from Bulgaria, has been a fruit picker for two years. “It’s hard work,” she says. “We have to get up early and pick. It’s 6am in the summer. Now we get up at 7.30am. And we work in tunnels. Sometimes it’s cold, sometimes it’s hot. Sometimes it’s windy. It can be boring.” Picking strawberries is skilled work. “It took me a month to learn how to pick the fruit,” she says. Continue reading...

Analysis: scientists say high transmission rates mean caution is critical if people are to stay safe

Key prosecution witness Nir Hefetz testifies that former prime minister was obsessed with image in pressThe star prosecution witness in the corruption trial of the former Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the veteran politician as a “control freak” obsessed with his image in the press.The long-awaited testimony of the former Netanyahu spokesman Nir Hefetz came in a Jerusalem courtroom where the 72-year-old is on trial accused of trading preferential treatment for a major Israeli telecom company in exchange for positive articles on its Walla news site. Continue reading...

Education secretary says police should deal with problem as survey shows 79% of schools targeted

Abdul Hamid Dbeibah announces candidacy in 24 December election, joining more than 60 othersLibya’s interim prime minister has registered as a presidential candidate, joining a bulky and growing list of candidates that includes Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, a warlord.Abdul Hamid Dbeibah’s decision to run in the 24 December poll breaks a pledge that current holders of office in the interim government would not seek election so as not to abuse their position. Continue reading...