Morale low as scandals and doubts on policy delivery add to worries about PM’s competenceA shame-faced Boris Johnson told his own MPs this week that he had “crashed the car into the ditch” by misjudging the Owen Paterson scandal. As he heads to his country retreat of Chequers this weekend, some at Westminster have begun to wonder if he has what it takes to get the show back on the road.As well as exposing Johnson’s lax approach to probity in public life, the Paterson debacle highlighted what those who have worked with him say is one of his most maddening characteristics – the impetuous style of decision-making and tendency to sudden reversals cruelly caricatured by Dominic Cummings as “like a shopping trolley”. Continue reading...
Disposable diapers are one of the biggest factors in plastic waste. Efforts to address the problem are popping up all over the worldIn July 2017, Prigi Arisandi stood in the Surabaya River in East Java, Indonesia, and counted nappies. In one hour, “176 diapers floated in front of my face,” he said.The Indonesian biologist, who won the Goldman environmental prize in 2011 for his efforts to stem pollution flowing into the Surabaya, decided to make nappy waste his focus. He launched the Diaper Evacuation Brigade, a movement of volunteers who travel across Indonesia, wearing hazmat suits to fish used nappies out of the country’s rivers. Continue reading...
Citizen reporter Zhang Zhan, who is on a hunger strike, was imprisoned after questioning authorities’ handling of outbreak in cityThe United Nations has urged China to release a citizen journalist jailed for her coverage of the country’s Covid-19 response and who her family say is close to death after a hunger strike.The UN rights office voiced alarm at reports that 38-year-old Zhang Zhan’s health was deteriorating rapidly and that her life was at serious risk from the hunger strike. Continue reading...
The window to achieve that goal is vanishingly small, but it is there. Now we must seize this one last chanceLike many others, I would like to have seen a stronger outcome from Cop26. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that much was achieved – and the final outcome does get us much closer to where we need to be than where we were a few weeks ago.For the first time countries agreed to take action on fossil fuels. Yes, it could have gone further – but let’s not forget that never before has there been a single word uttered on fossil fuels in any Cop agreement. So the agreed text is significant. Continue reading...
Syrian questioned by police after reports he has ties to banned Kurdish People’s Protection UnitsCelebrated Syrian singer Omar Souleyman, who has performed at festivals around the world, has been released after being detained over alleged links to Kurdish militants.Souleyman was freed at 10.30pm (19.30 GMT) after a confusing day during which he was released in the morning before being taken back to a detention centre. Continue reading...
by Harriet Sherwood Arts and culture correspondent on (#5S44C)
Plundered items likely to be returned to Nigeria include plaques, bronze figures and musical instrumentsThe University of Oxford is holding 145 objects looted by British troops during an assault on the city of Benin in 1897 that are likely to be repatriated to Nigeria, a report has said.More than two-thirds of the plundered items are owned by the university’s Pitt Rivers Museum, and 45 are on loan. They include brass plaques, bronze figures, carved ivory tusks, musical instruments, weaving equipment, jewellery, and ceramic and coral objects dating to the 13th century. Continue reading...
by Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent on (#5S3NE)
Attacker used aliases to buy parts for device, which may have detonated prematurely, police sayThe suspected Liverpool bomber packed his homemade explosive device with ball bearings to cause maximum deaths and injuries, police have said.Emad al-Swealmeen, 32, died on Sunday when a taxi he had hired drove to Liverpool Women’s hospital and exploded outside the entrance.Swealmeen bought items for the homemade bomb in person from stores around Liverpool over a period of months.He also had multiple phones and devices and used those to purchase items for the explosive device online.Part of the device contained the homemade explosive HMTD, used in some previous devices such as that used in the 7 July 2005 bombs to attack the London transport system. It is believed other homemade explosives were also in the device.Swealmeen, who had claimed asylum after arriving in the UK, had shown signs he was following his birth religion of Islam again, after going through ceremonies to convert to Christianity in 2015 and 2017.He used his birth name as well as the name he took on converting to Christianity, Enzo Almeni, and other aliases to make the purchases needed to construct the improvised explosive device. Continue reading...
Austria is to go into a national lockdown to contain a fourth wave of coronavirus cases, the chancellor, Alexander Schallenberg, announced on Friday, as new infections hit a record high amid a pandemic surge across Europe. Despite all the persuasion and campaigns, too few people had decided to get vaccinated, Schallenberg said, leaving the country no other choice but to introduce mandatory vaccinations in February
New York is giving kids $100 to get jabbed, and there’s exceedingly good news on the confectionary frontWith a capitalist zeal I admire, New York is bribing young kids to get vaccinated, as it bribed their older siblings and parents before them. Not for these under-12s the lame promise of protecting grandma at Thanksgiving next week. Instead, a more reliable incentive: cold, hard cash. For every child who gets a Covid shot at a state school or city-run site, a guaranteed $100 payment. If you catch Covid and wind up on a ventilator, the American healthcare system will come for your house. But at prevention stage it’s all high-fives and free money. By American standards it’s thrilling. Continue reading...
As film starring Lady Gaga enters cinemas, a former police officer recounts the moment he arrested Patrizia ReggianiEven when she was being escorted to prison, Patrizia Reggiani was determined to go in style, wearing dark sunglasses and a fur coat. “I told her: ‘Look, you’re going to prison and this fur coat is hugely expensive’,” said the former police officer Carmine Gallo. “And so we left the coat with her mother and I lent her my green jacket, which she promised to give back.”Gallo never saw his jacket again, but he does not hold a grudge. He was the police officer who called at Reggiani’s opulent central Milan home at about 5am on a frosty morning in January 1997 to arrest her on suspicion of orchestrating the murder of her ex-husband and fashion house heir, Maurizio Gucci. Gucci was gunned down outside his office on Via Palestro almost two years earlier, aged 46. The case captivated Italy, and now the story is being retold in Ridley Scott’s film about the fashion dynasty, House of Gucci. Continue reading...
by Emmanuel Akinwotu West Africa correspondent on (#5S3R4)
Fans and celebrities contribute after singer says he wants to get his Rolls-Royce cleared from portThe multimillionaire Afrobeats star Davido has said fans and friends paid him more than £300,000 after he asked people on Twitter to send money.The Nigerian-American singer, whose real name is David Adeleke, posted on Wednesday: “If u know I’ve given you a hit song … send me money,” and gave details of a new Nigerian bank account. Continue reading...
Whether you’re looking to feed the kids, getting over a cold or just using up a few leftovers, we’ve got you coveredRisotto is perfect food. Warm, starchy and comforting, it is one of the most versatile dishes the home cook can learn. It is an ideal first food for young children who don’t quite have it in them to chew yet and it’s perfect for anyone under the weather. My mother always taught me, in a manner that would have purists running for the hills, that risotto was basically a dustbin for any scraps you happen to have lying around. That isn’t necessarily the case, but there is still plenty you can do with it, as these 10 recipes attest. Continue reading...
Artists in the favela are starting to compete again after the Covid-19 pandemic curtailed public gatherings, a show that signals a return to normality for music lovers Continue reading...
Bertie Ahern’s comments about loyalists criticised by DUP MP as ‘demeaning and degrading’The former prime minister of Ireland and one of the architects of the 1998 peace accord in Northern Ireland has been urged to apologise after claiming loyalists in “ghettoes” did not have a clue about the Brexit protocol.Bertie Ahern said people in “east Belfast and the ghettoes and the areas where you are likely to get trouble” had mischaracterised the special arrangements in the Brexit deal and saw it as pathway to a united Ireland. Continue reading...
He was a techno-classical genius loved by pop stars from U2 to Britney. Then he was sectioned in his 60s after a drug-induced breakdown. The superproducer explains how he came back aroundThere was a point in the early 00s when William Orbit was poised to go interstellar. He was one of the great pop architects of the Y2K era, the Mark Ronson or Jack Antonoff of his day. He produced Madonna’s Grammy-sweeping Ray of Light, with its magnetic techno-lite, in 1998; Blur’s 13 a year later; and made hits for some of the biggest films around the new millennium: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, The Next Best Thing and The Beach.The latter’s lead track, Pure Shores, recorded by the British pop group All Saints, was the second most successful UK single of 2000. Echoes of its breathy acoustica and bleepy-bloopy electronica can still be heard in the charts; it was recently championed by Lorde, who said the song was an inspiration for this year’s much anticipated album Solar Power. Continue reading...
by Cait Kelly (now) and Matilda Boseley (earlier) on (#5S2ZW)
PM comments after Animal Justice MP Andy Meddick says daughter attacked; Indian PM repeals controversial agricultural laws; rapid antigen Covid testing for NSW primary schools; Victoria records 1,273 new cases and eight deaths; NSW records 216 new cases and three deaths; rain set to hamper search for remains of William Tyrrell. This blog is now closed
In post-USSR Russia and neighbouring states, places now abandoned offer reminders of the region’s turbulent history, from the grandeur of a ruined Orthodox church, to the frescos that still adorn the crumbling walls of former barracks, schools and factories Continue reading...
Tears were inevitable when Hadley Freeman finally met the man behind her favourite film, and his son, who has made a belated second sequel. But few expected them to flow quite so freelyIt’s not always easy for a famous parent to pass the baton to the next generation. Kirk Douglas bristled when he realised the young women approaching him no longer wanted to flirt with him, but to ask for his son Michael’s phone number. When her daughter Christina was cast in a soap opera but then hospitalised for an ovarian cyst, Joan Crawford snatched the role for herself. The narcissism that underlies the need for fame is not usually conducive to happy parenting.Ivan Reitman – director and producer of many of the most beloved mainstream comedies of the 70s, 80s and 90s, including Animal House, Stripes, Ghostbusters, Twins and Dave – is a different kind of famous parent. Continue reading...
Right wing poses twice the threat of radicalisation than Islamic extremists according to governmentRightwing extremists are using Covid controversies and online gaming as a way of recruiting young people, as data shows half of the most serious cases of suspected radicalisation reported by schools and colleges now involve far-right activity.Figures published by the Home Office show twice as many young people in education in England and Wales last year were thought to be at risk of radicalisation by the extreme right-wing, compared with those at risk from Islamic extremists. Continue reading...
The back down is a huge victory for the farmers who have fought hard to see off the ‘black laws’ designed to modernise the archaic agricultural sectorNarendra Modi has announced he will repeal three contentious farm laws that prompted a year of protests and unrest in India, in one of the most significant concessions made by his government.In a huge victory for India’s farmers, who had fought hard for the repeal of what they called the “black laws’, the prime minister announced in an address on Friday morning that “we have taken the laws back”. Continue reading...
The New York Times and FX special Malfunction revisits the ‘Nipplegate’ scandal of 2004 but adds little new understandingIn January, the New York Times documentary team released Framing Britney Spears, a succinct and bruising retrospective on the pop star’s career and the shadowy legal arrangement that governed her affairs. The 75-minute documentary, which included virtually no new information but offered a cohesive, damning portrait of her treatment by the press, launched a grenade in pop culture. It triggered widespread calls to end her conservatorship, which Spears, 39, later championed (a judge terminated the 13-year arrangement last week); as well as meditations on punishing cultural commentary, callous treatment of mental health, or the hollow, deceptive empowerment proffered by Spears’s sexy teenage image; and a queasy wave of Britney Spears content (including an NYT follow-up, Controlling Britney Spears, that was part retrospective and part, uncomfortably, true crime.Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson, the latest New York Times documentary for FX on Hulu, aims for the same type of cathartic reframing through an infamous episode of early 2000s pop culture: the baring of Janet Jackson’s breast for nine-sixteenths of a second at the 2004 Super Bowl, and the subsequent cultural firestorm. The 70-minute film follows a similar format to its predecessors – archival footage (including plenty of gag-worthy early 2000s fashion) synthesized with first-person interviews and commentary from cultural critics. Continue reading...
Concerns are growing for the athlete, who has not been seen since she released a statement claiming she had been sexually assaultedPeng Shuai, 35, is one of China’s most recognisable sporting stars. The former tennis doubles World No 1, she also reached No 14 in the singles rankings, and won two women’s doubles grand slams at Wimbledon in 2013 and the 2014 French Open. She also competed in multiple Olympics.“The news in that [WTA press] release, including the allegation of sexual assault, is not true. I’m not missing, nor I am unsafe. I’ve just been resting at home and everything is fine. Thank you again for caring about me.” Continue reading...
by Daniel Hurst Foreign affairs and defence correspon on (#5S3C3)
Former Japanese PM welcomed the creation of Aukus in the midst of an ‘increasingly severe’ security environmentJapan should seek to work with Aukus members on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, long-serving former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has said.Japan was excluded when the leaders of Australia, the US and the UK announced their new security partnership with much fanfare in mid-September, but Abe believes it is “extremely important” for Tokyo to find ways to collaborate with its friends. Continue reading...
De facto embassy opening in Vilnius defies pressure from BeijingTaiwan has opened a de facto embassy in Lithuania in a diplomatic breakthrough for the island, brushing aside Beijing’s strong opposition to the move which again expressed its anger and warned of consequences.Taipei announced on Thursday it had formally opened an office in Lithuania using the name Taiwan, a significant diplomatic departure that defied a pressure campaign by Beijing. Continue reading...
Minsk now appears keen to defuse border crisis, which has claimed lives of 13 peopleBelarus has said the hastily constructed migrant camps on its border with Poland have been cleared of people in a sign that Minsk is keen to defuse the deadly crisis that its leader, Alexander Lukashenko, helped to create.On Thursday, that crisis claimed its 13th victim after an NGO reported that a one-year-old child had died after his family attempted the perilous journey through Belarus into the EU. Continue reading...
Priti Patel says aligning policy on Palestinian group’s military and political wings will combat antisemitismSupporters of Hamas could face up to 10 years in jail under plans to be announced on Friday by Priti Patel.The home secretary said the organisation will be proscribed by the government under the Terrorism Act. It means anyone who expresses support for Hamas, flies their flag or arranges meetings for the organisation will be in breach of the law. Continue reading...
With Peng still missing, this must be a watershed moment in how the sport deals with countries that deny human rightsHuang Xueqin was only ever trying to make her world a better place. Over the years she has become well known as a bold Chinese feminist activist and journalist who has aided survivors of sexual assault and wrote detailed accounts of her experiences during the Hong Kong protests. In September, a day before Huang was due to travel to London to study at the University of Sussex, she and the labour activist Wang Jianbing vanished. They have not been heard from since and are believed to have been detained by the Chinese authorities.This is a familiar fate for those deemed to have stepped out of line in China. It was the type of incident that was impossible not to think of, not to worry about, on 2 November when Peng Shuai’s name was methodically erased from the internet in China after she posted a lengthy message on her Weibo account detailing her relations with the former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli, who she accused of sexually assaulting her. Continue reading...
Benny Gantz’s cleaner contacted Iran-linked hackers and offered to infect minister’s computer with malwareIsrael has charged the housekeeper for the country’s defence minister with espionage for offering to spy for hackers reportedly linked to Iran.The man, identified as Omri Goren, reportedly has a criminal record but worked at Benny Gantz’s home as a cleaner and caretaker. Continue reading...
US tennis star is latest to call for clarification amid doubts over veracity of email purportedly sent by Chinese playerSerena Williams has joined a chorus of concern over the wellbeing and whereabouts of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai amid doubts over the veracity of an email supposedly written by her retracting allegations of sexual assault against a senior politician.The former world No 1 and winner of 23 grand slam singles titles joined other sports stars by tweeting under the hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai. Continue reading...
Friday: China’s acting ambassador accuses Australia of ‘sabre wielding’ with nuclear submarine deal. Plus: pressure to raise the Wyangala Dam after floodingGood morning!China’s acting ambassador to Australia, Wang Xining, has likened Australia to “a naughty guy” over the Aukus nuclear submarine deal, saying it jeopardises Australia’s peace-loving reputation and the Australian people “should be more worried”. In an interview with Guardian Australia, he also called on Australian politicians to “refrain from doing anything that’s destructive to our relationship” after the defence minister, Peter Dutton, signalled Australia would be likely to participate if the US came to Taiwan’s aid in a conflict with China. Continue reading...
Czech billionaire has also invested in Royal Mail, Sainsbury’s, a French newspaper and UK power plantsDaniel Křetínský has made a fortune snapping up leftovers from the old economy. The Czech billionaire owns a clutch of coal companies, and in recent years he has made waves with investments in pillars of the old economy such as high street retailers, supermarkets and newspapers.Křetínský holds his cards so close to his chest that he gained the moniker of the “Czech Sphinx” from a Polish magazine. The nickname has stuck, but the businessman’s profile outside his homeland has grown after a spree of acquisitions. Continue reading...
The ill-conceived scheme could do more harm than good to the economy in the north of England, sucking wealth to the south, writes Prof Paul SalvesonThe shelving of the eastern leg of HS2 (Report, 18 November) should lead to questions about the viability of the entire scheme, particularly the western leg to Manchester, but also the white elephant of the Curzon Street terminus in Birmingham, isolating HS2 from the rest of the network and badly connected with the city’s existing rail network. The north of England needs urgent investment in the regional and interregional networks, not this ill-conceived scheme that could well do more harm than good to the north’s economy, sucking wealth to the south-east. Contrary to what Labour and some “red wall” Tory MPs seem to think, HS2 is hugely unpopular in the north and its demise will be welcomed.What’s needed is further electrification, capacity improvements (which HS2 will not deliver, contrary to the hype) and selective reopenings of lines and stations across the north.
Boy is youngest known victim of crisis as medical workers say family had been living in forest for a monthA one-year-old child from Syria has died in a forest in Poland near the border with Belarus, according to Polish medical workers, becoming the youngest known victim of the crisis on the eastern edge of the European Union.Thousands of people attempting to reach the EU are still stranded in freezing conditions, amid a standoff between the bloc and Belarus, which has been accused of deliberately creating the crisis by flying in people from the Middle East and facilitating their travel to the border. Continue reading...
PM Edi Rama says he will ‘never receive refugees for richer countries’ after Raab said UK was exploring plansAlbania has strenuously denied it is willing to process people crossing the Channel to Britain, after the UK deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, confirmed that the government is exploring ways of processing asylum seekers abroad.Edi Rama, the prime minister, said he would “never receive refugees for richer countries”, after a report in the Times suggested Albania would be willing to host an offshore processing centre for people arriving in the UK from France in small boats. Continue reading...
Sean Binder and 24 aid workers are accused of espionage, forgery and intercepting radio frequenciesAn Irish defendant among 24 aid workers accused of espionage in Greece has said he has been left in a legal “limbo” after their trial was postponed, prolonging an ordeal that has highlighted growing hostility towards NGOs involved in migrant solidarity work.A three-member panel of judges on the Aegean island of Lesbos, where the alleged crimes are said to have occurred, referred the case to a court of appeals citing lack of jurisdiction. It is unclear when the higher tribunal will convene. Continue reading...
by Hosted by Jane Lee. Recommended by Emma Kemp. Writ on (#5S2MM)
To fall just short? To never know how it feels to get close? To land between, avoiding either pole? Emma Kemp, deputy sport editor, recommends Geoff Lemon’s treatise on the losing team
Despite the presence of an unusually menacing Benedict Cumberbatch unnerving all on set, it’s this young Australian actor’s otherworldly stillness that lights up Jane Campion’s western psychodramaJane Campion’s psycho-sexual western The Power of the Dog is a tremendous film but it is the power of Kodi Smit-McPhee that really adds bite to its bark. The 25-year-old Australian actor has been a fragile, hypnotic presence, with an eerie knack for stillness and intensity, ever since his earliest performances. At the age of 10, he played a boy coping with the desertion of one parent and the breakdown of the other in Romulus, My Father. At 12, he trudged through a post-apocalyptic hell-scape in The Road, then fell in love with a vampire at 13 in Let Me In, the US remake of the Swedish horror hit Let the Right One In. Even his multiplex movies, such as the X-Men outings (Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix) in which he played the blue-skinned Nightcrawler, have felt that bit stranger thanks to his delicate, androgynous features and those pool-sized anime eyes set far apart on his face.His uncanny quality is crucial to Campion’s movie, which is set in early 2oth-century Montana. Smit-McPhee plays the gangly, effeminate Peter, who spends his days crafting intricate paper flowers and sketching dead animals. His life is destabilised when his mother (Kirsten Dunst), a widowed innkeeper, takes up with a new partner. It is not this stepfather (Jesse Plemons) who poses a threat so much as his sadistic, bullying brother Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch), who taunts Peter and mocks the way he “creeps all over the place, big eyes goggling”. Continue reading...