Analysis: Clarence House will be hoping to draw a line under potentially toxic cash-for-honours claimsAfter 40 years at his master’s side, Michael Fawcett’s resignation as the head of Prince Charles’s charitable arm amid an alleged cash-for-honours scandal is a blow for the heir to the throne.The announcement that the one-time valet, 59, has decided to step down from The Prince’s Foundation before the outcome of an inquiry into the claims is seen by royal observers as a necessary step on Charles’s road to the crown. Continue reading...
Feras al-Jayoosi wore shirts supporting banned Palestinian groups in area of London with large Jewish populationA man who wore T-shirts supporting banned Palestinian groups in Golders Green has admitted terror offences.Feras al-Jayoosi, 34, pleaded guilty to four counts of wearing an article supporting a proscribed organisation at Westminster magistrates court on Friday. Continue reading...
From first kisses to ghosting, dating can be a minefield for young people. Here’s how to have a happy, healthy romanceTeen relationships often start online, so how do you progress to a real-world date? The first step is to make your chat more meaningful, says Charlene Douglas, an intimacy coach and sexual health educator. “Online, young people can banter for hours, so try to move the conversation on. Rather than just talking about celebs, or who said what at school, bring those situations back to what you have in common.” Continue reading...
Foley artists are film and television’s unsung heroes: the people who create sounds, for everything from crunchy snow, kissing and horses’ hooves. Just don’t mention coconutsMonday morning in the small Essex town of Coggeshall, and in an unassuming building that used to be a laundry, a man named Barnaby is trying to sound like a horse. Trying and succeeding, uncannily. Not neighing or whinnying, just making the sound of the hooves on the ground.In a big screen on the wall of a windowless room is an armoured knight astride a white warhorse. It’s Richard III, as it happens, accompanied by a gaggle of guards, also armoured and mounted. It’s a scene from The Lost King, Stephen Frears’s upcoming film about the woman who, after 30 years of looking, discovered Richard’s remains under a Leicester car park. Continue reading...
by Hannah Ellis-Petersen South Asia correspondent on (#5RTV2)
Artisan producers have begun to emerge and demand for cheese platters has ‘gone ballistic’It was one day during the Covid-19 lockdown last year that Namrata Sundaresan’s phone began ringing non-stop. Sundaresan, the co-founder of Käse, the only artisan cheesemaker in the southern Indian city of Chennai, was bemused by the avalanche of requests for one thing: pecorino cheese.“I had 20 people call me and ask for pecorino,” she said. “I was really surprised because pecorino is not something that a lot of people in India know about.” It turned out a video featuring the Italian pasta dish cacio e pepe was going viral on social media and WhatsApp. Suddenly people across the country wanted to get their hands on some Italian-style hard cheese. “This would have been unthinkable two years ago,” said Sundaresan. Continue reading...
The Communist party has banned the planned string of pro-democracy marches, saying they are an overthrow attemptThe Cuban playwright Yunior García has shot to fame over the past year, but not because of his art. The 39-year old has become the face of Archipelago, a largely online opposition group which is planning a string of pro-democracy marches across the island on Monday.The Communist party has banned the protests – which coincide with the reopening of the country after 20 months of coronavirus lockdowns – arguing that they are a US-backed attempt to overthrow the government. Continue reading...
About 1,000 people reach Britain in single day by crossing Channel from France in small boatsThree people risking their lives to cross the Channel in kayaks have been reported missing by the French coastguard.
Mukuru, one of Kenya’s largest informal settlements, has cleaned up its act with improved water, roads and sanitationThe people who live in Mukuru, one of the vast, sprawling “informal settlements” in Nairobi, used to dread the rains, when the slum’s mud-packed lanes would dissolve into a soggy quagmire of sewage, stagnant water and slimy rubbish.But a few years ago, things began to change. On a newly paved road Benedetta Kasendi is selling sugar cane from a cart. It gives her a clean platform, somewhere she can keep her wares tidy. Her biggest challenge now is what to do with the sugar-cane waste as she does not want to clog up Mukuru’s revamped sewers. Continue reading...
The brash new thriller, starring Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis and Melanie Lynskey, is an ambitious meditation on survival and middle age with turbulent tonal shiftsIt’s clear from the first scene of Yellowjackets, Showtime’s genre-bending survivalist series with a host of second-act 90s stars, that the girls of Wiskayok high school, fierce soccer stars on the field and headstrong teens off it, will go feral. There’s blood in the snow, screams of terror, a booby trap, an impaled body (not the first in a series that favors at least three gory shots an episode), a heart necklace hanging from a lifeless body, figures garbed in animal skins and overt suggestions of cannibalism.Cut to weeks earlier, 1996: the Yellowjackets, an undefeated and under-heralded soccer team in suburban New Jersey, are headed to nationals, and their close-knit relationships are starting to fray. Then cut to 2021, when four of the girls, now fortysomethings concealing improbable trauma with cracking glue, are thrown back to the tabloid-heavy drama of their past. The 10-part series, created by the Narcos alums Bart Nickerson and Ashley Lyle, toggles between the (pandemic-less) present and the girls’ traumatic upheaval 25 years before, when the private plane to nationals crashes somewhere in the Canadian wilderness. Lord of the Flies, meet Liz Phair and Lost. Continue reading...
Jens Galschiot wants to bring sculpture back after decades in Hong Kong but fears arrest under national security lawThe Danish sculptor of a statue that commemorates pro-democracy protesters killed during China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown has asked Hong Kong authorities for immunity from a national security law so he can take it back to Denmark.Jens Galschiot loaned the eight-metre high, two-tonne copper sculpture called Pillar of Shame to a local civil society group, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, in perpetuity. Continue reading...
Ma Chun-man, who carried the superhero’s shield and chanted pro-democracy slogans at rallies, was convicted under new security lawsA Hong Kong man known as “Captain America” for carrying the superhero’s shield at protest rallies has been sentenced to more than five years in jail for chanting slogans promoting Hong Kong’s independence from China.Ma Chun-man, a 31-year-old food delivery driver, was convicted last month by a judge of trying to separate the city from China by chanting slogans and displaying placards, as well as through interviews with reporters. Continue reading...
Michael Fawcett resigns from The Prince’s Foundation after accusations he offered to help secure a knighthood for Saudi donorA former aide to the Prince of Wales has resigned as chief executive of one of Charles’ charities amid an alleged cash-for-honours scandal.Michael Fawcett and his party planning company will also no longer be providing services to Clarence House, a spokesperson said. Continue reading...
Hollywood actor paints over original work, which was created for Stephen Merchant’s TV series The OutlawsA piece of art created by Banksy was painted over by Hollywood actor Christopher Walken in the final episode of BBC series The Outlaws.The six-part comedy-drama, which Stephen Merchant co-created with US writer and producer Elgin James, and also directed, follows a group of misfits renovating a derelict community centre in Bristol, as part of community service for crimes they have committed. Continue reading...
Ali Bagheri Kani also says all sanctions must be lifted before Tehran returns to full compliance with 2015 agreementIran requires a commitment that the US will not again leave the nuclear deal signed with world powers in 2015, the country’s new chief negotiator and deputy foreign minister has told the Guardian.Ali Bagheri Kani also said that talks in Vienna between Iran and other signatories had failed to reach agreement on a means of verifying that US sanctions had both been lifted and had a practical impact on trade with Iran. Continue reading...
Babis Anagnostopoulos may be charged for claiming Caroline Crouch died in botched burglaryThe Greek pilot, who allegedly confessed to strangling his British wife in May as she slept in their Athens home beside the couple’s baby, should be tried for premeditated murder, according to charges made public on Thursday.The public prosecutor handling the case also recommended that Babis Anagnostopoulos be charged with lying to police after claiming for 37 days that the death of his wife, Caroline Crouch, was the result of a botched burglary. Continue reading...
Figueres, Tubiana and Fabius warn that leaders must improve plans next year if world is to stay within crucial 1.5C limitWorld leaders will have to return to the negotiating table next year with improved plans to cut greenhouse gases because the proposed targets agreed at the Cop26 summit are too weak to prevent disastrous levels of global heating, the three architects of the Paris agreement have warned.Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who oversaw the 2015 Paris summit, and Laurence Tubiana, the French diplomat who crafted the agreement, have told the Guardian the deadline is essential if the world is to avoid exceeding its 1.5C temperature limit. Laurent Fabius, the former French foreign minister who also oversaw Paris, added: “In the present circumstances [targets] must be enhanced next year.” Continue reading...
The murder case against Kyle Rittenhouse has been thrown into jeopardy after his lawyers requested a mistrial over what appeared to be out-of-bounds questions asked of him by the prosecution. On the seventh day of the trial, Rittenhouse took to the stand to insist he had acted in self-defence. The 18-year-old is on trial on charges of killing two men and injuring a third during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin last year.
Bosses at Alder Hey children’s NHS foundation trust admit ‘breach of duty’, judge says in rulingA high court judge has approved a £27m settlement of a clinical negligence claim after a boy was left with “catastrophic brain injuries”.The boy’s father sued Alder Hey children’s NHS foundation trust in Liverpool on his son’s behalf, and Mr Justice Fordham outlined detail of a settlement in a written ruling published after a high court hearing in Manchester. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington on (#5RSZY)
Group of 10 MPs and peers say Boris Johnson’s government has prioritised trade over national securityBoris Johnson’s government has been accused by MPs of prioritising trade agreements over national security in its handling of surveillance abuses on British soil by governments using spyware made by the Israeli company NSO Group.A letter to the British prime minister signed by 10 MPs and peers has called on the government to end its cybersecurity programmes with countries that are known to have used NSO spyware to target dissidents, journalists and lawyers, among others, and to impose sanctions on NSO, “if they are at all serious about our national security”. Continue reading...
Move by top general comes despite promise to hand power from military to civilian authoritiesSudan’s top general has re-appointed himself as head of the army-run interim governing body, a sign that he is tightening his grip two weeks after he led a coup against civilian leaders.There was no immediate reaction by pro-democracy groups to the move by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, which was announced by Sudan’s state television. Continue reading...
Last president of South Africa under apartheid who oversaw the orderly transfer of powerFrederik Willem – FW – de Klerk, who has died aged 85, was the last president of South Africa under apartheid. He was often compared with Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, for his work in consigning a bankrupt and reviled regime to oblivion.When De Klerk succeeded PW Botha in 1989, he oversaw an event no less unexpected than the collapse of Soviet communism was when Gorbachev came to power in 1985. His stunning act of realpolitik in announcing sweeping political reform, including the release of his eventual successor, Nelson Mandela, was the grand gesture that saved his country, and in 1993 they shared the Nobel peace prize. The following year Mandela became the country’s first democratically elected leader. Continue reading...
by Presented by Gabrielle Jackson with Lenore Taylor on (#5RSTC)
With a new electric vehicles strategy and more money for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Scott Morrison would appear to be announcing policies to help the nation reach its net zero emissions goal by 2050. But do these policies represent a true change of heart for the Coalition, or are they just pamphlets with little action attached?Gabrielle Jackson talks to Lenore Taylor and Mike Ticher about climate policy and posturingYou can read more about the Morrison government’s announcements here: Continue reading...
The UK signed an arms deal with pre-revolutionary Iran that it never fully delivered on. Will it finally pay the refund it owes?The former UK foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that practicalities, not principles, are holding back the payment of a £400m British debt to Iran, seen as a precondition of the release of British-Iranian dual nationals held in Tehran, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Continue reading...
Fused from jungle, rave and soul, trip-hop filled the coffee tables of the 90s, and is now inspiring Billie Eilish’s generation. So why is the term so despised by many?Nobody really wanted to be trip-hop. The stoner beats of Nightmares on Wax’s 1995 Smokers Delight album were era defining, but it carried the prominent legend: “THIS IS NOT TRIP HOP”. James Lavelle’s Mo’ Wax label flirted with the term after it was coined by Mixmag in 1994, but quickly switched to displaying it ostentatiously crossed out on their sleeves. Ninja Tune did print the phrase “triphoptimism” on a king size rolling paper packet in 1996, but only as a joke about escaping categories.“I always disliked the term,” says Lou Rhodes of Lamb, “and I would always make a point in interviews of challenging its use in regard to Lamb.” Mark Rae of Rae & Christian similarly says: “I would give a score of 9/10 on the lazy journalist scale to anyone who placed us in the trip-hop camp.” And Geoff Barrow’s ferocious hatred of the term – let alone its application to Portishead – has become the stuff of social media legend. Continue reading...
Americans and Britons among those detained as part of sweeping arrests critics say are based on ethnicityAmerican and British citizens have been swept up in Ethiopia’s mass detentions of ethnic Tigrayans under a new state of emergency in the country’s escalating war.Thousands of Tigrayans in the capital, Addis Ababa, and across Africa’s second most populous country have already been detained and fears of more such detentions soared on Thursday as authorities ordered landlords to register tenants’ identities with police. Men armed with sticks were seen on some streets as volunteer groups sought out Tigrayans to report them. Continue reading...
Before his turn as a conflicted survivor of the first world war in Mothering Sunday, the star of God’s Own Country, The Durrells and The Crown answers your questionsIf you weren’t an actor and you had to work in the film industry, what would you like to do? avishagfinkI would like to be a ceramicist. I still want to be a ceramicist while also being an actor. A functional ceramicist. My grandmother was a sculptural ceramicist and she was very brilliant, but I’d like to make plates and pots and mugs. I’m a big fan of Ian Godfrey and I’m very fortunate to have a couple of his pieces. Lucie Rie and Hans Coper I really like; Richard Batterham, very much. Continue reading...
A British Museum show on ancient Andean civilisations is revealing new insights into their views of time, society and warThe British Museum’s landmark show Peru: A Journey in Time has been a decade in the making and enables the museum to foreground objects from its own collections and present them alongside treasures from Peru seen for the first time in the UK. Its opening coincides with the 200th anniversary of Peru declaring its independence from Spain, with the UK being one of the first countries to recognise the new nation’s sovereignty. But the neatness of this chronology is perhaps, to a western audience, almost the only familiar aspect of a show that consistently challenges the most basic notions of how the world works and how it can, and should, be lived in. Not the least of these challenges is to the concept of time itself.The subtitle of the exhibition is both a prosaic description of a chronological examination of many different cultures over 3,500 years, but also an introduction to how Andean time was experienced. “We generally think that we’re in the present, the past is behind us and the future is ahead of us,” explains its co-curator Jago Cooper. “Whereas in Andean societies, the past, present and future are parallel lines happening contemporaneously. So the past isn’t dead, it’s happening at the same time as the present, which can therefore change it. And it is by accepting the interrelationship between the past and present that you can best plan for the future.” Continue reading...
Police pursuing several theories about identity of man believed to have died between 1970s and early 1990sPolice in Sicily are investigating whether human remains found in a secluded cave on Mount Etna are those of a journalist who disappeared more than 50 years ago.The remains found on Tuesday night are of a man believed to have died between the 1970s and early 1990s. Police said the man was believed to have been at least 50, was 1.7 metres (5ft 7ins) tall and had “congenital malformations to his nose and mouth”. Continue reading...
As they release two live albums to benefit abortion support groups, we rate the best of the New York band who collided alt-rock with the avant garde in a thrilling noiseGiven short shrift on release, the reputation of the dense, chaotic, beat poetry-infused NYC Ghosts & Flowers has been burnished at least a little by time. The title track, which slowly builds over seven minutes from hushed intro to cacophonous climax, is the perfect example of the dark, bad-dream power the album wields at its best. Continue reading...
A treaty reimburses Indigenous communities for wealth extracted from their lands but payment has remained at C$4 a year since 1874Canada could face compensation payments to Indigenous communities worth billions, after a court found it had willfully deprived First Nations of the immense wealth extracted from their lands.The Crown has made payments to 23 First Nations of the Robinson-Huron Treaty territory since 1850, in exchange for a territory roughly the size of France. Continue reading...
Multibillion-dollar M+ struggles to find a balance between artistic expression and political censorshipA senior Hong Kong cultural official said freedom of expression was not above a China-imposed national security law, on the eve of the opening of a contemporary art museum intended to put the city on the global cultural map.The multibillion-dollar M+, featuring contemporary artwork from leading Chinese, Asian and western artists, is Hong Kong’s attempt to match museums such as Tate Modern in London, New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Continue reading...
Baluch, 46, evaded police for more than two weeks before he was found hiding in a Mercedes in a shipping containerAccused drug lord Mostafa Baluch has landed back in Sydney after he was recaptured by NSW police and extradited from the Gold Coast shackled and under police guard.Baluch’s desperate bid for freedom ended when he was found hiding in a grey Mercedes concealed in a shipping container being transported on the back of a truck. Continue reading...
From extreme weather obliterating homes to rising sea levels ruining crops, climate breakdown is a terrifying daily reality for manyThroughout the 2021 United Nations climate change conference, the Guardian will be publishing the stories of the people whose lives have been upended – sometimes devastated – by the climate breakdown. Continue reading...
Chinese leader urges countries in region to work together amid growing pressure from US over TaiwanXi Jinping has warned against a return to cold war-era tensions in the Asia-Pacific, urging greater cooperation on pandemic recovery and the climate crisis.Amid growing tensions with the US over Taiwan, the Chinese president said all countries in the region must work together on joint challenges. Continue reading...
Yacine Mihoub sentenced for ‘savage’ antisemitic murder of 85-year-old in her apartmentA French court has sentenced the killer of an elderly Jewish woman to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 22 years, in a case which caused an outcry over antisemitism in France.Yacine Mihoub was convicted of the murder of Mireille Knoll, 85, who was stabbed 11 times and whose body was partly burned after her Paris apartment was set alight on 23 March 2018. Continue reading...
Agnes Wanjiru’s family instruct law firm to demand answers over her deathThe family of a young Kenyan woman allegedly murdered by a British soldier almost a decade ago plans to sue the Ministry of Defence to demand answers over her death.The body of Agnes Wanjiru, 21, was found in 2012 after she reportedly went out partying with British soldiers at the Lions Court hotel in the central town of Nanyuki, where the UK army has a permanent garrison. Continue reading...
From extreme weather obliterating homes to rising sea levels ruining crops, climate breakdown is a terrifying daily reality for manyThroughout the 2021 United Nations climate change conference, the Guardian will be publishing the stories of the people whose lives have been upended – sometimes devastated – by the climate breakdown. Continue reading...
Xie Zhenhua claims country has concrete plans rather than ‘paying lip service’ to commitmentsChina has detailed and concrete plans on how to meet its climate commitments, and is pushing those plans forward vigorously, unlike some countries that are “paying lip service” to their climate targets, the head of delegation for China at the Cop26 climate talks has said.Xie Zhenhua, China’s veteran chief official, said: “President Xi [Jinping] announced recently on many multilateral occasions China’s specific targets and concrete policies, measures and actions. We have a policy framework to ensure that we can achieve our climate target.” Continue reading...