World news | The Guardian

With more retailers welcoming pets, our reporter ventures out with her puppy Calisto to see if we really are a nation of animal loversIt’s a Saturday morning and I’m crammed into a small changing room, attempting to try on a new pair of trousers. It’s always a struggle with the multiple layers of autumnal clothing, and I’m even more flustered than usual. Because also crammed into the tiny space is a large dog, giving me a quizzical look and clearly wondering if this is the start of a new game. She quickly decides, yes, yes it is.Dog ownership is booming. According to the Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association, there are 12.5m dogs in the UK this year, with 33% of households having a canine companion, while the Kennel Club is among the charities and organisations that have reported a surge in puppy ownership during the Covid pandemic. Continue reading...

After years of trying, Martha Hayes chose to have a child using an egg donor. It raised many painful questions. But when Maggie finally arrived it turned out she’d brought all her love with herIt’s 7pm on a weeknight when my husband Chris and I open our laptops, pour two glasses of wine and start browsing through profiles of women in their 20s. Attractive, interesting, available women. It’s the spring of 2020, we’ve been living in Los Angeles for a year (having relocated from London for work) and a couple of times a week, this has become our little routine.I get a good feeling about a pretty blonde yoga teacher, then worry that she’s only 5ft tall. I love the idea of someone who works for Nasa, but I’m put off by her distinctive nose. I am swayed by a sense of humour and spirit for adventure; snobby about hobbies, fussy about ailments and firmly rule out anyone who resembles a party-goer on spring break. It’s an uncomfortable, confronting process. Am I really this superficial or judgmental? Continue reading...

1.28 million in UK have coronavirus, but separate figures suggest number of daily infections has declined 14%

Head of Police Federation says forces have a behavioural problem that must be consigned to historyThe head of the organisation representing police officers has said a “canteen culture” of sexism and misogyny in UK police forces has to end in order to win back public trust.John Apter, the chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, acknowledged forces in the UK had a problem with behaviour where female officers are subjected to “sexist nicknames” and “derogatory remarks”, adding it needed to be “consigned to the history books”. Continue reading...

EU and UK travel bans fuel boom in travel to Serbia for authorised Covid vaccinations

Slasher fantasy and ghostly magic collide in Edgar Wright’s heady thriller about a fashion student who is mysteriously transported into the life of a 60s nightclub singer“It’s not what you imagine, London,” says Rita Tushingham in this deliciously twisted love letter to Britain’s cinematic pop-culture past. Director and co-writer Edgar Wright, whose CV runs from the rural action-comedy Hot Fuzz to the recent dramatic music doc The Sparks Brothers, has cheekily described Last Night in Soho as “Peeping Tom’s Midnight Garden”, a mashup of seedy Soho nostalgia and melancholy magic. Making superb use of its West End and Fitzrovia locations, and boasting a cast that includes Terence Stamp (cutting a silhouette that weirdly recalls William Hartnell’s Doctor Who) and Diana Rigg in her final role, it’s a head-spinning fable that twists from finger-snapping retro fun to giallo-esque slasher fantasy as it dances through streets paved not with gold but with glitter, grit and splashes of stabby gore.Thomasin McKenzie, who dazzled in Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace, is Eloise Turner, a wide-eyed, 60s-obsessed fashion student with a “gift” that leaves her haunted by Don’t Look Now-style visions of her dead mother. Having earned a place at the London College of Fashion, “Ellie” finds herself in a top-floor bedsit from whence she is nightly transported back into the capital’s swinging past through the ghostly mirrored-life of wannabe singer Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy). In her dreams, Ellie (who says the 60s “speak to me”) both watches and becomes Sandie, aiming for the stars but falling to the streets as the meat-hook realities of London life hit home. Is Sandie a figment of Ellie’s overheated imagination – a wish-fulfilment turned into a nightmare - or has she somehow made a genuine connection across generations? Continue reading...

25 questions on literature, film, TV, books and music with a spooky edge – how will you fare?If it is gothic, spooky, scary, haunted or just plain weird, and was in a book, a film, a TV show or some music, you might just be about to get asked about it. How will you fare with these 25 questions about things that go bump in the night? It is just for fun, and there are no prizes, but let us know how you got on – and how you are planning to enjoy this spookiest of evenings – in the comments.The Guardian’s hideously horrible Halloween culture quizIf you do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, please feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com but remember, the quizmaster’s word is always final, and you wouldn’t want him to put a hex on you. Continue reading...

He’s the reluctant sex symbol who is now partying with the Clintons. But actor Nicholas Braun is only just coming to terms with his life-changing role as Cousin Greg, TV’s favourite antihero in Succession. He reveals how he is learning to embrace his newfound fameNicholas Braun arrived on Long Island by train, and then he took a car to the compound. This was three years ago. Braun had been invited to a weekend-long party at a fancy home owned by friends of the American actor Jeremy Strong, who Braun knew from the set of the Emmy Award-winning television show Succession, in which they both star. At the compound he was patted down by members of the secret service, which startled him at first, and then delighted him. (He later referred to the agents as “my boys”.) As guests flashed around, Braun remembers thinking, “How is it I’ve ended up here, at a party in a locked-down compound that has a federal agency working the door?” And then the Clintons arrived.By this point, Braun had filmed just one series of Succession, the HBO juggernaut, which revolves around and pillories the Roy family, a venomous media dynasty in the mould of the Murdochs. (Perhaps you’ve heard of it.) Braun plays Greg Hirsch, a distant cousin and Roy family satellite who, as the show progresses, finds himself increasingly surrounded by powerful and prestigious people and the mucky opulence in which they operate, and becomes both seduced and confused by his new surroundings, often to comic effect. Continue reading...

Beijing has reacted angrily to the report, which said China was hindering investigations into source of the pandemicBeijing has lashed out against a US intelligence review into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, calling it “political and false” while urging Washington to stop attacking China.The Chinese foreign ministry’s retort came on Sunday, days after the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a fuller version of its findings from a 90-day review ordered by president Joe Biden. Continue reading...

Caitlin Shorricks’s design for a special vest to protect her daughter during cancer treatment is now helping families across the countryCaitlin Shorricks will never forget the agony of seeing her three-month-old baby, Theía, being treated for cancer last year. She was scared to pick up her daughter for fear of accidentally pulling out the tube running into her main jugular vein: “I was totally terrified. If I wanted to hold her, I had to call a nurse to help.”Determined to find a safe way to cuddle her little girl, she teamed up with her aunt Eva Newberry, who used to be a dressmaker, to create a garment for the baby that would keep the line safely tucked away in a pocket. They called it a “Choob Toob’”. Continue reading...

Tariq Zaidi’s powerful image of the overcrowded Chalatenango prison, which housed 1,637 inmates from the feared MS-13 criminal organisationThe British-based photographer Tariq Zaidi took this picture in Chalatenango prison in El Salvador in 2019. At the time, the prison held 1,637 inmates, all of whom were members of the MS-13 gang that has terrorised the country for decades. Zaidi arrived in El Salvador in 2018 and spent eight months negotiating access to the brutal world of MS-13 and its rival, Barrio 18. In the following two years, he visited six maximum security prisons and numerous bloody crime scenes and funeral processions. His aim, he suggests, in his book of the pictures, Sin Salida (No Way Out), was to document the vicious dystopia that parts of El Salvador had become: “When then-President Trump was calling Central American migrant caravans ‘criminals’ and the like, I wanted to explore what kind of life these people were leaving behind.”The motto of MS-13 is “kill, rape, control”. It is estimated to have used violent extortion against 70% of El Salvador’s businesses. After a dozen years in which the murder rate was higher than any country outside a war zone, President Nayib Bukele, who styles himself as “the world’s coolest dictator”, won power in 2019 on a platform of zero tolerance of gang violence. His authoritarian “territorial control plan”, along with an alleged secret pact with MS-13 leaders, filled the country’s jails to more than triple capacity and dramatically cut the official murder rate. Continue reading...

From All My Loving to Your Mother Should Know, the former Beatle illuminates a life spent puzzling how to get from the beginning of a song to its endAt the beginning of this two-volume book, Paul McCartney says that while he has no intention of writing his autobiography and has never kept a diary, it has been his habit throughout his adult life to turn his life experiences into the words of songs, and so here are 154 of them. With that kind of introduction you’d be forgiven for expecting them in chronological order. Had they been so, most of the hits would be in the first book and a lot of people would hardly open the second. Chronological was obviously a non-starter.Alphabetical it is, then, with each initial letter a fresh lottery. F is particularly solid, featuring Fixing a Hole, The Fool on the Hill, For No One and From Me to You. Unsurprisingly, almost everything under I dates from the Beatles’ personal-pronoun period – I Saw Her Standing There, I Wanna Be Your Man, I Want to Hold Your Hand, I’m Down, I’ll Follow the Sun and others – while the average reader may be a bit lost in the O section once they get past Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. As much space in this book is devoted to Magneto and Titanium Man as Michelle. This last turns out to have been half-written by a schoolteacher friend, which would guarantee it winding up in court if it were to happen today. Continue reading...

Large numbers linked to previous administration are stranded in Afghanistan, with calls for the UK to broker rapid mass evacuationCalls for the government to speed up the evacuation of gay, lesbian and transgender Afghans intensified on Saturday after the first LGBTQ+ group arrived safely in Britain but left many behind to face an uncertain fate.The group of 29 is “hoped to be the first of many” in the coming months, the Foreign Office said, hours after the Taliban announced LGBTQ+ rights would not be respected. Continue reading...

The new sister channel of climate denialist Fox News isn’t following suit – it’s just avoiding the subject altogetherWhen Fox News Media announced plans for a 24-hour weather channel, the company could hardly have predicted it would debut in a week marked by a bomb cyclone, several tornadoes and severe flooding across the north-east.Yet that’s exactly what happened when Fox Weather launched on Monday last week, to much fanfare from its owners, but to serious trepidation from people concerned that the channel could match the infamous climate change scepticism of its sister channel Fox News. Continue reading...

Footage shared on social media blamed for igniting violence between communities that left seven dead, buildings torched and many living in fearIt was early morning when Achintya Das, a 55-year-old teacher in the city of Cumilla in Bangladesh, was woken by the ringing of his mobile phone. On the other end of the line was a fearful, stricken voice. Come quickly, the local told him, something very grave had happened. A Qur’an had been found in the shrine they had recently erected for the upcoming Hindu festival of Durga Puja. The Islamic holy book had been placed on a statue of the Hindu god Hanuman.Das, a Hindu who organised the festival in Cumilla, felt dread rise up in him at the news of the desecration of Muslim holy scripture in their shrine. “It didn’t even take me a second to understand the gravity of the situation. I rushed there immediately,” he said. Continue reading...

Rescuers performed CPR on four people until paramedics arrived but one could not be savedA person has died and three people are in a critical condition after a fishing boat capsized off the Wollongong coast in New South Wales with eight people aboard.Police say emergency personnel were called to waters off Waniora Point at Bulli, south of Sydney, after reports of a vessel overturning shortly before 10.30am on Sunday. Continue reading...

You could talk about it – and tell the other two that you won’t have secrets that make one of them feel not greatThe question For 18 months I’ve been in a relationship with two other men. They’d been a couple for five years already. We made it work and moved in together. We are all in our early 30s. I have never had a relationship longer than a few weeks before this.The attraction was equally sparkling for both of them at the start but, as time went by, I developed more of a sexual connection with ‘B’, many times being very spontaneous just between the two of us, always with almost a “cheating thrill”. We had threesomes as well. Continue reading...

Fully vaccinated visitors from New Zealand will be able to enter freely from Monday, as Australia prepares gradually reopen its borders

Australian prime minister defends move to ditch French submarine contract as ‘the right decision’ at G20 in Rome

UK figures down from 43,467 new infections and 186 deaths on Friday; authorities in Thailand issue order as country prepares to open to tourists

After the worries over ‘wokeness’, hunting was the day’s big issueThose who care deeply about the stately homes of Britain tuned in on Saturday from a dozen countries around the world to watch a peculiar spectator sport: the National Trust annual general meeting.The stage was set for a tournament that promised one victor: either the reforming board of the National Trust, determined to move with the times, or a rebellious contingent calling for a return to first principles of preservation and established scholarship. Continue reading...

Firms defend paying no corporation tax after government handed out billions to energy giantsShell and BP, which together produce more than 1.7bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, have not paid any corporation tax on oil and gas production in the North Sea for the last three years, company filings reveal.The oil giants, which have an annual global footprint of greenhouse gases more than five times bigger than Britain’s, are benefiting from billions of pounds of tax breaks and reliefs for oil and gas production. Continue reading...

There are concerns rising metal prices will lead to more illegal scavenging unless the government acts to protect wrecksVera Ryan doesn’t know much about her uncle Jack. Petty officer Jack Messenger was one of 35 men who were on the HMAS AE1 submarine when it sank in the early days of the first world war.But she knows the site of the wreck is an important place, a place of memories for her and the hundred-odd other descendants and families of the Australian and British sailors who died. Continue reading...

Killers said they were Taliban but government denies responsibility and says two of them have been arrestedGunmen presenting themselves as Taliban attacked a wedding in eastern Afghanistan to stop music being played and killed at least three people, the government has said.Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Saturday that two of the three attackers had been arrested, and denied they were acting on behalf of the Islamist movement. Continue reading...

Annual memorial procession calls out names of growing number of people who died in prison or police custodyHundreds of friends and relatives of people who died in prison or police custody have held a procession through central London in remembrance and calling for justice for their loved ones.Supporters of the United Friends & Families Campaign gathered in Trafalgar Square just after midday on Saturday for the march, which has taken place every year in London since 1999. Continue reading...

Pro-coup forces reportedly use live ammunition and teargas in Khartoum and OmdurmanSudanese security forces have opened fire on massive demonstrations across the country against last week’s military coup, killing at least three protesters and injuring many more.According to reports on social media and claims by Sudanese pro-democracy organisations, pro-coup security forces have used live ammunition and teargas in several locations in Khartoum and its twin city Omdurman as well as in the city of Nyala. Continue reading...

Expulsion ordered a day after similar move by Saudi Arabia in response to criticism of the Riyadh-led interventionKuwait has given Lebanon’s envoy to the emirate 48 hours to leave, a day after Saudi Arabia made a similar move over a minister’s criticism of the Riyadh-led military intervention in Yemen.The diplomatic row, in which Saudi Arabia has also suspended imports from Lebanon and Bahrain has expelled Beirut’s envoy to Manama, is another blow for a country already in the grip of crippling political and economic crises. Continue reading...

Chris Riddell on ghouls, Brexit and the budget• You can order your own copy of this cartoon Continue reading...

A role in the sci-fi epic Dune has transformed the young actor into a bona fide leading man – but not one from the old Hollywood mouldIn September, the Met Gala in New York – Anna Wintour’s annual fusion of fundraising gala and celebrity parade – redesigned itself for generation Z. Instagram sponsored the event, Justin Bieber was its headline performer, and four young whippersnappers were enlisted as co-chairs: singer Billie Eilish, tennis player Naomi Osaka, poet Amanda Gorman and – the elder statesman of the quartet at 25 – Timothée Chalamet.Chalamet turned up, typically tousle-haired and puppy-eyed, in an outfit of two halves. Up top, a cropped, snugly tailored satin tuxedo jacket by avant-garde designer Haider Ackermann, complete with cummerbund and blingy brooches. Below, a pair of baggy cream jogging bottoms, tucked into white socks and Converse trainers. Half princely film star, half kid at play: it’s a look that encapsulates the persona of the biggest, most hysterically obsessed-over teen idol to emerge from the movies since the heyday of Twilight. Continue reading...

Despite the chancellor’s ‘levelling up’ cash, there were few signs of optimism in Pudsey marketIn the aftermath of his budget speech last week, Rishi Sunak sent a tweet trumpeting a £20m investment in transport in the Leeds West constituency. It was designed to goad the local MP and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves. But as Reeves pointed out, the money was actually for next-door Pudsey, a Tory seat.Yet even in Pudsey last week, where the money will be spent on upgrading a main road, there was little support for Sunak’s supposed largesse, given that it comes after a decade of underinvestment. Continue reading...

Stonewall CEO comments come as first 29 people from this group arrive in the Britain after fleeing TalibanThe level of threat against LGBTQ+ Afghans is “escalating and escalating” a charity chief has warned, as the first 29 people from this group arrived in Britain.Nancy Kelley, the chief executive of Stonewall, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans equality charity, who has been closely involved in the operation to airlift LGBTQ+ Afghans to safety, working with the Home Office, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Canadian organisation Rainbow Railroad, welcomed the safe of arrival of the group. Continue reading...

Boat was discovered in freshwater pool during construction of a tourist train to the ruins of Maya cityA wooden canoe used by the ancient Maya and believed to be more than 1,000 years old has turned up in southern Mexico almost completely intact, officials have said.The extremely rare canoe was found submerged in a freshwater pool known as a cenote, thousands of which dot Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, near the ruins of Chichén Itzá, once a major Maya city featuring elaborately carved temples and towering pyramids. Continue reading...

Duke of York says Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of forcing her to have sex when she was 17, is seeking a ‘payday’ at his expenseIn a filing asking a US judge to dismiss a civil lawsuit in which he is accused of sexually abusing a woman when she was 17, Prince Andrew said his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, was seeking a “payday” at his expense.A filing with the US district court in Manhattan on Friday signed by the lawyer Andrew Brettle said: “Giuffre has initiated this baseless lawsuit against Prince Andrew to achieve another payday at his expense and at the expense of those closest to him.” Continue reading...

Traveller who had arrived on a flight from New Zealand on Wednesday tests positive

The Cop26 summit in Glasgow begins on Monday: our environment correspondent traces the long buildup – and the implications of failureIn the Marshall Islands people are used to the vagaries of the ocean. But recently the monthly “king tide” has brought new perils to this small group of islands in the Pacific about halfway between Australia and Hawaii. Waves crash over the roads and airport runways, especially when the unusually high tide coincides with a storm surge, cutting off communication and making daily business dangerous or impossible.The islanders’ lives are now full of inescapable reminders of climate breakdown, says Tina Stege, the climate envoy for the tiny nation of 60,000 people on 29 atolls. “We see stronger storms and storm surges. Droughts are more frequent and more intense and longer. Growing up I remember just one very intense drought; now they’re happening maybe every three years. We recently had a dengue fever emergency, a problem we’re seeing now in the winter months as they get warmer.” Continue reading...

Narendra Modi joins in mourning for much-loved star of southern Indian cinemaPuneeth Rajkumar, a leading star of southern Indian regional cinema, has died after a heart attack. He was 46.Rajkumar had performed lead roles in 29 movies and also appeared on television, where he was the host of a Kannada-language version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Continue reading...

From living in a dugout in Little Siberia to his friendship with Allen Ginsberg in New York, artist and activist Ai Weiwei reveals what drives his restless creativityAi Weiwei is hard to pin down. For the first few minutes of our Zoom call, him bleary-eyed at his computer, I think he’s talking to me from his new base in Portugal. My mistake – it’s Vienna, where he’s planning a show for next March. A year and a half ago, Ai was giving interviews about his new life in Britain; before that it was Germany, the country that offered him safe harbour when he finally left China in 2015, after years of hounding by the authorities and a spell in detention. So where does he actually live?“Yeah, the question always comes up,” he says sheepishly. He moved to Cambridge so his son, Ai Lao, could improve his English. His son is still there, but in the meantime, “I found a piece of land near Lisbon, so I’m kind of settled there, but that’s only for the past year”. Continue reading...

Retailers accused of ignoring soaring production costs to keep prices low, with Aldi singled out as leading way

Drone footage shows vast amounts of pumice pebbles, spewed out months ago by an undersea volcano, clogging up a fishing port in Kagoshima prefecture, in southern Japan. The pumice has so far affected 19 ports in Kagoshima, and 11 on Okinawa, putting hundreds of fishing boats out of action and damaging the tourism industry.

Swastika seen hanging from Margaret Street apartment complex in city’s CBDCongregants at a Brisbane synagogue were confronted by the sight of a Nazi flag flying from a nearby apartment window on Saturday.Visitors to the synagogue reported seeing the swastika symbol hanging from a UniLodge complex on Margaret Street in the central business district on Saturday morning, the Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies vice-president, Jason Steinberg, said. Continue reading...

Polls show the LDP may struggle to hold on to its sole majority in the 465-seat chamberThe party that has governed Japan almost without interruption for nearly seven decades is expected to win Sunday’s general election, but the new prime minister, Fumio Kishida, could emerge with his authority damaged.Kishida, who became president of the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP) last month, is hoping to capitalise on a dramatic fall in coronavirus cases in Japan in recent weeks and engage voters with promises of a “new capitalism” that will redistribute wealth to the country’s struggling middle class. Continue reading...

Victoria reported 11 deaths while NSW recorded 236 infections and three deaths

Fred, 26, PhD student, meets Laurine, 24, French teaching assistantFred on LaurineWhat were you hoping for?

The Labour politician is used to fighting battles – but can she win her latest: convincing her colleagues to back proper maternity cover for fellow members?Stella Creasy is dodging people on the pavement as we talk. She apologises for the background noise but it’s hard finding time for a conversation when you have a newborn son, a toddler daughter, and no proper maternity leave from a full-time job as Labour MP for Walthamstow; this walk to an appointment is the only window she has. Last month, she spoke in a Commons debate on childcare, baby Pip in a sling, sounding astonishingly composed for someone who had given birth four weeks earlier. I ask how she’s feeling and she laughs briefly and says: “Tired as hell, mad as anything.”And then it all comes tumbling out: the night before that debate, she’d been in hospital with an infection she thinks was brought on by doing too much. The day after her caesarean, she was dialling into meetings with the defence secretary from hospital – she has had about 200 cases in her London constituency of people seeking help getting family members out of Afghanistan – and has barely stopped since. “There wasn’t any alternative,” she says. “These are people ringing up my staff threatening to kill themselves because they’re so worried about family members. You can hear the terror in their voices.” Meanwhile, she’s grappling with “the mum guilt” for not taking more time off, while struggling to be patient with people in parliament who ask how she is, only to back away when answered honestly. Having lost a battle with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) this summer over the maternity leave cover she wanted, Creasy refuses to draw a polite veil over the consequences. And if that means breaking the working mother taboo against admitting that everything is not in fact fine, then so be it. Continue reading...

Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Anti-Defamation League president denounce Fox News host’s ‘lies’ as he plugs new seriesThe conservative Republican Liz Cheney and the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League led condemnation of Fox News and Tucker Carlson, after the primetime host announced a series about the supposed “true story” of the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January.They denounced Carlson for spreading dangerous conspiracy theories in the latest scandal to engulf a man whose popularity belies his record of racist and untrue statements on issues from immigration to racial justice. Continue reading...

At the end of Black History Month, we ask prominent Black British figures to assess where the UK stands in terms of equality and cohesionIt’s hard not to see the past year as a missed opportunity. I’ve been banging on about racism for 30 years, but the voices for change are getting louder and more articulate. Yet though we’ve seen a range of books on our experiences, our hopes and our frustrations, it still feels like a huge section of the British public aren’t listening. This is a country that cherishes its history and its traditions, but unfortunately this means there’s a resistance to change. We need to start embracing difference. Continue reading...

Dozens of fishing vessels and ports have been damaged, with tonnes of the floating pebbles being removed from coastlines every dayVast amounts of pumice pebbles, spewed out months ago by an undersea volcano, has clogged dozens of ports and damaged fishing boats along Japan’s southernmost coastlines.Deputy chief cabinet secretary Yoshihiko Isozaki said on Friday that the pumice had so far affected 11 ports on Okinawa and 19 others in the Kagoshima prefecture, on Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu, and forced the central government to establish a disaster recovery task force. Continue reading...

Red-armbanded ‘Chaoyang masses’ likened to KGB and MI6 have become a common sight on streets of China’s capitalThey are often seen wearing a red armband patrolling residential neighbourhoods of Chaoyang, the biggest district of Beijing, which is home to nearly 3.5 million people. On a sunny late autumn afternoon, they will sit with a group of retirees in the sun and chat away. But when an individual of interest turns up, their attention quickly diverts to them.In Chinese media and official police statements, these vigilante neighbourhood watchers are called the “Chaoyang masses”. Last week, the state-owned Global Times went a step further, quoting internet users as saying the mysterious group “could match four famous intelligence [agencies], the CIA, MI6, KGB and Mossad”. Some jokingly called it “the fifth largest intelligence agency in the world”. Continue reading...

The SES was dealing with more than 1,300 callouts for assistance as of Saturday morningMore than 100,000 Victorian properties are still without power after wild storms tore down power lines and damaged homes, causing widespread blackouts.Destructive winds lashed the state on Thursday night, with thousands of requests for emergency assistance and hundreds of properties damaged. Continue reading...

Duke of York files motion requesting New York court ‘respectfully moves to dismiss plaintiff Virginia Giuffre’s complaint’Prince Andrew has filed a motion requesting a New York court dismiss a sexual harassment lawsuit against him, a court document showed.Attorneys for the Duke of York said in the filing on Friday that Andrew “respectfully moves to dismiss plaintiff Virginia Giuffre’s complaint”. Continue reading...