The ex-England star’s deal for his ambassador role is in marked contrast to the wages of the host nation’s migrant workersI doubt Nirmala Pakrin knows who David Beckham is, but she knows about Qatar.Her husband, Rupchandra Rumba, a 24-year-old from Nepal, died in 2019, gasping for breath in a squalid camp for labourers on the outskirts of Doha, while working for a contractor on one of the new World Cup stadiums. Continue reading...
by Daniel Boffey in Brussels, Angelique Chrisafis in on (#5R808)
Comments from French EU affairs minister come as British trawler is detained in France amid disputeFrance’s EU affairs minister, Clément Beaune, has said Paris will “now use the language of force” in an escalation of a row over post-Brexit fishing rights, as French maritime police seized a British trawler found in its territorial waters without a licence.One vessel had been stopped off Le Havre in the early hours of Thursday morning, after which it was rerouted to the quay and “handed over to the judicial authority”, while a second was given a verbal warning. Continue reading...
Liberation was at the top of the agenda for her 1960s customers, and the British fashion designer helped them achieve it. From athleisure to workwear to gender fluidity, here’s how she influences the world todayBefore Mary Quant, it was almost impossible to run upstairs in a skirt or shed a discreet tear while wearing mascara. The 60s fashion designer, who gave mass-market appeal to thigh-skimming miniskirts and pioneered clothes for working women, is the subject of a feature-length film that opens in cinemas this week. Quant, directed by Sadie Frost, tracks the designer’s career, from opening her boutique in Chelsea to running the world’s first global superbrand. While contemporary designers give us trends, Quant reset the dial on the way we get dressed. Under her influence, women rejected their parents’ vision of beauty and embraced their own. Her legacy continues today – here are nine ways she changed how women dress. Continue reading...
Young Muslims face charges including ‘promoting enmity’ after match at T20 World Cup in DubaiIndian police have arrested seven Muslim youths for allegedly celebrating Pakistan’s victory over India in a cricket match on Sunday.Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, a senior Bharatiya Janata party figure, said in a tweet that the three may be charged with sedition, on top of the charges of cyberterrorism and “promoting enmity among groups” that police accused them of after the arrests on Wednesday. Continue reading...
The Albanian academic describes coming of age at a turning point in history, and the family secrets exposed in its aftermathOne wet afternoon in December 1990, little Lea Ypi ran across Tirana to the garden of the Palace of Culture. Making sure no one could see her, she pressed her warm cheek to the cold thigh of a statue and tried to make her arms encircle its knees. And then she looked up to savour the figure’s friendly moustache, only to suppress a scream. Hooligan demonstrators calling for freedom and democracy had decapitated one of her favourite uncles.Ypi at the time had two favourite uncles, both communists, both dead, neither actual relations. Albania’s leader Enver Hoxha was one, Joseph Stalin the other, and her superbly unreliable teacher, Nora, had taught her student to venerate both. After all, was it not Marx’s teacher Hangel (not Hegel, Nora clarified), who had described Napoleon as the spirit of history on a horse? Stalin, Nora told Lea, was the spirit of history on a tank. Plus he had a great moustache. Continue reading...
Homeless handyman was charged with escaping custody after he walked into a police station on Sydney’s northern beaches in mid-SeptemberA Sydney man who escaped from a NSW prison almost 30 years ago but handed himself in after becoming homeless during the Covid pandemic could be deported when he is released from jail.Darko Desic, 64, was homeless when he walked into Dee Why police station in mid-September and confessed to breaking out of a Grafton jail on the state’s north coast in July 1992. Continue reading...
Rural communities like Chapagua that have done least to stoke the climate crisis barely have time to recover from one disaster before another hitsIt was around dusk on the third consecutive day of heavy rain when the River Aguán burst its banks and muddy waters surged through the rural community of Chapagua in north-east Honduras, sweeping away crops, motorbikes and livestock.Most inhabitants fled to higher ground after the category 4 Hurricane Eta made landfall in early November 2020, but fisherman Rosendo García stayed behind, hoping to safeguard the family’s home and animals. After a ravine on the opposite side of the village also flooded, there was no way out. Continue reading...
Productions of Wagner’s epic take years in the planning and execution, huge spaces and hundreds of people. How is a small arts collective performing all four operas in a Putney church, and how does a conch shell and a fire dance fit in?Here is an insane undertaking: a small London-based arts collective, Gafa, run by singers of Samoan heritage, putting on a complete Ring cycle – four vast operas, almost 15 hours of music – in a church in Putney, southwest London. Opera houses spend years plotting their Ring cycles, adding the parts of the tetralogy incrementally, usually year by year. Gafa (pronounced Nafa and meaning “family” in Samoan), however, are performing all four of Wagner’s herculean works on successive Saturdays. Surely an act of hubris that will invite nemesis, even from gods facing imminent twilight.
Hall’s directing debut stars Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga as friends who are both ‘passing’ for what they are not in an adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novelRebecca Hall makes her directing debut with this intimately disturbing movie, adapted by her from the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen. Irene (Tessa Thompson) and Clare (Ruth Negga) are two women of colour, former school friends who run into each other by chance in an upscale Manhattan hotel in prohibition-era America. They are both light-skinned, but Irene is stunned to realise that her vivacious and now peroxide blonde friend Clare is “passing” for white these days, and that her odious, wealthy white husband John (Alexander Skarsgård) has no idea. As for sober and respectable Irene, she lives with her black doctor husband Brian (André Holland) in Harlem with their two sons and a black maid that she treats a little high-handedly.There is an almost supernatural shiver in Irene and Clare’s meeting: as if the two women are the ghosts of each other’s alternative life choices. Irene is herself passing for middle class, passing for successful: she has an entrée into modish artistic circles through her friendship with the celebrated white novelist Hugh Wentworth (Bill Camp) who is passing for straight. But there is something else. Clare is also passing for happily married. The dangerously transgressive Clare, for whom this chance meeting has triggered a desperate homesickness for her black identity, demands access to Irene’s life and simperingly makes Brian’s acquaintance. Continue reading...
A carer, a scientist, a small business owner and an HGV driver tell us how the budget will affect them“In normal times the risks would be lower” Continue reading...
No 10 threatens retaliation against French measures including port ban on British fishing boatsA major trade dispute has broken out between the UK and France after Paris banned British fishing boats from key ports, vowed to impose onerous checks on cross-Channel trade, and threatened the UK’s energy supply over a row over post-Brexit rights to UK waters.The move prompted a dramatic response from Downing Street where a spokesperson for Boris Johnson said the UK government would retaliate over what was a described as a potential breach of international law. Continue reading...
He was adored as Geoffrey the butler in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Now, as he stars opposite Cush Jumbo in Hamlet, the actor discusses stardom, being one of the first Black Othellos – and why Smith should play Mark AntonyJoseph Marcell’s life has been dominated by a lot of Shakespeare and by one smash-hit sitcom. So when we meet, I bring the lyrics to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s theme song, which some joker online has translated into blank verse. “In west Philadelphia born and raised / On the playground was where I spent most of my days” has become “From western Philadelphia I hail, / where in my youth I’d play upon the green” and so on. Sitting opposite me in the bar of London’s Young Vic, the 73-year-old actor laughs sweetly, stroking his frosted beard as he reads the print-out. “Oh heavens!” he says. “May I keep it? I’ll have to show Will.”That’s Will Smith, of course, who played an ebullient goofball living with his affluent Californian relatives, while Marcell was Geoffrey, the family’s withering English butler. When I mention one of his driest rejoinders – “Run Geoffrey! Fetch Geoffrey! Perhaps you’d like me to catch a Frisbee in my teeth?” – he summons the character right there in the empty bar, baring his fangs as he savours that final word, then laughing at the memory. Continue reading...
Fifty years ago, MPs gathered to debate joining the European Union before voting in favour of entry, by a majority of 112The UK launched its third bid to join the EU (then known as the EEC – European Economic Community) in 1969, shortly after the resignation of French President Charles de Gaulle who had vetoed the two previous applications. France, led by President Pompidou, was now more amenable to UK entry. Membership was approved in principle but whether the UK would proceed to join the EEC required assent of the House of Commons. A debate would take place across six days with the Commons eventually voting in favour of entry by 356 votes to 244. Continue reading...
Try not to apologise just to soothe the shame and fear, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith – sometimes you have to have the dignity to be dislikedI was, I think, a compulsive liar in my late teens and early 20s. I had, in some ways, a pretty awful adolescence. I was fortunate to meet a young man who was kind, attentive and exactly who I needed at that time. He loved me dearly and I abused that. I lied to him with claims at which, looking back, I’m truly disgusted. I was racked with guilt at the time but I couldn’t seem to control it. I can only think that I was desperate for attention. The lies spread to my friend circle and drew a wedge between my boyfriend and me until we finally, very messily (again, mostly due to my immaturity), broke up.In the nearly 10 years since, I’ve come clean to my friends, apologised and tried to move on. My friends have forgiven me, for which I’m so grateful. I tried to apologise to my ex at the time, and he tried to forgive me, but understandably his trust in me had been broken beyond repair. I look back at that time and feel some pity for my younger self but mostly so much guilt and shame. Continue reading...
State department official says ‘we need to make progress soon’ with Russia on increasing number of visas for diplomatsThe US embassy in Moscow could stop performing most functions next year unless there is progress with Russia on increasing the number of visas for diplomats, a US official has warned.The United States earlier this month stopped processing visas in Moscow, and Russians are obliged to travel to the US embassy in Warsaw. Continue reading...
Bill would have made violence against LGBT people and disabled people, as well as misogyny, a hate crimeItaly’s senate on Wednesday killed off a bill that would have made violence against LGBT people and disabled people, as well as misogyny, a hate crime.The 315-member senate voted by 154 to 131 to block the debate on the law, named after the gay centre-left Democratic party (PD) lawmaker and promoter Alessandro Zan and previously approved by the lower house of parliament in the face of months of protests from far right and Catholic groups. Continue reading...
Xavier Bettel admits dissertation ‘should have been done differently’ after investigation uncovers plagiarismLuxembourg’s prime minister, Xavier Bettel, has admitted his university thesis “should have been done differently” after a media investigation concluded that only two of the work’s 56 pages had not been plagiarised.A local news outlet, reporter.lu, said on Wednesday that Bettel had lifted three-quarters of the text, describing it as “an impressive hodgepodge of copied passages that does not meet the customary requirements of academia”. Continue reading...
Warsaw calls European court of justice move blackmail and says penalties ‘not the right road’Poland has been fined €1m (£845,000) a day by the European court of justice for ignoring a ruling that it must suspend its controversial judicial system changes.The inflammatory move, which runs contrary to recent words of caution from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was immediately denounced in Warsaw as “blackmail”. Continue reading...
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#5R70Z)
Analysis: No serious investment in UK’s green future means chancellor is hoping market will deliverIn failing to make any serious new government investment in the UK’s green future, Rishi Sunak has chosen to gamble that the market will deliver instead. That is a very high-stakes bet in the face of a climate emergency.Four days before the UK hosts the crucial Cop26 climate summit, the virtual absence of the climate crisis from Sunak’s budget speech was startling. The most eye-catching announcement was the halving of taxes on domestic flights, which are already far cheaper and more polluting than trains. Continue reading...
Diplomatic envoy for LGBTQ rights said it’s a matter of ‘dignity and respect’The US has issued its first passport with an “X” gender designation – a milestone in the recognition of the rights of people who don’t identify as male or female – and expects to be able to offer the option more broadly next year, the state department said on Wednesday.The US special diplomatic envoy for LGBTQ rights, Jessica Stern, called the moves historic and celebratory, saying they brought the government documents in line with the “lived reality” that there is a wider spectrum of human sex characteristics than is reflected in the previous two designations. Continue reading...
Visit to come amid calls for papal apology over church’s role in abuse and deaths of thousands of children in residential schoolsPope Francis has agreed to visit Canada amid growing calls for an apology from the Catholic church over its role in the abuse and deaths of thousands of Indigenous children.The church has faced mounting criticism for resisting the release of all documents related to the residential school system and allegations that it withheld millions in compensation for survivors of those schools. Continue reading...
The move appears to run contrary to the coalition government’s vow to reduce tensions with PalestineA settlement monitor has said that an Israeli committee has approved about 3,000 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank, a day after the Biden administration issued its strongest condemnation yet of the proposed construction.Word of the approval came from Hagit Ofran from the anti-settlement group Peace Now. There was no immediate confirmation from the defence ministry. Continue reading...
by Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent on (#5R6W7)
PC Adam Zaman, 28, was off duty when alleged rape occurred on Sunday evening, say policeA serving Metropolitan police officer has been charged with a rape alleged to have taken place last weekend.The Met said the officer charged was PC Adam Zaman, 28, and the incident was alleged to have taken place on Sunday evening. The force said Zaman was off duty when the alleged rape occurred and was arrested the following day following a complaint to police. Continue reading...
‘It’s a private moment but in a wide open public space. It made me think about how queer Black men struggle to be seen for our true selves’In 2018, I was visiting my cousin in Dallas when I remembered that a friend from Portland had moved there. I hadn’t seen him in a while and heard he had a new partner, so I asked if he wanted to catch up. The minute I saw him and his boyfriend, I wanted to photograph them. They were both wearing similar clothes, and something about the matching colour palette made them feel like a pair. We took a walk through Como Park, where I spotted this tree. I asked them to stand behind it and embrace each other, with their faces obscured.What struck me was the interplay of intimacy and anonymity. It’s this tender moment, slightly hidden. We can see that it’s an embrace, but we can’t see who it is. It’s a private moment but in a wide open public space. It made me think about how they – and I – as queer Black men, struggle to be seen for our true selves in different spaces. Continue reading...
State operator Renfe says Channel tunnel service competing with Eurostar can be ‘viable and profitable’Spain’s state rail company, Renfe, has announced initial plans to compete with Eurostar by operating a high-speed Channel tunnel line to shuttle travellers between Paris and London.Renfe said studies had shown that the Eurotunnel route, which opened in 1994, could be profitable and workable over the coming years. Continue reading...
A good squash is your best bet for this substantial seasonal soup, so forget those grown-for-looks-not-flavour orange pumpkinsIt’s that time of year when the cookery writer’s thoughts turn, somewhat reluctantly, to pumpkins. Reluctantly because there’s only one reason an editor suggests a pumpkin recipe in October, and that’s a well-meaning, but ultimately doomed attempt to help readers “make the most” of their Halloween jack o’lanterns.Unfortunately, as I discovered early in life with an almost inedible pumpkin crumble, the varieties that are usually sold for carving are grown for their looks, rather than taste, and have flesh so bland that they should really be classed as ornamental to distinguish them from the ones actually worth eating. The latter, in my opinion, include the crown prince, kabocha, kuri and turban squash, all of which also make handsome decorations. They are common in farm shops, markets and greengrocers (I often find them in Asian and African grocers near me) at this time of year, while if you’re not planning to carve it, butternut squash can be picked up just about anywhere. Look for something heavy for its size, a quality that suggests a dense interior full of flavour, though even if you’re staring despondently at the stringy guts of a cartoon pumpkin, don’t despair – we’ve got this. If the worst comes to the worst, just add more cheese. Continue reading...
Prosecutors say DNA and fingerprints matching neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell were found on the carA man has described his fear after coming face to face with a group of alleged neo-Nazis on a Victorian mountain.Thomas Sewell and Jacob Hersant were allegedly among a group who confronted several hikers in the Cathedral Ranges state park, north-east of Melbourne, in May this year. Continue reading...
Julia Pemberton was terrorised for 14 months by her husband before he shot her and their son dead. In the 18 years since, her brother has devoted his life to preventing similar crimes and supporting other familiesThe first time Frank Mullane’s sister Julia confided that her marriage was unhappy, that her husband of 23 years was controlling and abusive, and that she intended to ask for a divorce, Mullane responded in what he now calls “a John Wayne kind of way”. “I asked: ‘When can I give him a thump?’” he recalls. “My life is completely different now, but at the time I didn’t have a clue. I knew nothing about domestic abuse, but I felt 100% solidarity. I wanted to show I was on her side – the cavalry.”Mullane and Julia were two of eight siblings from a close Irish family. Their parents had come from Cork to London, then Wiltshire, where their father built a house big enough for all of them. As adults, they stayed close. “We were a loving family, always in each other’s houses,” says Mullane. He was unmarried and had remained in Wiltshire as a business consultant for Nationwide. Julia had trained as a nurse before marrying Alan Pemberton, an accountant and businessman. She later retrained as a health visitor. They lived with their two teenage children 25 miles away, near Newbury, in a house they built – large, secluded, set in acres of woodland. Continue reading...
Alonso Ruizpalacios’ film starts off as an addictive cop show, breaks the fourth wall and then rebuilds it in a film bristling with ideas“Cops are like actors – you have to put on an act so people respect you.” The speaker is one of the police officers, or possibly actors playing police officers, in this startlingly clever and yet heartfelt docudrama about the contractual nature of power and authority from Mexican film-maker Alonso Ruizpalacios, who in just five years has established himself as one of the most potent talents in world cinema, with his new wave-style debut Güeros in 2014 and his true-crime heist drama Museum in 2018.Now he gives us what looks at first glance like a conventionally gripping cop drama in chapter-length sections, about a couple of young officers, Teresa (Mónica Del Carmen) and Montoya (Raúl Briones), on the tough streets of Mexico City; they are partners, fall in love, get nicknamed “the love patrol” and then fall foul of the corruption higher up the food chain. Ruizpalacios gives his movie catchy music and bold graphics over the opening credits, making it look like an addictive TV cop show: but he also experimentally makes his characters talk direct to camera in a mockumentary manner and also lip-sync mid-scene to their own voiceover commentary on what’s happening in verbatim cinema style. Continue reading...
by Jessica Elgot Chief political correspondent on (#5R6HR)
Exclusive: Brandon Lewis warns he will soon have ‘no alternative but to take further steps’ to ensure services are providedBrandon Lewis could override the Northern Ireland executive and directly instruct the nation’s health trusts to provide abortion services, warning leaders in a leaked letter that the continued delay is unacceptable conduct in public office.The Northern Ireland secretary wrote to the first minister, Paul Givan, and his deputy, Michelle O’Neill, warning he would soon “have no alternative but to take further steps to ensure that women and girls have access to abortion services as decided by parliament, and to which they have a right”. Continue reading...
At least two people have died after a powerful storm battered Sicily, leaving parts of the Italian island submerged. Streets were flooded and many vehicles were stranded in Catania, and power cuts were reported in the city centre Continue reading...
Canadian-born comedian who rose to fame in the 1950s credited with ‘yanking comedy into the modern age’Tributes have been paid to the trailblazing standup comedian Mort Sahl after his death at the age of 94.The Canadian-born comic was credited with revolutionising American comedy in the 1950s thanks to his acerbic political satire. Continue reading...
Committee votes to support push to hold president responsible for many of Brazil’s more than 600,000 Covid deathsA Brazilian Senate committee recommended that president Jair Bolsonaro face a series of criminal indictments for actions and omissions related to the world’s second highest Covid-19 death toll.The seven-to-four vote on Tuesday was the culmination of a six-month committee investigation of the government’s handling of the pandemic. It formally approved a report calling for prosecutors to try Bolsonaro on charges ranging from charlatanism and inciting crime to misuse of public funds and crimes against humanity, and in doing so hold him responsible for many of Brazil’s more than 600,000 Covid-19 deaths. Continue reading...
Charity says lower income countries handing over billions of dollars in debt is impeding their ability to tackle crisisLower income countries spend five times more on debt than coping with the impact of climate change and reducing carbon emissions, according to a leading anti poverty charity.Figures from Jubilee Debt Campaign show that 34 of the world’s poorest countries are spending $29.4bn (£21.4bn) on debt payments a year compared with $5.4bn (£3.9bn) on measures to reduce the impact of the climate emergency. Continue reading...
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