The documents, necessary for entry into bars and sporting venues, are being sold by unscrupulous health workers for less than £20The Lesotho government’s plans to implement a Covid passport system this week are being undermined by widespread fraud involving certificates being sold to unvaccinated people.Covid-19 vaccination certificates are being sold for less than £20 by unscrupulous health workers to the largely vaccine-averse population in Lesotho, where there has been little positive campaigning around the jabs. Continue reading...
For all the advances that have been made in recent decades, disabled people cannot yet participate in society ‘on an equal basis’ with others – and the pandemic has led to many protections being cruelly erodedAt times, it feels as if the disability rights movement won. After years of groundwork, 1981 was declared the International Year of Disabled Persons. I was born that year, in Oslo, Norway, and though I did not receive my first diagnosis of muscular dystrophy until I was a toddler, the coincidence is apt enough: I was born into a world that was, at last, beginning to recognise this aspect of my being in it.Then, from 1983 to 1992, came the United Nations’ Decade of Disabled Persons. And the Americans With Disabilities Act, the UK’s Disability Discrimination Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The turn of the millennium was marked by a litany of good intentions and disavowals of unequal treatment – by an endorsement, as the first article of the UN convention has it, of disabled people’s right to “full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”. Continue reading...
Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao has gone from importing fax machines as a student in Moscow to name-changing billionaireNguyen Thi Phuong Thao began her business career as a sideline importing fax machines and latex rubber into the then Soviet Union while studying economic management at D Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology in Moscow. Before she had turned 21 – or graduated – she had made her first million.Phuong Thao, who is popularly known as Madam Thao, is now Vietnam’s first and only female billionaire with an estimated $2.7bn (£2bn) fortune made from VietJet, the airline she founded and runs, alongside a vast property empire that stretches from skyscrapers in Ho Chi Minh City to five star beach resorts across the country as well as offshore oil and gas exploration and fossil fuel financing. Continue reading...
by Helen Davidson in Taipei, and agencies on (#5RG6H)
Intelligence committee chief Adam Schiff says US and allies must make it clear to China ‘what a significant cost it would pay were it to use force’Adam Schiff, the US chair of the influential House intelligence committee, has called for the US to be less ambiguous about its defence plans for Taiwan, amid Pentagon warnings that China’s military has made stunning advances.Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, Schiff, a leading Democrat, said the US and its international partners needed “to make it abundantly clear to China what a significant cost it would pay were it to use force to try to invade and take over Taiwan”. Continue reading...
Rates have fallen 62% in women offered the HPV jab between the age of 14 and 16, and 34% for older teenagersThe NHS vaccination programme to prevent cervical cancer has so far stopped thousands of women from developing the disease and experiencing pre-cancerous changes to cells, a study has found.In the first proof that the programme launched in England 13 years ago is saving lives, the Cancer Research UK-funded study found that cervical cancer rates in women offered the vaccine between the ages of 12 and 13 (now in their 20s) were 87% lower than in an unvaccinated population. Continue reading...
George Robertson recalls Russian president did not want to wait in line with ‘countries that don’t matter’Vladimir Putin wanted Russia to join Nato but did not want his country to have to go through the usual application process and stand in line “with a lot of countries that don’t matter”, according to a former secretary general of the transatlantic alliance.George Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary who led Nato between 1999 and 2004, said Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he said. Continue reading...
Prosecutors believe Giuliani and two others may have violated law over agreement that would have seen them win lucrative contractsThe high-profile federal criminal investigation of Rudy Giuliani in recent days has zeroed in on evidence that in the spring of 2019 three Ukrainian government prosecutors agreed to award contracts, valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to Giuliani and two other American attorneys as a way to gain political and personal influence with the Trump administration.Federal investigators believe Giuliani and two attorneys who worked closely with him, Victoria Toensing and Joe DiGenova, probably violated federal transparency laws that require Americans working for foreign governments or interests to register as foreign agents with the US justice department and fully disclose details of each such action they undertook on behalf of the foreign interests. Continue reading...
Inquiry opened into claims of torture and extrajudicial killings under Maduro’s rule, a first for a Latin American countryThe international criminal court (ICC) is opening a formal investigation into allegations of torture and extrajudicial killings committed by Venezuelan security forces under President Nicolás Maduro’s rule, the first time a country in Latin America is facing scrutiny for possible crimes against humanity from the court.The opening of the probe was announced Wednesday by ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan at the end of a three-day trip to Caracas. Continue reading...
Missiles and fireworks thrown at demonstration in loyalist area with trouble also on nationalist side of peace wallTwo children have been arrested following disorder in Belfast after a rally against the Brexit protocol. Police came under attack with missiles and fireworks close to a peace line on Wednesday evening.The disorder came on Lanark Way in the loyalist Shankill Road area; there was also disorder on the nationalist Springfield Road side of the peace wall. Two males, aged 12 and 15 years, were arrested on suspicion of riotous behaviour and released on bail as police inquiries continued. Continue reading...
US investigation finds civilian deaths did not violate law of war as strike attempted to target Islamic StateA US drone strike in Kabul in August that killed 10 Afghan civilians was a tragic mistake but did not violate any laws, a Pentagon inspector general said after an investigation.Three adults, including a man who worked for a US aid group, and seven children were killed in the 29 August operation, with the target believed to have been a home and a vehicle occupied by Islamic State militants. Continue reading...
News comes as deputy PM squashes idea that Aucklanders may be given time slots to leave the city over the summerA person with Covid-19 who was self-isolating alone in their Auckland home has been found dead and investigations are under way to determine if the virus was the cause.The 40-year-old man tested positive for Covid-19 on 24 October and had been isolating in Manukau, a south Auckland suburb. He was found by a family member who visited on Wednesday. Continue reading...
Colton woman reported missing in October and Stuart Williamson has been charged with her murderHuman remains thought to be those of missing Diane Douglas have been found in the garden of a house near Norwich, police have said.Douglas, from Colton, a village west of Norwich, was reported missing by family members on 21 October this year but is believed to have been murdered nearly three years ago. Continue reading...
Western countries and especially US are keen for sessions beginning on 29 November to reach quick resultIran has agreed to resume talks with world powers on reviving a nuclear deal on 29 November after a five-month gap, with the US urging a quick resolution.The announcement of indirect negotiations in Vienna comes as pressure mounts on Iran, with western nations warning that Tehran’s nuclear work is advancing to dangerous levels and Israel threatening to attack. Continue reading...
The novelist takes the £50,000 prize with a ‘strong, unambiguous commentary on the history of South Africa and of humanity itself’• Damon Galgut is a clear and unsurprising Booker winnerDamon Galgut has won the Booker prize for his portrait of a white South African family navigating the end of apartheid. The judges praised The Promise as “a spectacular demonstration of how the novel can make us see and think afresh”, and compared it to the work of William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf.This is is the first time Galgut will be walking away with the £50,000 prize, despite having been shortlisted twice before.. The Promise is his ninth novel, and his first in seven years. He becomes the third South African to win the prestigious fiction prize, after JM Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer. Through the lens of four sequential funerals, each taking place in a different decade, The Promise follows the Swarts, a white South African family who live on a farm outside Pretoria. The promise of the title is one the Swarts make – and fail to keep over the years – to give a home and land to the black woman who worked for them her whole life. Continue reading...
Glenn Youngkin won the race to be Virginia’s governor having exploited concerns over teaching about race in schoolsWhat is critical race theory?Developed by the former Harvard Law professor Derrick Bell and other scholars in the 1970s and 80s, critical race theory, or CRT, examines the ways in which racism was embedded into American law and other modern institutions, maintaining the dominance of white people. Continue reading...
Revolutionary Guards say they thwarted attempt by US to steal Iranian oil in Sea of OmanClaims by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) that they thwarted a US attempt to capture Iranian oil on a tanker in the Sea of Oman are untrue, US officials have said.According to reports in Iranian media – released on the eve of the anniversary of the Iranian seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 – the US navy interdicted an Iranian oil tanker on 25 October and intended to transfer the oil to a second tanker, but the the IRGC navy intervened by boarding and taking control of the first tanker. Continue reading...
Development comes after Andrew’s lawyers attacked Virginia Giuffre, accusing her of seeking a ‘payday’ at prince’s expensePrince Andrew could face civil trial in the US over alleged sexual abuse at the end of 2022, a judge said on Wednesday.Speaking at during a phone conference with lawyers in New York, US district judge Lewis Kaplan said he anticipates a trial date of “somewhere in the September to December period of next year”. Continue reading...
Defendant stabbed James Gibbons after he challenged youths who were harassing homeless man, court hearsA teenage boy has been found guilty of murdering a man who had been celebrating his twin daughters’ second birthday. The 16-year-old defendant stabbed James Gibbons, 34, after he challenged a group of youths who were harassing a homeless man, Chelmsford crown court was told.The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claimed he was acting in self-defence and denied murder, but was found guilty by a majority verdict of 10 to two after a trial. Family members of the defendant wept in court as the jury returned its verdict on Wednesday. Continue reading...
Semi-animated Netflix documentary short reveals the secret story of the Jewish soldiers who watched over prisoners of war on US soilToo vast in scope to be contained within war drama, the Holocaust movie constitutes an entire genre unto itself, collecting a potentially infinite number of tragedies great and small. The history of the 20th century’s most massive atrocity comes with thousands of footnotes now gradually expanded upon by media depicting the unsung courage and untold evil. Israeli documentary film-makers Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy singled out one such extraordinary tale for their latest joint project, Netflix’s short film Camp Confidential, drawing attention to a highly covert military operation only recently released from behind redaction-marker bars. “The first thing is, when producers Benji and Jono Bergmann approached us with this and told us of the story, we didn’t believe it,” Sivan tells the Guardian. “It was just so out-there.”The black-op facility tucked away in northern Virginia’s Fairfax county sounds like something out of a pulp paperback: Jewish soldiers, many of them refugees from the devastation in Europe, watched over Nazi prisoners of war in a surreally domestic setting. Known as PO Box 1142, it housed such notables as spymaster Reinhard Gehlen and rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. But those in charge of the base were also tasked with maintaining a baseline quality of life for the inmates, leading to bizarre scenes such as a department store outing with former members of the Third Reich to purchase unmentionables for their wives. Bulldozed after the war and buried in secrecy until the National Parks Service unearthed some remnants in the early 2000s, the clandestine camp now doubles as a cautionary tale for modern Jews and a memorial for those who came before them. Continue reading...
People have hated sprouts for centuries, but we still ate them. That may be about to change – and Christmas pudding should watch out, tooName: Gen Z v the brussels sproutAge: Current. Continue reading...
Celebrate the symbolic victory of light over darkness, good over evil and syrupy sweet treats over healthy eating with our Diwali roundupThis year, early November offers you two choice festivals: Bonfire Night and Diwali. In one, we burn effigies of a centuries-old failed revolutionary as a brutal reminder that we are for ever doomed to struggle under the unknowable power of the state. And then there’s Diwali, a five-day-long celebration observed by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists, created to symbolise “victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance”. Which, you know, does sort of sound better. So, what should you eat for Diwali? Here are 10 Diwali recipes for your delectation. Continue reading...
Linacre College to rename itself Thao College after funding offer from Vietnam’s richest womanA University of Oxford college is to change its name to honour Vietnam’s richest woman after she offered it a £155m donation.Linacre College says it will ask the privy council for permission to change its name to Thao College after signing a memorandum of understanding over the money with Sovico Group, represented by its chair, Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao. Continue reading...
Police identify more than 5,000 cases of people fraudulently drawing ‘citizens’ income’ meant for poorA “citizens’ income” scheme in Italy intended to alleviate poverty was allegedly cheated by thousands of claimants, some of whom owned Ferraris, yachts and several properties, police have said.Among those claiming the benefit was a presumed mafia boss and a person who invented having children in order to boost their monthly income. The details emerged during a six-month investigation in the southern regions of Campania, Abruzzo, Puglia, Molise and Basilicata. Continue reading...
Series showrunner tells podcast that ambiguous ending rankled with viewers who wanted to see the character ‘face-down in linguini’David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, has spoken about his irritation at viewers’ desire to see Tony Soprano die at the end of the hit series.Speaking on the Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, the 76-year-old said he had been “bothered” by people’s obsession with the blackout ending of the 2007 finale, which stopped short of confirming the fate of its lead character. Continue reading...
by Mark Brown North of England correspondent on (#5RF6H)
Thomas Nutt, 45, from West Yorkshire, charged with murder of Dawn Walker, 52, after her body was found in a suitcaseA 45-year-old man has been charged with murdering his new bride after her body was found dumped in a suitcase.Dawn Walker, 52, of Halifax, was found dead in a suitcase in the village of Lightcliffe, three miles east of Halifax, West Yorkshire, on Sunday. Friends described her as kind, caring and friendly and said she had married Thomas Nutt just four days earlier. Continue reading...
by Mark Brown North of England correspondent on (#5RF4H)
Police warn lives are being endangered after three women aged 18-19 report being injected at clubsPolice in Sheffield are investigating three reports of young women being spiked with needles last weekend, warning those responsible that they are endangering the lives of innocent people and face long jail terms.In recent weeks there has been a big rise in the number of spiking cases, resulting in demonstrations last week at more than 40 university towns and cities across the UK. Continue reading...
Welcome to our monthly roundup of the biggest issues in farming and food production, with must-read reports from around the webAs UN climate talks take place in Glasgow, the role of cows and other farm animals in human-induced climate emissions – and what can be done about it – has been in the spotlight.
Zhang Yiming relinquishes role at firm he co-founded, one of Chinese tech’s biggest global success storiesThe chairman of TikTok owner ByteDance has stepped down, as the Chinese government tightens its control of the tech sector and maintains pressure on the industry’s domestic entrepreneurs.Zhang Yiming announced in May he would step down as chief executive of the tech company he co-founded and on Wednesday he relinquished his chair title, with the company’s English-language website no longer featuring a page that mentioned his formal board role. Instead, there was a photo of Zhang under the heading of “leadership” with no title underneath. ByteDance declined to comment. Continue reading...
Party expected to dip below 50% in municipal elections with more than half of polling stations reportingSouth Africa’s ruling ANC party looked set to deliver its worst ever electoral performance since the end of apartheid, with support expected to dip below 50% in local government polls.With more than half of polling stations reporting after Monday’s fiercely contested elections, the African National Congress stood at slightly under 46% of the vote, according to electoral commission figures. Continue reading...
One of Western Australia’s biggest police hunts ended with officers breaking into a house and rescuing Cleo Smith. A 36-year-old man is being questioned
Defence budget and nuclear posture review are battlegrounds as Republicans seek to block limits on US use of weaponsA battle is being fought in Washington over the Biden administration’s nuclear weapons policy, amid fears by arms control advocates that the president will renege on campaign promises to rein in the US arsenal.The battlegrounds are a nuclear posture review (NPR) due early next year and a defence budget expected about the same time. At stake is a chance to put the brakes on an arms race between the US, Russia and China – or the risk of that race accelerating. Continue reading...
The musicians and execs share the pitches, punch-ups and phone calls behind the adverts that took Stiltskin, Babylon Zoo and Mr Oizo to No 1 – and flipped music and advertising’s relationship on its headAmid black and white Ansel Adams-style cinematography, two Amish sisters spy on a topless man bathing in a Yosemite river. Suddenly, a peaceful choral soundtrack gave gives way to bone-shaking guitar: Inside, the debut single by Scottish grunge band Stiltskin.Thus began one of the strangest cultural wrinkles of the 1990s: when Levi’s became a jeans company that could also score UK chart hits. Inside was built around an addictive riff that still sounds fresh, and the advert, entitled Creek, shot it to the top of the UK charts. Over the next few years, the likes of Babylon Zoo, Smoke City, Mr Oizo and Norman Cook’s pre-Fatboy Slim project Freak Power would also score major success off the back of a placement in Levi’s witty, often sexually provocative adverts. Continue reading...
Jean-Pierre Thébault says Morrison government’s ‘deceit was intentional’ and questions whether any country could trust ‘the value of Australia’s signature’The French ambassador has denounced the Australian government’s release of a private text message from Emmanuel Macron as “an unprecedented new low”, arguing other world leaders would now worry their words might be “weaponised” against them.Jean-Pierre Thébault said the leaking of the text message from the French president was a setback “in terms of truth and trust”, and it would be “sad” if this was the Australian government’s answer to France’s request for concrete actions to heal the relationship. Continue reading...
Tony Chung, the founder of a pro-independence group, was taken into custody in 2020 at a coffee shop close to the US consulateA Hong Kong court has found the former leader of pro-independence group Studentlocalism guilty of secession and money laundering under the city’s sweeping national security law, after a plea bargain.Tony Chung, 20, was charged with the offences in October last year and denied bail. Chung and two others were detained by unidentified men at a coffee shop near the US consulate early on 27 October. Chung’s supporters said at the time he had been intending to seek political asylum. They said Chung had submitted his paperwork weeks earlier, but fear of an imminent arrest prompted him to seek shelter at the consulate. Continue reading...
The actor talks about being bullied by the disgraced movie mogul, marrying a billionaire and becoming a superhero at 55Salma Hayek is dreadfully jetlagged, which is one of the perils of having homes around the world and frequently hopping between them. “Let me tell you about my craziness,” she says by video chat from her home in west London. “I’m here for less than a week, then I go back [to the US] for five days for my husband’s work, then I come back here for my work, then I go back to LA because I’m getting a star on the Hollywood Boulevard! It’s crazy,” she says. After this interview she has a fitting for dresses for various movie premieres.“We’re just making it up as we go along!” she says in exasperation at her crazy life. Despite the craziness, she looks impeccable in a Gucci dress (“As comfortable as your sweats!”), framed by the enormous mirrored painting behind her. “It’s by [Takashi] Murakami,” she says casually of one of the most expensive living artists. She blows a kiss to her husband, François-Henri Pinault, as he leaves the house. Pinault is the CEO of the fashion conglomerate Kering, which is behind labels such as Gucci, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent and many others. The Pinault family wealth is estimated at $49bn. It’s crazy.“No to me taking a shower with him. No to letting him watch me take a shower. No to letting him give me a massage. No to letting a naked friend of his give me a massage. No to letting him give me oral sex. No to my getting naked with another woman. No no no no no … And with every refusal came Harvey’s Machiavellian rage.” Continue reading...
No new details about president Miloš Zeman’s condition as centrist and centre-right parties reach power-sharing agreementCzech centrist and centre-right parties reached an agreement on forming a majority coalition government and its key agenda, the chairman of the strongest party in the new coalition said.The five-party coalition faces elevated inflation, mounting debt, an economy curbed by a global shortage of semiconductors and surging energy prices, and a resurgent Covid-19 pandemic which has been gathering pace in recent weeks. Continue reading...
The Hong Kong-raised Melbourne film-maker, who has two movies screening at Sydney film festival, reflects on the ‘farcical’ immigrant experience and being a pioneer of Asian Australian cinemaWhen Clara Law’s film Floating Life opened in Australian cinemas in 1996, the Hong Kong-raised, Melbourne-based writer-director did not expect it to pack such a strong cultural punch.Along with being one of few local films to deal with the Asian migrant experience, Floating Life made history as Australia’s first-ever submission in the best foreign language film category at the Academy Awards, and ignited a new generation of Asian Australian film-makers. Continue reading...
The 2019 protests spawned documentaries that may never see broad release amid growing intolerance of anything linked to the fight for democracyWhen the DVD came back shattered, it felt like a sign. The creators of Hong Kong protest documentary, Inside the Red Brick Wall, had sent it to regulators for a screening approval, as they’d done numerous times before without issue. But this time the returning envelope was filled with silver shards.“We didn’t understand why, but it was intentional,” one of the anonymous creators says. “They said it was broken by the DVD machine but it was intentional – it came back in pieces. It felt intentional, like they were sending a message.” Continue reading...
by Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor on (#5REMD)
Commons spending watchdog says out of 20 projects, 13 were running late by a cumulative total of 21 yearsThe Ministry of Defence’s system of procurement is “broken” and is repeatedly wasting billions in taxpayers’ money, according to a scathing assessment by a watchdog committee of MPs.The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said that the oversight in the department was so poor that it was unable to spell out what additional capability the country will get from an extra £16.5bn which was allocated by Boris Johnson last year. Continue reading...
Ben Raymond accused of propagandising for banned neo-Nazi group and its offshootA talented artist was the “Joseph Goebbels” of the violent neo-Nazi group National Action and continued to be a leading light in the organisation after it was banned by the UK government, a jury has been told.Ben Raymond, 32, from Swindon in Wiltshire, was one of the founders of NA, whose members hoarded machetes, swords, ice picks, firearms and even a crossbow powerful enough to bring down an elephant, Bristol crown court was told. Continue reading...