The former minister says ‘despite all his other faults, Barnaby Joyce can count, and the majority of the room is in favour of credible action’

Labor and environmental groups are demanding that General Electric stop offshoring jobs and invest in renewable energyKevin Smith, of Salem, Virginia, worked at General Electric for about 20 years before the town’s plant was shut down at the end of 2019, and the work moved to a factory in India.“It was a total shock because of how things had been going, with all the overtime we were working, everything just seemed great, like there was no way this was happening. All I wanted to do was wake up, that I had a nightmare, but that wasn’t the case,” said Smith, 50, who was one of about 265 GE workers who were laid off due to the closure. Continue reading...

Stephen Barclay, the minister for the Cabinet Office, refused multiple times to apologise for the deaths and suffering caused by Covid, after a parliamentary report called the government's early response to the pandemic one of the UK's 'worst ever' public health failures. The report, led by two former Conservative ministers, concluded that 'groupthink' and a deliberately slow approach meant the UK fared 'significantly worse' than other countries.Speaking on LBC, Barclay repeatedly declined to apologise to families who lost loved ones, saying: 'We followed the scientific advice and the knowledge we had at the time'

As mandatory checks began, not everyone in the queue for the Pryzm club was prepared

An ensemble cast of Guardian reporters and editors reflect on why investigative journalism is so important for a healthy democracy and what it feels like, on a more personal level, to be going up against powerful governments, tax-dodging billionaires, institutional racism, human rights abuses and moreSupport investigative Guardian journalism

Federal health minister Greg Hunt has celebrated Australia’s vaccination rate passing that of major global powers, including the US and the EU.“We’ve now passed the [United States], we’ve passed Israel, we’ve passed the [European Union] over the weekend, Germany and the OECD,” Hunt told RN Breakfast on Monday.Victorian Labor MP Luke Donnellan has resigned from cabinet after an Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission hearing heard he had paid for other people’s party memberships.In explosive evidence given on the first morning of public hearings, federal Labor MP Anthony Byrne said that Donnellan, the Victorian minister for disability, ageing and carers, and the minister for child protection, had paid for party memberships. Continue reading...

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has attended celebrations for the 76th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' party of Korea. Kim made a speech to a gathering of officials, the KCNA news agency said. State media showed Kim addressing a room full of officials, with little social distancing, masks or other Covid measures apparent. Kim urged officials to focus on improving citizens' lives in the face of a 'grim' economic situation

Dowries, illegal since 1961, still cause 20 deaths a day in India. But Babawayil has had no divorces or violence against women since it banned themBabawayil, in the foothills of the Zabarwan mountains by the Sind River, is a typical village in Indian-administered Kashmir. Groups of men and women sit on their lawns breaking open green husks of walnuts, freshly gathered from the giant trees shading the sleepy hamlet. Other villagers are busy in the paddy fields bringing in the harvest. Harud, the harvest season, is usually busy.Most of the 150 households make their living from farming and weaving pashmina shawls. Continue reading...

Exclusive: UK scientist says giving booster jabs rather than sharing doses fairly will cause hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths

The award has put a spotlight on the struggle of journalists and activists fighting President Rodrigo Duterte’s attacks on press freedomThe news that journalist Maria Ressa has been awarded the Nobel peace prize has been greeted with joy by defenders of human rights in the Philippines.Ressa last week became the first Filipino journalist to be awarded the prestigious prize, which she shared with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov. Continue reading...

Michael Baker said lack of discussion with independent experts was a ‘stark contrast’ to earlier pandemic decisions

The creation of the modern, interconnected world is generally credited to European pioneers. But Africa was the wellspring for almost everything they achieved – and African lives were the terrible costIt would be unusual for a story that begins in the wrong place to arrive at the right conclusions. And so it is with the history of how the modern world was made. Traditional accounts have accorded a primacy to Europe’s 15th-century Age of Discovery, and to the maritime connection it established between west and east. Paired with this historic feat is the momentous, if accidental, discovery of what came to be known as the New World.Other explanations for the emergence of the modern world reside in the ethics and temperament that some associate with Judeo-Christian beliefs, or with the development and spread of the scientific method, or, more chauvinistically still, with Europeans’ often-professed belief in their unique ingenuity and inventiveness. In the popular imagination, these ideas have become associated with the work ethic, individualism and entrepreneurial drive that supposedly flowed from the Protestant Reformation in places such as England and Holland. Continue reading...

The award-winning standup is known for his exuberance, but, as he writes in his memoir, he has had to dodge snobbery throughout his career. He discusses family, fame and being funnyRob Beckett is one of those comedians without whom many TV formats would collapse. He is an accomplished standup who made his debut in 2009, at 23, performing anywhere that would have him, often not even for petrol money. He has a rare combination of warmth and edge. He can present Wedding Day Winners with Lorraine Kelly without making her seem square; do a pitch-perfect double-act with Romesh Ranganathan that makes the audience feel as though they are included in the friendship; pack out the Hammersmith Apollo with a solo show for which his notes amount to 10 words; and hold his own on Mock the Week, famous for its bear-pit atmosphere and comic-eat-comic sensibility.We meet in a cafe in south‑east London, a greasy spoon that the owner says has been there since 1932 (they dated it from the fly-posted film billboards in an old photo). Strangers open up with Beckett in the room; I have never had a conversation so intently eavesdropped. It is partly that he has natural charisma, partly because he has a celebrity gloss – slightly exaggerated features, not classically handsome so much as screen-ready – and partly because what he is saying is novel and his delivery is vivacious and so incredibly fast. Continue reading...

Restaurant plants Japanese flag in seafood dish moulded in shape of islands that are also claimed by South KoreaA simple bowl of curry is at the centre of the latest row in a long-running territorial dispute between Japan and the Koreas.Media in North and South Korea reacted angrily after an online media report about a seafood curry sold in Japan that includes mounds of rice shaped to resemble the Takeshima islands, which Koreans refer to as Dokdo. Continue reading...

A 48-year-old man has been charged by police after allegedly stealing a monitoring tag from a shark he accidentally caught

The leader of the nuclear-armed country says there is ‘no basis’ to believe US actions are ‘not hostile’ during military exhibitionNorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un reviewed a rare exhibition of weapons systems and vowed to build an “invincible” military, as he accused the United States of being the “root cause” of instability.In an apparent continued effort to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul, Kim also said his drive to build up his military isn’t targeted at South Korea and that there shouldn’t be another war pitting Korean people against each other. Continue reading...

Allowing the virus to become endemic would mean the regular closure of schools and businesses and thousands of deaths each yearAs New Zealand switches from elimination to suppression, those who argue that Covid-19 will become endemic and part of our lives either do not understand or ignore what this would actually mean.Elimination has always been a tricky word because it implies eradication. But we have only ever eradicated one human disease – smallpox – and are close with several others. Continue reading...

The CBD and Darling Harbour were ghost towns, but Newtown, Redfern and Kings Cross were vibing as pubgoers braved the Monday night rain to toast ‘freedom day’

The offensive marks the end of a ceasefire declared in June in a political conflict that has claimed thousands of livesTigray forces say Ethiopia’s government has launched its threatened major military offensive against them in an attempt to end a nearly year-old war.A statement from the Tigray external affairs office alleged hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian “regular and irregular fighters” launched a coordinated assault on several fronts. It blamed Ethiopian forces and those from the country’s Amhara region, where much of the recent fighting has occurred after Tigray forces retook much of their own region in June. Continue reading...

Actor recounts conversation about casting of disabled roles and ridicules billionaires’ space raceThe Succession star Brian Cox has said authentic casting, where roles are reserved for actors with the same lived experiences as a character, ignores the “craft of acting”.Cox, who plays the media tycoon Logan Roy in the hit HBO show, said he had spent a lot of his recent time off from filming watching movies, including Russell Crowe as a mathematician with mental illness in A Beautiful Mind and Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. Continue reading...

Holidaymakers say they were given just hours to pay back cash claimed though credit cardsRyanair has been accused of barring passengers who pursued chargebacks against the airline during the pandemic from taking new flights this year – unless they return their refunds.An investigation by MoneySavingExpert (MSE) has found that holidaymakers who sought refunds from their credit card provider have faced last-minute demands of up to £600 if they want to board a Ryanair plane. Continue reading...

Early handling and belief in ‘herd immunity’ led to more deaths, Commons inquiry finds

Visitors from Britain and the US among those permitted as country seeks to boost its crucial tourism sector

Penelope Jackson heard to say ‘I thought I’d get his heart but he hasn’t got one’ on recorded emergency callA 66-year-old former military administrator stabbed her 78-year-old husband at their Somerset home and told a 999 operator: “I thought I’d get his heart but he hasn’t got one,” a murder jury has been told.Penelope Jackson allegedly murdered her husband, David, a retired army lieutenant colonel, on 13 February at their home in the coastal village of Berrow, claiming he was abusive and controlling. Continue reading...

Ingmar Bergman’s powerful 70s series has been reimagined for our pandemic times, with its two leads navigating the pain and frustration of a brutal breakup, and agonising separationIngmar Bergman’s original Scenes from a Marriage miniseries, released in 1973, was blamed for a spike in divorce rates. Whether this was factually true or just felt true enough, it was a recognition of the acuity of Bergman’s depiction of a disintegrating union. Indeed, his series – brought to life by an anguished Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson – has gone on to influence many films and television dramas that have since examined the same subject.It is possible that the new reworking (under the same name) by Hagai Levi (and his collaborator Amy Herzog who co-wrote two of the five episodes) will have the same effect on a pandemic population who have been cooped up with partners for far too long. This take on Scenes from a Marriage (Sky Atlantic) is relentlessly intimate, focusing almost wholly on the one fracturing couple, with an all-killer, no-filler script that captures the impossibility of either saying or construing anything neutrally once the rot has set in. It is also set almost entirely in one house, which may be a dose of reality too far for some. Continue reading...

Incident in which car caught fire happened early on Sunday morning near village of Heath and ReachFour people have died after a single-vehicle road collision in Bedfordshire in the early hours of Sunday morning.Police said the casualties had been confirmed following “highly complex work” by emergency services. Continue reading...

Tuesday: Australians want stronger climate policies as Coalition negotiations continue. Plus: why the Nicholas Building is the creative heart of MelbourneGood morning. The climate crisis is in the news today as politicians prepare for the Cop26 climate summit at the end of the month. NSW enjoys eased Covid restrictions but confusion remains over its vaccination record system. And if you’re dancing your way out of lockdown, we had some expert advice on how to keep your shoes in good nick.As Scott Morrison continues negotiations with the Nationals over climate policy ahead of the Cop26 talks in Glasgow, the latest Guardian Essential poll suggests a majority of Australians want the Coalition to set a higher emissions reduction target for 2030 and a net zero target for 2050. Morrison has been signalling his support for a net zero target for many months and there has been persistent speculation the government may increase Australia’s current 2030 emissions reduction target of a 26-28% cut on 2005 levels. But with some Nationals hostile, and some MPs demanding high price tags before any agreement on targets, the weight of predictions suggest the Coalition is more likely to trumpet a projected overachievement on the current 2030 commitment than increase ambition. Continue reading...

UK records 40,224 new infections as well as 28 further deaths; WHO recommends extra jab for immunocompromised people

The Ugandan novelist, who was tortured in prison over his book The Greedy Barbarian, has been selected by Tsitsi Dangarembga as part of the PEN Pinter prizeThe Ugandan novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, who was tortured by the Ugandan government in prison over his novel The Greedy Barbarian, has been named this year’s International Writer of Courage by Tsitsi Dangarembga.The award is part of the PEN Pinter prize, which goes to an author deemed to have fulfilled Harold Pinter’s aspiration to “define the real truth of our lives and our societies”. This year’s PEN Pinter winner, the Zimbabwean writer and activist Dangarembga, chose Rukirabashaija as the International Writer of Courage, an award for an author who has been persecuted for speaking out about their beliefs, with whom she will share her prize. Continue reading...

Second convictions for Nadia Ali, headteacher of Ambassadors Home school in Streatham, and her fatherA headteacher and her father have been sentenced for the second time for running an illegal unregistered school in south London after a crackdown by the schools watchdog Ofsted.Nadia Ali, the headteacher of Ambassadors Home school, an unregistered private school in Streatham, was sentenced on Monday to eight weeks’ imprisonment suspended for 12 months, two years after a prior conviction for the same offence. Continue reading...

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Domestic abuse officer accused of asking woman out and ‘sexualising’ relationship, at misconduct hearing in Eastleigh

Fourteen countries likely to take tough stance in future talks about fisheries if access to UK waters does not improveFourteen EU member states are preparing to issue a joint declaration accusing the British government of risking “significant economic and social damage” to their fishing communities, as wider relations appear close to breaking point.In the statement, seen by the Guardian, France, Belgium, Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Cyprus, Portugal, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania, Sweden, Malta and Latvia will call for the UK to act “in the spirit and the letter” of the Brexit deal struck last Christmas Eve. Continue reading...

Slower vaccination rates in east lead to dramatic surge in cases, while UK remains outlier in westHigher vaccination rates are translating to lower Covid infection and death rates in western Europe than in parts of central and eastern Europe, the latest data suggests – except in the UK where case numbers are surging.Figures from Our World In Data indicate a clear correlation between the percentage of people fully vaccinated and new daily cases and fatalities, with health systems in some under-inoculated central and eastern EU states under acute strain. Continue reading...

Sami Jasim al-Jaburi is a veteran of IS’s rise and fall and was subject of $5m US bountyIraq’s prime minister has claimed the country’s forces have helped to capture Islamic State’s deputy leader and financial controller in a cross-border operation and bring him to Baghdad.Sami Jasim al-Jaburi, a veteran of IS’s rise and fall, was seized days before Iraqi parliamentary elections due on Sunday. The prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who announced the capture, is likely to be a contender for what would be his second term as leader in horse-trading for government positions expected in the months ahead. Continue reading...

Families say there are lessons to be learned as first Covid cases in 16 European countries came from Italy

His lyrical novels about exile and loss enjoy critical acclaim but modest sales. Now he’s Zanzibar’s second most famous son – and £840,000 richer. The writer talks about racism on British buses, Priti Patel, and why books have to entertainAbdulrazak Gurnah seems preternaturally calm for someone who has suddenly found themselves in the full glare of the world’s media. “Just very good,” he answers when I ask how he’s feeling. “A little bit rushed, with so many people to meet and speak to. But otherwise, what can you say? I feel great.” I meet the newly minted Nobel literature laureate surrounded by books in his agent’s office in London, the day after the announcement. He looks younger than his 73 years, boasts a full head of silver hair, and speaks evenly and deliberately, his expression barely changing. The adrenaline rush, if he experienced one, is hardly in evidence. He even slept quite well.All the same, a little over 24 hours ago, he was merely the critically acclaimed author of 10 novels, at home in his kitchen in Canterbury, where he lives after having retired as a professor of English at the University of Kent. Now, a new level of celebrity beckons – albeit of a rarefied kind. The Swedish Academy’s citation referred a little ponderously to “his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”. Others celebrate the lyricism of his writing, its understated, wistful brilliance. Continue reading...

A draft report from the disability royal commission found the federal health department’s approach to the vaccination rollout has been ‘seriously deficient’, having overlooked people with disabilities in favour of aged care residents.Laura Murphy-Oates speaks to David Belcher, a disability advocate and city council member in Lake Macquarie, about the difficulty he faced in accessing a Covid-19 vaccination. And inequality editor Luke Henriques-Gomes talks about the failures of the Australian government in protecting some of its most vulnerable populationsRead more: Continue reading...

Shehroze Chaudhry, who featured in New York Times podcast, had been charged under terrorism hoax lawsCanadian prosecutors have dropped charges against a man who claimed to be an Islamic State executioner after he admitted fabricating his tales of violence.In September 2020, Shehroze Chaudhry was charged under Canada’s rarely used terrorism hoax laws, which carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Prosecutors withdrew those charges on Friday, after Chaudhry admitted that his account of travelling to Syria was fictitious. His trial was due to begin in February. Continue reading...

It can now be found everywhere – in cans at Asda and in cakes on The Great British Bake Off. But the caffeinated classic certainly isn’t popular with everyoneName: The espresso martini.Age: 38. Continue reading...

Analysis: minister’s pre-emptive response to EU offer leaves planned talks looking potentially futileBefore the unveiling on Wednesday of a package of proposals from the EU for Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit arrangements designed to becalm inflamed tensions and unblock its trade with the rest of the UK, David Frost, the prime minister’s tough-talking Brexit minister, has thrown a spanner in the works.In a UK government command paper published in July, Lord Frost had laid out a series of changes that he believed needed to be considered. One of those had been the role of the European court of justice (ECJ) in enforcing EU law in Northern Ireland and at the regulatory border with the rest of the UK. Continue reading...

From period poverty to blockchain, initiatives raising awareness of girls’ rights abound on 11 October, but long-term help is needed after Covid setbacksInternational Day of the Girl is critical in highlighting girls’ rights globally, but action is urgently needed to reverse the damage of the pandemic, campaigners have said.“Girls who were once hopeful about their futures say to us: ‘We’re not sure if we’re going to achieve our dreams now, if we’re ever going to go back to school’,” said Emily Wilson, chief executive of UK and Uganda-based organisation Irise International, which works to combat period poverty. Continue reading...

Inquest asked DCI Christopher Jones if initial delays were because Anthony Walgate was a young gay escortA senior Metropolitan police officer has denied that unconscious bias affected his investigation into the death of serial killer Stephen Port’s first victim because he was “young, gay and working as an escort”.DCI Christopher Jones, from the Met murder investigation team, declared the death of Anthony Walgate, 23, a fashion student from Hull, to be “unexplained” rather than “suspicious”, an inquest heard. Continue reading...

Le Désordre et la Nuit, shown as part of a retrospective for the great thriller director at Lyon’s Lumière film festival, is a well-crafted treat for fans of the genreA big feature, and an even bigger pleasure, of this year’s Lumière film festival in Lyon is the retrospective for the French master of policiers and crime, Gilles Grangier, a director who enjoyed great commercial success in movies and later in TV from the 1950s to the 80s, working with actors such as Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura and the great screenwriter Michel Audiard (father of Jacques). He was a working-class film-maker who came up from the streets of Paris, and started in the movies as a stuntman, grip, prop boy, any job he could get.Grangier is a name perhaps eclipsed now by Jean-Pierre Melville and made to feel obsolete in the 60s by the New Wave as he was making the kind of well-crafted, unpretentious genre pictures that the new generation of revolutionaries affected to despise (while admiring the Hollywood equivalent). But his movies here have been a revelation – the late Bertrand Tavernier, the founder of this festival, was always a great ally of Grangier’s – particularly his amazingly dry, witty, briskly unsentimental lowlife crime melodrama Le Désordre et la Nuit from 1958. This thriller was adapted by Grangier and Audiard from a novel by the French wartime journalist Jacques Robert, celebrated for his 1945 reports from Berlin and being one of the few writers who saw the inside of Hitler’s bunker. Continue reading...

Nusrit Mehtab says police unit where Wayne Couzens once served is male-dominated and ripe for changeThe Metropolitan police shelved plans to reform its unit dedicated to protecting politicians and diplomats because of “resistant and uncooperative” officers, according to a former superintendent who was the force’s most senior woman of colour.Nusrit Mehtab, who resigned in January last year, said the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command (PADP), where Sarah Everard’s killer, Wayne Couzens, once served, was “very male-dominated” and ripe for reform. The Met had had a chance to “put things right and they didn’t”, she added. Continue reading...

Doubts persist over whether Miloš Zeman, Andrej Babiš’ political ally, will be able to carry out dutiesThe populist Czech president remained in hospital on Monday as news sank in that Andrej Babiš, the billionaire prime minister, had suffered a shattering general election defeat days after the release of the Pandora papers and that Miloš Zeman, his main political champion, may be too ill to save him.Zeman, 77 – whose constitutional powers invest him with a kingmaker’s role potentially allowing him to keep Babiš in office – remained in Prague’s central military hospital a day after being rushed there for emergency treatment for an unspecified chronic illness. Doctors said on Monday that they had stabilised his condition, although doubts persist about his future ability to carry out his duties. Continue reading...

More than 150 turbines may be torn down after licences to operate and build them are declared voidTwo windfarms in western Norway are harming reindeer herders from the Sami people by encroaching on their pastures, the country’s supreme court has ruled.It was not immediately clear what the judgment’s consequences of would be, but lawyers for the herders said the 151 turbines on the Fosen peninsula could be torn down. The turbines, whose construction was completed in 2020, form part of the largest onshore windfarm in Europe. Continue reading...

Thomas Schreiber also enters not guilty plea to the attempted murder of his mother, Anne SchreiberA man has admitted killing the millionaire businessman Richard Sutton, who was found with stab wounds at his Dorset mansion, but has denied murder.Thomas Schreiber, 34, also entered a not guilty plea to the attempted murder of his mother, Anne Schreiber, who was Sutton’s partner. Continue reading...

Source close to royal speaks as Met says it will take no further action over Virginia Giuffre’s allegations of sexual assaultThe Metropolitan police’s decision to take no further action over Virginia Giuffre’s allegations of sexual assault against Prince Andrew “comes as no surprise”, a source close to the royal has said.The force said on Sunday it had dropped the investigation after reviewing several documents, including one relating to an ongoing US civil lawsuit concerning Giuffre, who alleges she was forced to have sex with the prince when she was 17 years old. Continue reading...

Founder of far-right party among 12 arrested after mob storms A&E department and trade union HQCalls are growing in Italy to abolish neofascist movements after violent protests against Covid-19 vaccine passes in Rome, during which demonstrators tried to force their way into the official residence of the Italian prime minister.Twelve people, including Roberto Fiore, the founder of the far-right Forza Nuova party, were arrested in connection to Saturday’s unrest, in which a group of about 30 raided a hospital accident and emergency unit – injuring four medical workers – and the offices of a trade union were stormed. Continue reading...