World news | The Guardian

Chancellor given paperweight as parting gift but she may not be done yet if German coalition talks falterAfter nearly 16 years and 107 EU summits, Angela Merkel, the outgoing chancellor of Germany, might have expected more from her fellow leaders than a glass paperweight and praise for being a “monument”.But at what was expected to be Merkel’s final meeting in Brussels, touching on issues ranging from energy prices to Poland’s laissez faire attitude to EU law, the former US president Barack Obama at least offered a little glamour to proceedings in a surprise appearance in a farewell video. Continue reading...

Sage minutes show warning that earlier intervention would reduce need for more stringent and longer-lasting measures

State media says the pianist is being held by Beijing police along with 29-year-old womanChinese police have detained a prominent concert pianist and reality TV personality, Li Yundi, dubbed the “piano prince”, on allegations of hiring a sex worker.The charges were revealed by Beijing police in posts on a Chinese social media network that read more like a trailer for a TV show than an official law enforcement notice. Continue reading...

Rumours are rife that, with its star nearing 80, Indy 5 will resort to the oldest trick in the book to keep him youngHow do you solve a problem like your action-movie leading man being nearly 80 and presumably no longer able to get under those rolling boulders quite as he once did? For the new 1960s-set Indiana Jones movie, once again starring Harrison Ford as the ageing adventurer and disturber of ancient tombs, there are rumours that the answer might just be time travel.Fans this week have been all over suggestions that Indy will head back to Roman times, as suggested by recent set pictures, though of course he might just be on the 1960s Hollywood set of a swords-and-sandals epic. Then again, there was also that video, published in June, suggesting the archaeologist will be facing off once again against the Nazis, despite the second world war having finished more than two decades earlier. Continue reading...

Police seeking at least two suspects in killing of teenager, who reportedly was due to testify in trial next weekOne of Sweden’s most popular rappers has been shot and killed in Stockholm, further fuelling public anger over a deadly wave of gang-related violence that has hit the country in recent years.Einar, 19, whose full name was Nils Kurt Erik Einar Gronberg, was Sweden’s most streamed artist on Spotify in 2019 and released three chart-topping albums, winning several Swedish Grammys and other music awards. Continue reading...

Meteor showers, mass nosebleeds, missing people … this small-screen tale of extra-terrestrials coming to Earth could be thrilling – if only something would actually happenAs someone who is currently being destroyed by Squid Game – with which Netflix has played upon our collective anxiety strings like the world’s most gleefully malevolent violinist – I wholeheartedly welcome an epic tale of global takeover by alien beings in which almost nothing, in fact, happens.Invasion (Apple TV+) is balm to my harrowed soul. It starts off traditionally enough. A mysterious something falls out of the sky and lands with a kerpow! in an isolated part of the world (here, the Arabian desert), witnessed by a lone traveller whose curiosity about this strange happening soon proves fatal. Mr Inquisitive meets his end by being sort of carbonised and liquidised at the same time. The special effects throughout the 10-part series are intriguingly off-beam and satisfying. Unfortunately you get about one per episode. Continue reading...

Footage shows how the Cumbre Vieja volcano eruption has affected the marine ecosystem at the lava delta. Habitats are seen covered by volcanic ash and lava landslides down to depths of 400 metres in La Palma. The delta emerged on 29 September when lava from the volcano crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. The Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted on 19 September, with the eruption showing few signs of abating so far after destroying 2,000 buildings and forcing thousands to leave their homes

As bed shortages leave patients waiting for hours to reach Welsh hospitals, the Guardian speaks to paramedics on the frontlineBy the time Caroline was finally stretchered into the Grange university hospital in south Wales, it had been more than seven hours since she dialled 999.The 46-year-old, who lives in a one-bedroomed bungalow up in the hills, woke with severe chest pain. She thought she was having a heart attack and called for help at 3.30am. An ambulance crew reached Caroline at 8am and drove her down the valley to the Grange. She then spent the best part of two hours in the back of the truck in the hospital car park before a bed could be found. Continue reading...

Care facilities for older people used to be thought ‘un-African’. But destitution caused by Covid has seen demand for care homes soarLunch is Angelica Chibiku’s favourite time. At 12pm she sits on her neatly made bed waiting for her meal at the Society of the Destitute Aged (Soda) home for older people in Highfield, a township in south-west Harare.Chibiku welcomes a helper into her room and cracks a few jokes. She loves to interact with those who bring her food and supplies. Continue reading...

World Food Programme scrambles to provide relief through air and sea to earthquake victims as local violence soarsThe World Food Programme (WFP) is now using seafaring barges to ship supplies to earthquake victims in southern Haiti, after escalating gang violence made overland journeys unsafe for aid convoys.Since the 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck the country’s southern peninsula in August, thousands of survivors have been sporadically cut off from Port-au-Prince, the capital, by roadblocks set up by warring gangs, leading relief workers to employ novel workarounds, including shifting aid to barges and helicopter airlifts. Continue reading...

As we reach the 20th anniversary of the magical British blockbusters, the real magic lies in the way its young stars have stayed on the rails – unlike many before themThere are many magical things about the Harry Potter film series, which marks its 20th anniversary this month with a re-release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Perhaps the most miraculous one, though, is that its three stars – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint – are still alive, apparently content, and not noticeably addicted to class A drugs.Each continued acting, occasionally even starring in bona fide hits: Radcliffe in The Woman in Black; Watson, who is also a UN women goodwill ambassador, in Beauty and the Beast. Grint, star of the M Night Shyamalan series Servant, also became a father last year – his partner is another former child actor, Georgia Groome of Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging – and celebrated by joining Instagram. Even there, he has shown a characteristic level-headedness by posting a mere six times in 11 months. Continue reading...

Administration insists there is no change of policy after president says US has ‘a commitment’ to defend islandChina has urged the US to “avoid sending any wrong signals” after President Joe Biden for a second time in three months said the US would come to Taiwan’s defence if it was attacked.In both incidents, the White House has clarified that there has been no change in US policy, which officially maintains so-called “strategic ambiguity” regarding Taiwan. Still, Biden’s words will rattle Beijing. Continue reading...

On the streets of Taipei, Beijing’s rhetoric is a hot topic but people are focused on a peaceful futureIn a small urban park on Yong Kang Jie, Taipei’s famous eat street, an elderly woman leans across the frame of her friend’s parked bicycle and shouts. “Taiwan is an independent country!”It’s a quiet autumn morning. Children play on a nearby slide, and a young mother enjoys a takeaway bento box. Continue reading...

First-class constable also acquitted of manslaughter over 2019 death of woman known as JC in Geraldton streetA police officer who shot dead an Indigenous woman carrying a knife on a suburban West Australian street has been acquitted of her murder.The first-class constable faced a three-week trial in the WA supreme court over the September 2019 killing of the 29-year-old woman, known as JC for cultural reasons, in the state’s Mid West. Continue reading...

Rule that pass must be presented to access workplaces forces hand of many vaccine-hesitant Italians

Covid in Ethiopia, fishermen reducing their carbon footprint in Kenya and domestic violence in LGBTQ+ relationships in Uganda were some of the winning projects by visual storytellers from across East Africa in the EAPA 2021 Continue reading...

Jon Hopkins timed his upcoming album to the length of a ketamine high, while apps are using AI music to tailor drug experiences. Welcome to a techno-chemical new frontierTwo hundred psychedelic enthusiasts have converged in Austin, Texas for a “ceremonial concert” on the autumn equinox. People sprawl on yoga mats around a circular stage as staffers pace the candlelit warehouse, jingling bells and spritzing essential oils. While psychedelic drugs are prohibited, some attenders seem in an altered state, lying on their backs and breathing heavily as rumbles of bass from Jon Hopkins’ upcoming album, Music for Psychedelic Therapy, shakes the hushed space.This is the first time Hopkins – known for acclaimed solo electronic albums as well as production for Coldplay and Brian Eno – has played his new record in public, and the crowd is visibly moved. As recordings of spiritual guru Ram Dass’s teachings fill the room on the final song, the woman next to me begins silently weeping. Continue reading...

Gould, who is in prison for perverting the course of justice, had claimed Chris Jordan defamed him at speech at the National Press ClubJailed accountant Vanda Gould has failed in a defamation lawsuit against the Australian taxation commissioner, Chris Jordan.In the federal court, Gould, a Sydney-based accountant, had claimed that remarks Jordan made at the National Press Club in 2017 defamed him by painting him as having engaged in the worst kind of money laundering, insider trading and tax fraud. Continue reading...

Tens of thousands have travelled to other European countries including England for legal terminations since near-total ban, campaigners sayAt least 34,000 women in Poland are known to have sought abortions illegally or abroad since the country introduced a near total ban on terminations a year ago.According to Abortion Without Borders (AWB), an organisation that helps women access safe abortion services, more than 1,000 Polish women have sought second-trimester abortions in foreign clinics since the country passed draconian new laws. Continue reading...

Far from suffering ‘Zoom fatigue’, many women have found the move to online meetings empoweringBefore the pandemic Francesca used to miss a lot of meetings because she had to drop off her kids at school before commuting into the office. If she did make them, she rarely spoke up.While many workers are suffering from Zoom fatigue, for workers like Francesca online meetings have presented an opportunity – and one that she fears may soon be taken away. Continue reading...

Dutton says public funding a ‘workplace entitlement’ amid continuing debate over identities of Christian Porter’s anonymous donors• Get our free news app; get our morning email briefingLabor has shot down a proposal from Peter Dutton that could have resulted in taxpayers footing the bill for MPs’ defamation cases because it could be considered a “workplace entitlement”.On Friday the manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, rejected the idea that Dutton, as the leader of the house, raised during debate about whether to investigate Liberal MP Christian Porter over his declaration that a trust with confidential donors paid part of his legal fees. Continue reading...

Photographer Mario Heller spent three weeks crossing the steppe by train. Here is his journey through the stories of the passengers, the history of the country and the romance of the railwayThe monotonous rattling of the train accompanies us through the steppe of Central Asia. The air that travels with us smells of cooked food and the exhalations of dozens of passengers. Sounds drift over to me from various corners of the wagon: a sawing snore, children’s cries, folk music and a hyperactive radio voice.Lying in my upper bunk, I seek body contact with the cooling plastic wall because of the summer heat. I am in a twilight state between shallow sleep and nervous glances at my mobile phone: still no reception. I am trapped in the here and now. It is shortly after 3am. It is the beginning of my almost three-week train journey across the endless expanses of Kazakhstan.Above, in the mornings, borrowed bedding is neatly folded and handed over to the train crew. Right, children play on board Continue reading...

Melburnians cheered in celebration as the clocks struck midnight and their collective 262 days of lockdown ended. As the state of Victoria hit its target of 70% double dose vaccination for those above 16, those who have been double jabbed were given new freedoms including a return to hairdressers, retail and hospitality. Despite a rise in Covid cases in recent weeks, the government has stuck with its roadmap to reopening for the state► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube

Louise Ho says activity undermines China’s trade restrictions against Australia and she will ‘pursue it diligently’

MPs voice frustration to new vaccines minister about ‘stalling’ programme in England

Buckingham Palace says Elizabeth II is now back in Windsor after doctors advised a few days’ restThe Queen spent Wednesday night in hospital after cancelling a visit to Northern Ireland, Buckingham Palace has said.The 95-year-old had been due to take part in a two-day trip, but doctors told her that she should rest for a couple of days at Windsor Castle. Continue reading...

Family doctors reject plan to force them to see any patient who wants face-to-face appointmentGPs in England are threatening industrial action in protest at the government’s attempt to force them to see any patient who wants a face-to-face appointment.The British Medical Association’s GPs committee voted unanimously to reject the plan by the health secretary, Sajid Javid, which included “naming and shaming” surgeries that see too few patients in person.Declining to comply with Javid’s insistence that they see patients in person who request it.Visiting care homes less often to check on residents’ health.Undertaking fewer or less regular medication reviews of the drugs being taken by patients with a long-term health condition.Refusing to issue Covid medical exemption certificates, which will allow people who remain unvaccinated to continue working in environments such as care homes because they have a medical reason not to have been jabbed against the disease. Continue reading...

Wilson Joseph, linked to the 400 Mawozo gang, posts video vowing to ‘put a bullet in the heads’ of 17 captives if demands not metThe leader of the Haitian gang that police say is holding 17 members of a kidnapped missionary grouphas threatened to kill them if his demands are not met.In a video posted on social media on Thursday, Wilson Joseph, the supposed leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, said: “I swear by thunder that if I don’t get what I’m asking for, I will put a bullet in the heads of these Americans.” Continue reading...

Group calling itself A-Team releases video claiming to have rescued animals, ahead of drone attemptAttempts to use drones to rescue of a group of dogs stranded by the volcanic eruption on the Canary island of La Palma appear to have been pre-empted after a mysterious gang calling itself the A-Team claimed to have retrieved the animals using rather less hi-tech methods.The eruption – which began on 19 September on the Cumbre Vieja ridge, one of the most active volcanic regions in the archipelago – has destroyed more than 2,000 properties, forced the evacuation of more than 7,500 people, and devastated La Palma’s banana plantations. Continue reading...

Last British woman to win an individual ice-skating gold medal at the Winter OlympicsJeannette Altwegg, who has died aged 90, was the last British woman to win an Olympic individual ice-skating gold medal – at the 1952 Winter Games in Oslo. Her rare and celebrated triumph, at the age of 21, would normally have led to a lucrative professional career – or at least another couple of tilts at the Olympics as an amateur. But in fact Altwegg opted shortly afterwards to leave skating altogether, taking up a domestic position at a home for child refugees in Switzerland before getting married and raising four children. When she unexpectedly came back into the public eye in 2011, she explained unapologetically that “my family has been, and is, my career”.However, Altwegg also revealed that injury had played a part in her disappearance. “I messed up my knee in my last year of competing and at that time they were not able to operate on it as they are now,” she said. “In a way it’s good to stop when you’re at your peak. It’s nice that you don’t go on and on.” Continue reading...

Researchers estimate 1m sq km of seascape globally has been modified by coastal structures which bring in invasive species and damage habitat

John Ystumllyn was abducted from west Africa in 1746 and taken to Gwynedd, north WalesOne of Britain’s first known black gardeners has been honoured with a rose named after him in celebration of his life.John Ystumllyn, whose original name is unknown, was abducted as an eight-year-old boy in west Africa around 1746 and taken to Gwynedd, north Wales. There he became a servant in the household of the Wynn family of Ystumllyn, whose estate he was named after, and learned horticulture in the gardens. Continue reading...

German chancellor offers olive branch to Warsaw at what may prove to be her last EU summitAngela Merkel, who earlier this week reflected on her deep hurt over Brexit, has called for European Union countries to compromise over their competing visions of integration, at what was being billed in Brussels as a farewell summit for the German chancellor.The attempt by Merkel, at her 107th and possibly final EU summit, to smooth over a dispute over Poland’s rejection of European court of justice rulings, in an olive branch to Warsaw, came as the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, demanded tough action, and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán rallied to the defence of the Polish government. Continue reading...

Caribbean nation elects governor general to new role prior to former British colony becoming a republicBarbados has elected its first president with just weeks to go until the Caribbean island becomes a republic and ceases to recognise Queen Elizabeth as its head of state.The island’s governor general, Dame Sandra Mason, was elected almost unanimously by the former British colony’s parliament on Wednesday, with only one member declining to vote. Continue reading...

The artist and film-maker remembers the pioneering documentary producer behind films such as RBG, The Square and An Inconvenient Truth, who has died aged 66Diane has left. When someone close passes away, we feel that a part of ourselves left together with them. A part of our understanding of the world, a link in our interpersonal network, our previous value judgment and actions in the past have all been misplaced because of the passing of a close friend.This sense of misplacement is sometimes very strong and clear, almost like the lack of a lit candle on the shore of a river or a pile of extinguished charcoal in cold weather. We cannot envisage it before people disappear from our life. When they do disappear, we suddenly become aware of the fact that the light and warmth, which vanished with their passing, are lost for ever. They are irreplaceable and will never return. No matter what happens in the future, whatever is lost is lost for ever. Continue reading...

She was kicked off her school team for being a girl – then played for her country and became manager of the women’s team at 31. She discusses how she helped put women’s football firmly on the mapWhen Hope Powell reminisces about the childhood that she spent scurrying across the streets of south London, she thinks of football. Perhaps that is no surprise: over the past 40 years, it has given her a career of firsts – after a trophy-laden playing career, she became England’s first female coach, first Black coach and youngest coach. Today, the 54-year-old is the manager of Brighton in the rapidly growing Women’s Super League (WSL).Over the course of Powell’s career, the women’s game has evolved beyond recognition. Her football education began in the late 70s, just a few years after the Football Association lifted its ban on women’s football, in 1971. She idolised Kevin Keegan and Ray Wilkins, but had no female players to look up to. She and her brothers would knock on the doors of their friends’ houses, then take to the football cages on her council estate for games of rush goalie to 3-a-side. Continue reading...

Feelings still running high a decade after 80 Traveller families were evicted from Essex siteOn the day residents of Dale Farm, then one of the largest unauthorised Traveller sites in Europe, were due to be evicted a decade ago, pupils at the nearby primary school were handed special stones they could squeeze as they walked into their morning assembly. The teachers wanted to remind everyone that the school remained a safe and welcoming place.But the helicopters above and the violent scenes that unfolded pierced through and reinforced what the local community had been bracing for: 80 families, including vulnerable children, would find themselves homeless and unsure of where to go. Continue reading...

The Depeche Mode frontman answers your questions, on his new covers album, taking early dance lessons from Mick Jagger and the right way to load a dishwasherDid you accomplish everything you set out to on [forthcoming album] Impostor? MrBeelzebubI was really burned out after the last Depeche Mode tour, then Rich [Machin, long-time musical partner in Soulsavers] and I started talking about songs and artists who had influenced us. Before we knew it, we were making a Soulsavers record with me as frontman that paid homage to those songs, but was almost a new piece of work. I realised that the choices were songs that put me where I am, suggested where I have been and where I might be. They are songs [such as Dan Penn/James Carr’s Dark End of the Street or Bob Dylan’s Not Dark Yet] that reflect on lives lived. I would not have known how to sing these songs when I was 18. Continue reading...

Survey after Pandora Papers leak finds 90% of Conservative and 85% of Labour voters objectA majority of the public, including Conservative voters, support tougher action against tax avoidance, according to an opinion poll after the revelations in the leaked Pandora Papers about widespread use of offshore tax havens by some of the world’s wealthiest people.Among Conservative voters in the 2019 general election, 90% agreed that tax avoidance by large companies was “morally wrong even if legal”, the poll found. Continue reading...

Relaxing six-month gap between second and third doses would speed up rollout, says former health secretaryJeremy Hunt has called for the government to cut the time required between Covid vaccine doses to allow more booster jabs to be given as concern grows about the pace and organisations of the latest rollout.Speaking in the Commons, the former health secretary said: “If you look at the higher hospitalisations, cases and death rates [in the UK] compared to countries like France and Germany, the heart of it is not actually things like mask-wearing and Covid passports, it is their higher vaccine immunity.” Continue reading...

Hillsong plans to hold Sunday services at Grade II-listed former theatre after locals objected to Islamic centreAn international megachurch whose founder has been accused of concealing child sexual abuse has bought a renowned former theatre in north London after a campaign to prevent it from being converted into an Islamic centre.Hillsong, which until earlier this year counted the pop star Justin Bieber among its members, plans to hold Sunday services at the site. The church operates in 30 countries and has 12 branches in the UK. Continue reading...

Mayor’s plan follows Putin announcing a weeklong nationwide paid holiday to stop spread of virus

A group of Bury and Rochdale residents who have lived through experiences such as prison, addiction, mental health problems and homelessness came together and called themselves the Elephants Trail. They want to be voice for others, hold local power to account – and, now, make films about what’s happening in their town. This is the second film in a collaborative video series called Made in Britain.This video references suicide and self-harm.

Driver made it to safety after HGV ended up partially submerged on Thursday morning, say rescue teamA lorry has fallen into the harbour in Bristol city centre.Emergency services were called to the scene early on Thursday after the HGV ended up partially submerged in the water, with the cab perched on the dock. Continue reading...

Fifteen questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes every Thursday – how will you fare?This time last week it was Thursday, and now here we all are again facing 15 questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes. All your favourites are here: a Doctor Who reference to spot, a Kate Bush answer to avoid, the beloved Pokémon round, Ron from Sparks, and some twisty little anagrams along the way. It is very silly, just for fun, and there are no prizes, but let us know how you got on in the comments.The Thursday quiz, No 26If 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 if you question it too much you might find yourself stuck in a certain Korean TV show. Continue reading...

Announcement comes as Scottish report says open-pen salmon farms pose substantial risk to wild populationNorway is to introduce new traps to protect wild salmon after experts warned they could become endangered as a result of contact with their farmed counterparts.Farmed fish and non-native pink salmon carry various diseases and lice, and in recent years have spread from Russia across the Norwegian coastline, reaching Britain and mainland Europe. Continue reading...

A man has been arrested after allegedly stealing a journalist’s phone straight from his hands during a live broadcast in Egypt.

Scott Morrison will also appear on Nine’s commercial breakfast TV show. No doubt we’ll have one of the favoured radio shows pop up as a media alert soon.Penny Wong is now in the ABC radio studios speaking to Fran Kelly on ABC RN. Continue reading...

Detectives remain hopeful of finding four-year-old alive as they say all signs point to abduction on Saturday morning

Essex fire service receives more than 120 calls, as Met Office warns unsettled weather likely to continueEmergency services have received a high number of calls from people reporting flooding after southern England was hit overnight by heavy rain and strong winds from a storm moving in from France.The Met Office issued a yellow rain warning covering most of southern England for Wednesday night and into Thursday, meaning people living there could experience transport delays, flooding and power issues. Continue reading...