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...

Fourteen men, including an ex-president, on trial 34 years after assassination of icon of pan-AfricanismThe landmark trial of a former president and 14 others has begun in Burkina Faso over the assassination of Thomas Sankara, a much revered revolutionary leader killed in a 1987 coup.Sankara, a Marxist icon of pan-Africanism widely hailed across Africa and beyond, was killed alongside 12 others by a hit-squad. His death led to his former friend Blaise Compaoré assuming power – denying any role in his murder. Compaoré ruled for the next 27 years before being deposed by mass protests in 2014 and fleeing to neighbouring Ivory Coast, where he is on trial in absentia. Continue reading...

The actor’s in-costume Instagram post has caused social media users to accuse the film-makers of “making Willy Wonka sexy” – but Wonka-lust is hardly newIn a sentence I never thought I’d ever write, Timothée Chalamet has revealed his Wonka on Instagram. Chalamet is, of course, currently filming the Willy Wonka movie prequel, and his post last night gave the world its first look at this new iteration.Judging by the internet, there are essentially two ways to react to it. The first is to be disgusted that Hollywood has bastardised one of the all-time great children’s characters by inventing a brand new backstory, with no input from its creator, for cash. The second is just to get really, really horny. Continue reading...

Swedish academics think they can explain why the derogatory term appears at the end of Steinbeck’s textThe word “slut” scrawled at the end of the manuscript for John Steinbeck’s seminal novel The Grapes of Wrath may have been explained, thanks to a handful of Swedish academics.The Grapes of Wrath was written by Steinbeck in a frenzy of creativity in under 100 days, between May and October 1938. Independent press SP Books released the first ever facsimile of the handwritten manuscript last week, showing Steinbeck’s increasingly tiny handwriting, his swear words, which were excised from the final novel – and a faint “slut”, written in red, at its conclusion. Continue reading...

Point will come when EU says ‘enough, we cannot compromise any more’, warns Irish foreign ministerThe EU is close to the end of the road with the UK over the Northern Ireland protocol, accusing David Frost, the Brexit minister, of trying to undermine serious attempts to solve the problem, the Irish foreign minister has said.Simon Coveney said he had spoken to Lord Frost’s counterpart, the European Commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, on Sunday. They have agreed there would come a point when “the EU will say: enough, we cannot compromise any more”, Coveney said. Continue reading...

Campaigners say president’s veto is ‘absurd and inhumane’ in country where period poverty keeps one in four girls out of schoolPresident Jair Bolsonaro’s decision to block a plan to distribute free sanitary pads and tampons to disadvantaged girls and women has been met with outrage in Brazil, where period poverty is estimated to keep one in four girls out of school.Bolsonaro vetoed part of a bill that would have given sanitary products at no charge to groups including homeless people, prisoners and teenage girls at state schools. It was expected to benefit 5.6 million women and was part of a bigger package of laws to promote menstrual health, which has been approved by legislators. Continue reading...

Police say remains found last week belong to 22-year-old Moree man missing since he was seen entering the Gwydir River in JuneNews South Wales police have confirmed human remains found in the Gwydir River in the state’s north belong to an Indigenous man who was last seen allegedly running from police.The Gomeroi man from Moree was seen entering the river north of the town on 10 July. His remains were found on Thursday 500 metres from where he was last seen and they were identified on Monday. Continue reading...

From Dan Lepard’s strawberry and mascarpone to Claire Thomson’s leek and cheddar, these mouthwatering dishes redefine the humble dessert. But in a good way …There are two types of people in the world: pie people and crumble people. As we all know, you cannot trust a pie person. Their need for structure is too restricting; their pursuit of rules loses them friends and respect at every turn. Give me the loose informality of a crumble any day. A warm bowl of crumble, lazily spooned out of a dish and drenched in custard, is one of the greatest things on this planet. Better yet, a crumble refuses to be pigeonholed. Sure, there are apple crumbles. Yes, there are rhubarb crumbles. But there is also a multitude of equally worthy less traditional crumbles – as these recipes prove. Continue reading...

Autumn Assembly is the highest and most important Yazidi holiday. It takes place in the holy city of Lalish, which is believed to be the place where creation began and where the seat of God descended to rule the earth. It also houses the tombs of Sheikh Adi and other holy figures. The town is considered so sacred that you are not allowed to enter while wearing shoes, especially during the assembly Continue reading...

High-profile Britons urge return of plundered altar tablets that British Museum has never put on displayThey are hidden religious treasures that have been in the British Museum’s stores for more than 150 years, never on public display – with members of the public strictly forbidden from seeing them.Now hopes have been raised that Ethiopian tabots, looted by the British after the battle of Maqdala in 1868, could finally be returned home following a new legal opinion and an appeal backed by Stephen Fry, the author Lemn Sissay and the former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey. Continue reading...

Minister for disability, ageing and carers, and for child protection announced his resignation within hours of claims at branch-stacking inquiry

While 99% of us are still fast asleep, members of the Win the Morning, Win the Day movement are throwing themselves into a dawn walk or swim. We join them where it all started, on a beach in HampshireA minute’s silence – a chance to listen to the wind and the waves crashing on to shingle, and look across the Solent to the lights of a cruise ship in the distance – and then we charge into the water, although some of us (me) are more tentative. There are shrieks and gasps from the shock of the cold; grimacing, grinning faces lit up by a portable floodlight.It is barely 6am, and still dark. It’s also the windiest, rainiest weather this group has ventured out in, but an impressively hardy 12 have turned up. On a good day, about 30 meet each Friday at 5.30am in Gosport, Hampshire, for a two-mile walk along Stokes Bay, followed by a dip in the sea. “It has changed my life,” says one man, who has been coming since the group started last year. He says meeting strangers, and the welcoming atmosphere, has allowed him to open up about his mental health and seek some help. Kerry started coming in October last year and says the weekly meet has helped relieve the seasonal affective disorder she usually suffers from at this time of year. “I used to sleep for 10, 11 hours,” she says. “If you had told me last year I’d be getting up at this time each week to do this, I wouldn’t have believed it.” Continue reading...

In the Spanish enclave of Melilla, young Nepalis share stories of survival while they await the next chapter of their livesOpening with a solemn quote from the Qur’an defining “Barzakh” – a liminal space between the dead and the afterlife – Alejandro G Salgado’s sombre documentary evokes the same atmosphere of indeterminacy, creating both a geographical and emotional state of perpetual longing. Shot entirely at night on the coastline of Melilla, which turns otherworldly once darkness falls, the film observes, often from a distance, young and undocumented Nepali boys who are waiting and hoping to cross to Europe.Hiding among the cavernous hollows of the rocky cliffs of this tiny Spanish enclave, these boys are wrapped in shadows. Besides hiding their identities, the nocturnal cinematography also points up the stark outlines of their makeshift shelters, which seem to swallow their small figures whole. The boys sing traditional devotional songs together: the gentle yearning sharply contrasts with the cacophony of the ocean waves, suggesting the arduous journeys on which they will soon embark. Continue reading...

Victoria will be open for summer, health minister says, as state records 1,612 new local Covid-19 cases and eight deaths; Andrews government minister Luke Donnellan quits cabinet after appearing before Ibac. This blog is now closed

With a side order of charm and anecdotes, the actor and gourmand makes our reviewer crave a plate of his zeppoleZeppole are deep-fried balls of a dough made with flour and, sometimes, mashed potatoes. The sweet version, dusted with sugar, are often filled with pastry cream, like the more famous cannoli. The savoury version, favoured in Calabria, in southern Italy, may contain anchovies, and go down very well indeed with a martini, or a glass of something cold, fizzy and unforgivably expensive.I sound authoritative, but to be truthful I hadn’t heard of these parcels of deliciousness – bring me a crate of them and I’ll show you what a good appetite looks like – until the other day. There I was, innocently reading Taste: My Life Through Food, a memoir by the notable actor and gourmand Stanley Tucci, when the word zeppole (doesn’t it sound elegante?) roared, metaphorically speaking, right up to me on a mint-coloured Vespa, wearing a black polo neck and flashy sunglasses. Hello, I thought, closing my eyes in anticipation of an afternoon reverie. Not too long after this, I began frantically searching for recipes for zeppole on Google. Continue reading...

Expectations are slim that the troubled Chinese developer will make $148m worth of payments due on Monday, as it wrestles with more than $300bn in liabilitiesFinancial markets were braced for more bad news about the shaky Chinese property market as struggling giant Evergrande looked set to miss a fresh round of debt repayments worth $148m, and another developer pleaded for more time to repay what it owes.China Evergrande Group missed two coupon payment deadlines last month worth $131m amid widespread concern of huge losses as the developer wrestles with more than $300bn in liabilities. Continue reading...

Party say Maori would be ‘sacrificial lambs’ if Covid restrictions are lifted before vaccination rates riseNew Zealand’s government would be committing “modern genocide” by reopening the country as Covid spreads among under-vaccinated indigenous people, the Māori party has said.The comments come as the country is struggling to contain its current Delta outbreak, with 95 cases reported over the weekend, and another 35 on Monday. Most current cases and hospitalisations are among Māori and Pacific New Zealanders, despite the fact those groups make up less than 30% of the total population. New Zealand is also in the process of pivoting away from its longstanding elimination strategy. Continue reading...

Thousands defied grey skies to flock to newly-reopened cafes, barbers and gyms to kick off what some have described as ‘freedom day’

It used to be a four-month period. Now fires are starting earlier and burning more intensely amid extreme conditionsIt’s only October, and 2021 has already been a horrendous year for wildfires in the American west. The Dixie fire leveled the town of Greenville. The Caldor fire forced the evacuation of tens of thousands in Lake Tahoe. Some fires sent plumes so high into the atmosphere that the toxic air reached the east coast thousands of miles away.Fire is an important part of life in the American west and essential for the health of the landscape, but as the climate has changed so have wildfires in the region.

After a decades-long slump, the actor’s career came roaring back with the role of Connor Roy. He talks about his 80s success, his ‘attitude problems’ and his excitement about Succession’s new seriesAlan Ruck is talking to me by video about the present, but he appears to be sitting in the past. The present we are discussing is the forthcoming third season of Succession, the wildly adored HBO series about plutocracies and dysfunctional families, created by Jesse Armstrong, a co-creator of Peep Show. Ruck plays Connor, the neglected eldest son of a media magnate, Logan Roy (Brian Cox). Like all the actors on the show – as the Guardian’s unofficial Succession correspondent, I have interviewed Cox and Jeremy Strong – Ruck has thought deeply about his character and is very eloquent on the subject. It is, however, a little hard to focus on what he’s saying because the bright and spacious kitchen in which he’s sitting bears a striking resemblance to another kitchen audiences associate with him. More than 30 years before Ruck played Connor, he was Cameron Frye, another neglected son of a cruel and wealthy man, in the 1986 John Hughes classic film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Alan, I say, are you actually sitting in Ferris Bueller’s kitchen?“Ha! No, I see what you mean, but this is my lovely kitchen. And upstairs are my lovely children,” he says in his occasionally ironic, lightly mocking tone, although that mockery is always directed inwardly rather than outwardly. At one point, he makes a fleeting reference to “a western I was once in”, and I interrupt him to say he cannot casually refer to the great 1990 movie Young Guns II as just some western. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Campaign for Better Transport calls on government to end ‘climate disaster’ of internal flightsDomestic flights should be banned and long-distance train fares subsidised, transport campaigners have urged, highlighting the relative environmental and financial costs of air and rail travel.The Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) called on ministers to outlaw internal UK flights if an equivalent train journey took less than five hours and to resist calls for any cut in air passenger duty. Continue reading...

Pacific country says it faces ‘diabolical challenges’ due to larger nations and that they play a much bigger role in controversial industryThe financial regulator of Samoa, a Pacific nation implicated in the Pandora papers as a tax haven for wealthy individuals, has defended the country’s involvement in the offshore industry and pointed the finger at “larger economies” such as the UK and Singapore for their role in it.“Samoa is a proud, law-abiding country that has suffered much due to its harsh colonial past and diabolical challenges that it now faces, such as climate change. Both calamities were brought on to us by larger countries that continue to enjoy much respect,” said Tuifaasisina Sieni Tualega-Voorwinden, the chief executive officer of the Samoa International Finance Authority. Continue reading...

Electoral commission says turnout was 41% as disillusioned youth and middle classes opt to stay homeIraqis have turned out in low numbers in a national election, with many boycotting a poll that people feared could reinforce a political system that had failed them.Nationwide turnout at the sixth ballot since the ousting of Saddam Hussein in 2003 was 41%, the electoral commission said. In recent elections, turnout has averaged just over 65%, according to non-profit the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. Continue reading...

US says it discussed aid in talks in Doha but Taliban say deal agreed that stops short of formal recognition of new rulersThe United States has agreed to provide humanitarian aid to a desperately poor Afghanistan on the brink of an economic disaster, but refused to give political recognition to the country’s new rulers, the Taliban said on Sunday.The statement came at the end of the first direct talks between the former foes since the chaotic withdrawal of US troops at the end of August. Continue reading...

A sense of nervousness and caution was mixed with relief as many retailers across the city flung open their doors for the first time in over 100 days

The Singapore government is now free to act on suspicions of foreign influence, and their targets will struggle to clear their namesSingapore’s parliament has passed a controversial anti-foreign interference bill, just three weeks after its first reading on 13 September.It was only to be expected that the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Bill, or Fica, would pass – the ruling People’s Action Party has had a supermajority in parliament for decades, allowing them to push whatever legislation they want through the House. But the concerns that activists, journalists, academics and legal practitioners had before the bill’s passage persist.Kirsten Han is a freelance journalist who runs the newsletter We, The Citizens, covering Singapore from a rights-based perspective. Continue reading...

Up to 100,000 people gathered in Warsaw alone after a Polish court ruling that raised fears of a Brexit situationMore than 100,000 Poles demonstrated on Sunday in support of European Union membership after a Polish court ruled that parts of EU law were incompatible with the constitution, raising fears of a “Polexit”.Politicians across Europe voiced dismay at the ruling by Poland’s constitutional tribunal on Thursday, which has thrown relations between Brussels and Warsaw into a crisis. Continue reading...

Nation on ‘exponential growth curve’, one expert says, with unexplained as well as total case numbers increasing

Up to 30,000 are believed to have died since the president urged police to start killing drug users – now their families want justiceOn 11 May 2017, Crisanto Lozano set off early in the morning from his home in Manila. He was going to renew his security guard licence, a requirement for his profession. By afternoon, he still hadn’t returned, nor was he picking up his phone. Then the family realised that Crisanto’s younger brother, Juan Carlos, was also missing.The next day, they heard news that two bodies had been discovered nearby. The brothers had been shot dead during a police operation. Continue reading...

Imperial War Museum London

Officers made decision after reportedly talking to Giuffre and a review of documentsThe Metropolitan police are taking no further action after a review prompted by Virginia Giuffre, who is taking legal action against Prince Andrew.Met officers made the decision to drop their investigation on Sunday, 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...

Police say that Jason Bell, 40, has been arrested on suspicion of murderA man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman with stab injuries died in Camden.The Metropolitan Police were called shortly before 1am on Sunday to a disturbance at a flat in Broxwood Way, Primrose Hill, London. Continue reading...

Monday: bars, retail, gyms and hairdressers reopen across NSW. Plus: the Coalition push to fast-track international travelGood morning. Millions in New South Wales awaken to new freedoms after 106 days of lockdown. Australian deportation law changes described as “authoritarian”. The campaign for Australia to donate vaccines across Asia Pacific ramps up.Bars, retail, gyms and hairdressers reopen across NSW and Scott Morrison has backed plans to fast-track the resumption of international travel as soon as the state’s home quarantine program is ready. In a Facebook livestream on Sunday, the prime minister said he had had discussions with NSW premier Dominic Perrottet about bringing forward the start date of international travel for fully vaccinated people. Continue reading...

Jonathan Toebbe and wife arrested in West Virginia after nuclear engineer makes ‘dead drop’ to undercover FBI agentA US navy nuclear engineer with access to military secrets has been charged with trying to pass information about the design of American nuclear-powered submarines to someone he thought was a representative of a foreign government – but who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.In a criminal complaint detailing espionage-related charges, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said Jonathan Toebbe sold information for nearly a year to a contact he believed represented a foreign power. That country was not named in the court documents. Continue reading...