Morals and duty clash in le Carré’s tale of a bookseller caught in a spy leak• Fintan O’Toole on the last twist in le Carré’s tale• Writers reveal their favourite le Carré

The Queen drummer and singer-songwriter on former girlfriends, forgetting lyrics and liking red wineBorn in Norfolk, Roger Taylor, 72, is an original member of the band Queen, which formed in 1970. Their hits include Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You and Radio Ga Ga. Taylor’s new solo album is Outsider, and he is currently on tour in the UK. The Queen + Adam Lambert’s Rhapsody European tour takes place next year. Taylor is married, has five children and lives in Surrey and Cornwall.When were you happiest?

Thin characterisation and a superficial critique of wealth inequality post-apartheid keep Uga Carlini’s fiction in first gearThe colourful opening of Uga Carlini’s Angeliena suggests a giddy ride awaits: the camera follows a suitcase plastered with travel stickers moving along a conveyor belt at an airport. But such vibrant detail only points up the film’s lack of emotional substance. A parking attendant for a posh hospital in South Africa, Angeliena (Euodia Samson) dreams of travelling the world, she adorns her little shack with tourist posters from faraway lands. At work, Angeliena brings a glow to the austere parking lot, pinning red roses that she grows herself to the windscreen wipers of fancy SUVs.Such sweet-natured actions are presumably intended to endear Angeliena to us, yet reduce her to a unidimensional worker with a heart of gold. The thinness of the characterisation is made more pronounced by the cartoonishly evil Dr Mitchell (Colin Moss), the hospital owner and Angeliena’s antagonist, a spewer of Trumpian one-liners. Ludicrously, the film takes a tone-deaf turn when Angeliena is revealed to be suffering from an unnamed muscular atrophy that motivates her to finally embark on her world trip. Out of the blue, she develops facial tics. The only affecting sequences are the few-and-far-between gatherings between Angeliena and her eccentric female friends. Continue reading...

Green social prescribing, where people are referred to nature projects, on the rise across UK“It sounds dramatic, but this place saved my life,” says Wendy Turner, looking out over the Steart salt marshes in Somerset. “I am really loving the colours of all the marsh grasses at the moment, and the flocks of dunlin and plover. The light is just so beautiful.”Turner was once a high-flying international project manager. “But the Covid pandemic resulted in me losing everything – my business and my home – and I had years of abuse in a marriage.” In July 2020, she attempted suicide and woke up in A&E. Continue reading...

NSW health department says that 136 staff members have resigned ‘due to their position on Covid-19 vaccination’

Facility in Tripoli overcrowded after 5,000 migrants arrested in the country in past weekAt least five migrants have been shot dead at a Tripoli detention centre amid a mass escape from the overcrowded facility.Libyan security forces have detained more than 5,000 migrants, refugees and asylum seekers mostly from sub-Saharan Africa in a crackdown over the past week, housing them in crowded, unsanitary detention centres, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR has said. Continue reading...

Early in pandemic ex MP intended drugs as Covid treatment but they were never used outside clinical trials

Routinely outshone in the polls by Jacinda Ardern, Collins now faces a challenge from a rival right-wing party“There are three ways in which opposition leaders end being opposition leaders,” the National party’s leader, Judith Collins, says: “one, they give up – well, that’s not happening. Two, they get rolled – that’s not happening, and three, they become prime minister. That’s the one I’m after.”Collins may be resolute in her desire to bag the country’s top leadership role, but the opposition’s dismal ratings are hard to ignore. Recent polls show the party’s ratings have slumped to 23%, Collin’s preferred prime minister ranking is trailing that of prime minister Jacinda Ardern by 39 points, and the leader of the smaller rival right-wing Act party has overtaken her in the popularity contest. Continue reading...

Cuthbert Mutukwa fears disastrous consequences for home country if UK cuts go ahead as it nears ‘mine-free’ statusA Zimbabwean man who helped clear hundreds of landmines from the Falkland Islands has urged Britain not to go ahead with cuts that would see the government pull funding from his home country just as it nears “mine-free” status.Cuthbert Mutukwa, 42, left his family in Zimbabwe to work for two years de-mining the Falkland Islands, the British overseas territory that was peppered with about 13,000 mines by Argentinian forces during the 1982 war. Continue reading...

Novelist Maaza Mengiste on how the Nobel laureate has explored exile in all its forms throughout his careerFor more than three decades, Abdulrazak Gurnah has been writing with a quiet and unwavering conviction about those relegated to the forgotten corners of history. Born in Zanzibar in 1948, Gurnah fled political oppression and settled in England at the age of 18. The author of numerous short stories and essays, as well as 10 novels, he has dedicated his writing career to examining the many ways that human beings can find themselves in exile: from their homes, families and communities and, perhaps most importantly, from themselves. His novels unfold in the intimate spaces created by families, companions and friendships: those spaces that are nurtured by love and duty yet rendered vulnerable by their very nature. In book after book, he guides us through seismic historic moments and devastating societal ruptures while gently outlining what it is that keeps those families, friendships and loving spaces intact, if not fully whole.Many of his books, including his first novel, Memory of Departure (1987), grapple with betrayals and broken promises on the part of the state or those in power, and focus on people who leave home in search of better lives. His second novel, Paradise, which was shortlisted for the 1994 Booker prize, is set just before the first world war and is a heartfelt – and heartbreaking – exploration of the costs of German colonialism and political aggression. In hindsight, it feels like a precursor to his latest novel, Afterlives (2020), which opens in the midst of a 1907 uprising against German colonisers and unfolds to offer us psychologically complex characters who, over generations and through transitions from German to British rule, struggle to maintain their families and communities in a small coastal town in mainland Tanzania. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Lady Newlove confident of cross-party support for amendment, despite PM’s stanceConservative peers and MPs will defy Boris Johnson’s stance that misogyny should not be a hate crime and push ahead with attempts to change the law, the Guardian understands.The former victims’ commissioner and Conservative peer Helen Newlove is leading the charge, tabling an amendment to the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, currently at committee stage in the House of Lords. Continue reading...

Ursula von der Leyen says European Commission will decide on next steps to takeThe head of the European Commission has vowed a swift response to a ruling from Poland’s top court rejecting the supremacy of EU law, which has thrown relations between Brussels and Warsaw into a crisis.Ursula von der Leyen said she was deeply concerned by Thursday’s ruling of the Polish constitutional tribunal, which concluded that basic principles of EU law were incompatible with Poland’s constitution. “I have instructed the commission’s services to analyse it thoroughly and swiftly. On this basis, we will decide on next steps,” she said in her first public statement on the matter. Continue reading...

Transplant patients take immune-suppressing drugs and non-vaccinated recipients are more likely to die of infectionHealth systems in Colorado and Washington are removing unvaccinated patients from organ transplant lists, given research that unprotected recipients are much more likely to die from Covid-19.UCHealth in Colorado told a patient on the kidney transplant waiting list that she needed to get vaccinated in the next 30 days or she would be removed from the list. Leilani Lutali told 9News that she was the patient in question, and she hasn’t been vaccinated yet because of her religious views. Continue reading...

In her new memoir, New York City Ballet’s first Asian-American soloist speaks out about racism and sexual bullying in ballet. Now she wants to overhaul the industry from withinWhen Georgina Pazcoguin was 19 years old, she went to see a doctor about her thighs. A dancer at the New York City Ballet, Pazcoguin had previously had what was known among dancers as “the fat talk” with the company’s then leader, Peter Martins. During their meeting Martins had told her she didn’t “fit in”, silently indicating the area between her backside and her knees. And so, following a recommendation from a friend, she visited the office of one Dr Wilcox, who told her she should consume no more than 720 calories a day – the recommended number for the average woman is closer to 2,000 – and gave her some sealed packets of powder. For the next four months, she subsisted on the powder, plus a single chicken breast and two pounds of spinach or lettuce, which would make up her evening meal.“No one wants to be told their body is insufficient,” says Pazcoguin, now 36. “I mean, line is essential in my business; there is a certain aesthetic [that is expected]. But I am not an ectomorph. As a dancer you are staring at your body all day long in a mirror. But to try to intimidate me to make me look like this stick figure? Some women are just born a particular way. And there [should be] flexibility within the ballet world for more body types than just this waif-thin idea.” Continue reading...

Filipina and Russian given 2021 award as organisers warn of threat to independent media worldwide

The controversial TV pundit recently overtook Marine Le Pen in presidential election opinion pollsHe has been convicted for inciting racial hatred, attacked by historians for claiming the Nazi collaborator Marshal Philippe Pétain saved French Jews rather than aiding their deportation to death camps, and was this week described by the French justice minister as a dangerous racist and Holocaust denier.But Éric Zemmour, a far-right French TV pundit, is rising so fast in opinion polls for president that one survey this week found he could make the final round of the April election and take 45% of the vote against the centrist Emmanuel Macron. Continue reading...

The former Australian prime minister uses a speech in Taipei to call on Beijing to ‘scale back the aggression’

The state government has also had to walk back from controversial Covid vaccination mandates for commonwealth and court system employees

Parents raise the alarm as Nadhim Zahawi admits he has no idea how many 12- to 15-year-olds have been vaccinatedMinisters have been accused of losing a grip on the Covid vaccination programme for teenagers with headteachers and parents describing a “haphazard” and “incredibly slow” rollout that is causing disruption in schools in England.They raised the alarm as Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, admitted he had no idea how many 12- to 15-year-olds had had their jabs, with early figures suggesting the government has little hope of hitting its target of vaccinating them all by half-term Continue reading...

Medical student Milad Rouf imprisoned for 15 years for doorstep attack that disfigured junior doctor Rym AlaouiA medical student who threw acid over his ex-girlfriend while disguised in a fat suit has been jailed for 15 years.Milad Rouf put on the disguise, which also included makeup and sunglasses, before throwing sulphuric acid over Rym Alaoui, his ex-girlfriend and a former colleague, when she came to the door of her home in May. Continue reading...

Supinder Kour and Deepak Chand were killed after being identified as a Sikh and Hindu, say witnessesTwo teachers have been shot dead by militants in a school in the Indian region of Kashmir, the latest in the spate of civilian killings that have targeted minorities and heightened tensions in the troubled state.Three assailants entered a government school in Eidgah, in the region’s capital, Srinagar, on Thursday morning and shot dead the principal, Supinder Kour, and her colleague, Deepak Chand. Continue reading...

Some believe Kremlin sees gas prices as chance for Gazprom to pressure west to speed up Nord Stream 2 approvalThe natural gas market has entered uncharted territory. The movements in the price of gas on Wednesday had been, in the words of one analyst, “unprecedented since the year dot of gas liberalisation in Europe”. In record swings, Dutch wholesale gas, a European benchmark, soared by 30% within one period of three or four hours from an already eye-watering level.These are chilling numbers for European governments with winter stretching ahead, and when the EU sneezes, the UK, heavily reliant on imports from across the Channel, also catches a cold. Continue reading...

An investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption led the now former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian to resign. While she denies any wrongdoing, her resignation has ignited a fresh debate about how to properly hold public officials to account. Lenore Taylor and Mike Ticher speak to Gabrielle Jackson about the role of anti-corruption commissions in holding politicians accountableRead more: Continue reading...

Now 73, the star of Hannah and Her Sisters shines in Jason Blum’s new horror. She talks about why audiences are hungry for mature movies, and her unhappiness at becoming an accidental poster girl for cosmetic surgeryIn 1973, Barbara Hershey – then known as Barbara Seagull, for reasons we’ll get into shortly – went on the popular US talkshow The Dick Cavett Show and torpedoed her career. She was on alongside her then partner, the actor David Carradine, but when Hershey/Seagull walked out on stage, she could hear their eight-month-old baby crying off-camera. So she ran off and returned with the little boy, named Free. Unfortunately, Free continued to fret. So Hershey/Seagull breastfed her baby live on air. Cavett was stunned and so, clearly, were the producers, who cut to commercials.“Did you breastfeed the baby earlier or was that my imagination?” Cavett asked when they returned, Free now fed. “I did it,” Hershey, then 25, replied, entirely unabashed. Continue reading...

Popular drama’s use of real South Korean number leads to thousands of prank calls and textsNetflix has edited out a phone number that appears in its hit series Squid Game after a South Korean woman and others who use similar combinations were deluged with calls – with some callers even asking to join the show’s life-or-death games.The South Korea-made production has topped Netflix popularity charts in 90 countries since its launch last month and is on track to become its most watched series ever. Continue reading...

Zanzibari novelist becomes first black African writer in 35 years to win prestigious awardThe Nobel prize in literature has been awarded to the novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”.Gurnah grew up on one of the islands of Zanzibar before fleeing persecution and arriving in England as a student in the 1960s. He has published 10 novels as well as a number of short stories. Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee, said that the Tanzanian writer’s novels – from his debut Memory of Departure, about a failed uprising, to his most recent, Afterlives – “recoil from stereotypical descriptions and open our gaze to a culturally diversified East Africa unfamiliar to many in other parts of the world”. Continue reading...

Flashing is a sexual offence, victims say it can have a lifelong impact and experts say it can lead to escalating crimes against women. Why is the police response so often dismissive?Cathkin Braes country park, in south Glasgow, is beautiful. You can see the city and, behind it, the mountains. Clara (not her real name), a 35-year-old community worker from Glasgow, went there in March to enjoy the view from her campervan. As she relaxed, she looked over and saw a car parked beside her, with the passenger window rolled down. A man was staring at her, and masturbating. He clearly relished her visible fright. “That is what was turning him on,” Clara said. “His head was nearly out of the passenger window, staring at me.”Because she was in a campervan, it wasn’t easy to get away quickly: Clara had to get out to fold away some seats. “I decided to jump out,” she says, “and when I looked at him, he was wiping ejaculation off his dashboard and looking at me.” She took a photograph of his car numberplate and drove away. But the man realised what she had done and gave chase. For 15 minutes, he tailed her through the streets of Glasgow. Frightened for her life, Clara drove to a police station, but the man turned off before she arrived. Continue reading...

Preparatory work for ‘redoing’ of The Potato Eaters – savaged in his lifetime – to feature in exhibitionA collection of Vincent van Gogh’s preparatory drawings sketched ahead of a planned “redoing” of The Potato Eaters, a masterpiece brutally slated by buyers, friends and family at the time of its painting, are being exhibited for what is believed to be first time.The Dutch artist considered his depiction of a peasant family from the village of Nuenen in Brabant eating a meal of potatoes as one of only four of his works that could be regarded as important, alongside The Bedroom, Sunflowers and Augustine Roulin (La berceuse). Continue reading...

Nina Hoss and Lars Eidinger give finely acted performances as they play twins brought back together through illness – but who is saving who?Fine performances are at the heart of this film from Swiss writer-directors Véronique Reymond and Stéphanie Chuat, which rather resembles a classy television drama that might, in British terrestrial terms, be spread over three successive Sundays.Nina Hoss plays Lisa, an author and dramatist suffering from an emotional and professional block. Her life is on hold because her beloved twin brother Sven (Lars Eidinger), a celebrated classical stage actor in Berlin, has cancer, though he is now in remission due to the bone marrow transplant which she has been able to give him. Lisa comes to the clinic to bring him back temporarily to the chaotic family apartment in the city where their widowed mother Kathy (Marthe Keller) lives. The film’s original title is Schwesterlein and when we first see Sven he is sitting on the hospital bed with his headphones on, listening to Brahms’s song: “Schwesterlein, Schwesterlein, wann gehn wir nach Haus?” (“Little sister, little sister, when are we going home?”) Continue reading...

New freedoms are coming for those who have received both doses of vaccine. What plans are you making?

Residents living in buildings that have to be demolished due to defective blocks describe anguish“The house is going to fall. There is no doubt about that; it’s just a matter of when,” says Angeline Ruddy as she shows how her external walls are crumbling before her eyes.She and her family, including three small children, have lived with the threat of the walls collapsing around them for the past 12 years in a slow-motion disaster that has blighted an estimated 20,000 homes in of one of the most picturesque parts of Ireland. Nobody knows just how many homes have been hit by the so-called mica disaster but there are reports that homes across other counties are now being identified as part of the catastrophe. Continue reading...

A court in New York has granted the royal’s lawyers permission to see the confidential agreeement between his accuser and the late financierPrince Andrew will have a chance to review a 2009 settlement agreement that he hopes will shield him from a civil lawsuit accusing him of sexually abusing a woman two decades ago, when she was underage.In an order made in New York on Wednesday, US district judge Loretta Preska granted permission for Andrew’s lawyers to receive a copy of the confidential agreement between the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre. Continue reading...

Here’s the full list of what you can and can’t do in NSW and the ACT

Homes collapsed after the quake struck 100km east of Quetta in Balochistan, and officials fear the death toll could riseA 5.7 magnitude earthquake hit southern Pakistan in the early hours of Thursday, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 200, government officials said.The quake struck Balochistan at 3am local time and at a depth of around 20km (12 miles), the US Geological Survey said. Continue reading...

Indoor pools can open doors under redrawn plan, with all children back at school by 25 October

A mynah bird that arrived in UAE with a young Afghan refugee has found sanctuary – and a new word – at the ambassador’s residenceA mynah bird that was brought from Afghanistan by a girl fleeing the Taliban has learned to say “bonjour” after finding a new home with France’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.Ambassador Xavier Chatel said he was moved by the little girl, who arrived “exhausted” and carrying the bird, named Juji, at the Al-Dhafra airbase in the UAE during the chaotic evacuations from Kabul. Continue reading...

Canadian prime minister took family holiday on day to underscore bitter legacy of Indigenous residential schools – ‘I regret it’Canada’s Liberal prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has said it was a mistake to take his family on holiday on the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation honouring the lost children and survivors of Indigenous schools.Trudeau flew to Tofino, British Columbia, with his family on Thursday after his own government in June had designated 30 September a federal holiday to underscore the legacy of the so-called residential schools. Continue reading...

Tweed shire mayor says ‘many regions are facing the very real likelihood of their first Covid-19 outbreak’ ahead of the state lifting travel restrictions

Swiss food firm says product boasts ‘authentic texture’ as it seeks to capitalise on rise in meat-free diets

Aleksandar Vučić’s comments come as EU leaders ditch proposal to put 2030 deadline for six western Balkan nations to join blocSerbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, has lauded his ties with the Kremlin for shielding his country from the energy crisis at a summit with EU and western Balkans leaders, fuelling fears that China and Russia would be the beneficiaries as the bloc further forestalled over enlargement.Vučić told reporters he had been proven right in maintaining close ties with Beijing and Moscow despite EU concerns, describing Vladimir Putin as the “kingmaker” in energy. Continue reading...

Shadowy figures lurk in Lee Thongkham’s stylised horror, which wrongfoots the audience with jump scares aplentyThai writer-director Lee Thongkham’s horror feature is a giddy, gory little treat. Unfortunately, it’s hard to explain exactly what’s so fab about it without spoilers, so just take our word for it as long as you have the stomach for lots of fake blood and jump scares. Suffice to say that Thongkham is nimble when it comes to wrongfooting the viewer, and there’s some pleasingly pointed satire here as well, sticking it to rich, snobby people who think domestic workers are as disposable as empty washing up bottles.The maid of the title is Joy (bob-haired ingenue Ploy Sornarin), a country girl who gets hired to schlep tea trays up and down the stairs in service to super-wealthy Uma (actor-model-singer Savika Chaiyadej), a woman so ridiculously haughty she dresses like a gameshow hostess for breakfast and always uses a cigarette holder – presumably so the butts don’t touch her lips. Joy has worked out that she’s but the latest in a long line of maids who don’t last long in that household, but when she asks the other servants they get all squirrelly and tell her she’s not to ask any questions. Continue reading...

As a generation, they care deeply about the environment and sustainability - but are also under pressure to change their wardrobe constantly. Which impulse will win?Alessia Teresko, a 21-year-old student from Nottingham, seldom wears the same outfit online twice. Which is why, last month, for a friend’s birthday, she bought a minidress: a 70s-style Zara dress in a swirling print, for which she paid £27.99. On Instagram, she posted a photograph of herself in her new dress, with a caption that read “Besties wknd”. The post racked up 296 likes and with it, Teresko’s Zara purchase was sent to the giant wardrobe in the sky. (Namely, the Depop account, where she resells the clothes she no longer wears.) “I can’t take another picture in it because I already posted it,” says Teresko. “I know that sounds very superficial.”In Edinburgh, 23-year-old Mikaela Loach, a student and climate justice activist, understands the pressure that Teresko is under. “Honestly,” she says, “as someone with a platform, even I feel pressure to be wearing different clothes online.” She buys her clothes secondhand. “Only if I can’t find it secondhand,” Loach says, “will I buy something new and then make sure I’ve done rigorous research on the company.” Continue reading...

Joint bid aims to add musical style that inspired independence to list of intangible cultural heritageAuthorities in Kinshasa and Brazzaville, the capitals of the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of the Congo, have submitted a joint bid to add Congolese rumba to the Unesco list of intangible cultural heritage.The list helps demonstrate the diversity of heritage and raises awareness about its importance. If Congolese rumba were to be added, it would join the hawker food of Singapore, sauna culture of Finland and traditional irrigation systems in the United Arab Emirates, among countless other customs on the list. Continue reading...

Representatives of clubs and bars want fresh poll after Tory member could not vote due to Zoom issue

Health minister Martin Foley says order of 2.2m tests is part of a broader range of measures to help reopen the state

Secretary John Setka says those responsible should ‘hang their heads in shame’ as officials study rally footage

Academic’s appointment marks historic moment for Arab world but comes amid political and economic crisis, with some fearing she will be Kais Saied’s pawnSara Medini, political analyst at the Tunisian feminist organisation Aswat Nissa, was in a meeting at work last week when she happened to glance at a news alert on her phone. What she saw left her at first flabbergasted, then delighted.“I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I had misread it,” she said. “I told my colleagues: ‘He’s appointed a woman! He’s appointed a woman!’ Continue reading...

Award-winning artist Maqbool Jan is one of a handful still practising the ancient artform, but without government help he fears it could be lostKashmir’s ancient papier-mache artworks are famous throughout the world. The art form is a staple of the luxury ornamental market, and has a rich and long cultural lineage. It is closely associated with the advent of Islam in Kashmir, and depicts scenes from the Mughal court, Arabic verses from the Qu’ran, Persian poetry, as well as Kashmir’s iconic tourist attractions.However, this ancient art form is vanishing, with only a handful of artisans left practising. Continue reading...

She has made art out of smells, ants, bacteria, spit and vaginal swabs. So what is the US artist about to unveil for her Turbine Hall commission? Yi, who was once a vagabond in London, takes us on an olfactory odysseyAnicka Yi offers me some beetroot crisps. These, along with carrot crisps, are her breakfast, both free of oil and salt. “I can’t eat greens, dairy, sugar, legumes, beans, nuts, seeds, nightshades, spice, alcohol – nothing,” the Korean American conceptual artist explains. “I can only eat grass-fed meat, wild fish, unseasoned all of it, vegetables and a little fruit.”Why? “I have some auto-immune issues and my doctor put me on a protocol to find out if something in my diet is inflaming them.” Poor you, I say, thinking I should wave away any approaching cheese trolley, as we sit chatting in Tate Modern’s members’ room. The diet has made Yi’s three-week trip from New York to London, to install her latest work in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, logistically tricky. Continue reading...