After a tragedy that killed her father, mother and brother, and left her severely scarred, she endured years of taunts and rejection. Now she is fighting for all those with facial disfigurementsTulsi Vagjiani was 10 years old and had been in hospital for several weeks when her bandages finally came off and she asked the nurses to show her what she looked like. She had been warned that she had extensive burns, but they seemed reluctant to let her look – they asked her if she was sure. “The nurses and doctors were like: I don’t think she realises the severity of what she looks like,” says Vagjiani.Vagjiani felt as if she had not changed, even if she was confused about what exactly had happened. “I was just Tulsi – boisterous, loud, confident.” She thought: how bad could it be? “Then I saw myself in the mirror and I was like: oh.” She says it in a quiet voice. “I actually thought somebody drew that face on, because I thought: that’s not me. And then, looking at the person in the mirror, their eyes and mouth moving, I realised: that is me.” Continue reading...

Speakers address crowds at peaceful demonstration held in Eastbourne, where suspect was arrestedAbout 200 people gathered on Tuesday evening for a vigil in memory of the schoolteacher Sabina Nessa, who was killed three weeks ago.The vigil was held in Eastbourne, where the man suspected of her killing was arrested late last month. Continue reading...

Wednesday: Former PM lands on island as tensions with China escalate. Plus: filming to begin on first movie shot in spaceGood morning. Tensions between Taiwan and China are rising as Tony Abbott arrives in the region. The NSW Nationals will vote for a new leader to replace John Barilaro today. And we have more revelations from the Pandora papers.The former prime minister has landed in Taiwan to speak at a regional forum. Taiwan has said Beijing sent nearly 150 fighter jets and bombers into its air defence zone over the first four days of October. President Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan will “do whatever it takes to defend itself” and warned of “catastrophic consequences” for the region should it fall. Abbott will deliver a keynote speech at the Yushan forum – an Asian regional dialogue conference – and will meet will meet Tsai and the foreign minister, Joseph Wu. Continue reading...

The Birmingham striker discusses his traumatised past, his ‘big rant’ on a Premier League Zoom call and the fight against racism“It’s going to sound bad, as if I am glamorising it, but it was normal,” Troy Deeney says when he remembers being driven around by his father in a stolen Mercedes-Benz with a drug dealer locked up in the boot. Deeney was just 19 years old and he had played one of his earliest games of professional football for Walsall against Northampton Town. He was a dozen years away from becoming the Premier League football captain who would do so much to force debate around how leading clubs in England could confront enduring racism.Early in 2009, however, Deeney was simply puzzled by another outbreak of chaos in his life. Hearing the hammering and screaming in the boot of the car he turned to his father when they stopped for petrol. “Can you hear that noise, Dad?” he asked. Continue reading...

Mayoral elections this week saw a poor turnout, but brought more good news for progressive parties following the German electionThe surprisingly upbeat autumn for Europe’s centre-left continues. Election wins in Germany and Norway have this week been followed up in the south, where mayoral polls in Italy delivered a string of convincing performances by the Democratic party. Milan, Bologna and Naples all gave strong mandates to progressive candidates; Rome and Turin are likely to follow suit in second round runoffs, which will take place later this month. If all goes well, a nap hand of major cities will be run by centre-left mayors.The results have been greeted with understandable enthusiasm by Enrico Letta, a former Italian prime minister who returned to lead the Democratic party last March. They prove, he said, that “the right is beatable”, after a period in which the far-right Brothers of Italy party and the nationalist League have consistently topped polls. The particularly poor showing by the League, led by Matteo Salvini, and the brutal ejection of the Five Star Movement mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, has led some commentators to assert that Italian populist movements are finally in decline. But suggestions of a political sea change may be a little premature. Continue reading...

While Conservative conference ponders poverty, the town’s most deprived face a £1,000-a-year cut as universal credit is clippedIt is 14 years since the Conservatives last held their conference in Blackpool, but the resort has been on the lips of every cabinet member in Manchester this week.“Children born in Blackpool are no less gifted than those in Beaconsfield but their GCSE results, job prospects and university offers don’t reflect that. That’s wrong,” said Michael Gove, the secretary of state for levelling up. Continue reading...

Experts say the pandemic is multiplying longstanding problems linked to housing and racial inequalityLike clay pressed into a mould, Covid outbreaks tend to conform to the contours of a country’s existing inequalities and cracks, replicating them over again.Social scientists have called the pandemic a “threat multiplier”, taking existing social problems, and compounding their force. In New Zealand, the country’s growing Delta outbreak is now interweaving with longstanding housing affordability crisis and racial inequalities. As the government continues to loosen restrictions, experts say a growing outbreak will make those divides more and more pronounced. Continue reading...

French government pushing EU to take stronger stance in dispute over access to Channel watersThe EU could hit Britain and Jersey’s energy supply over the UK’s failure to provide sufficient fishing licences to French fishers, France’s EU affairs minister has said.Clément Beaune, who is a close ally of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said action would be decided on within days and discussions were already in motion. Continue reading...

Batman! Mushrooms! Marge Simpson at Balenciaga! Paris fashion week is back with a bang Continue reading...

With no way of knowing how long her fertility would prevail, Madison Griffiths did what she felt she had to, with the tools she was afforded. Lifestyle editor Alyx Gorman recommends this personal story

Global policing body gives Damascus powers to pursue refugees and dissidents living outside the countryInterpol has allowed Syria to rejoin its communications network, a widely criticised decision that gives Damascus new powers to pursue refugees and dissidents living outside the country.Bashar al-Assad’s regime has remained a member of the global policing body but was subject to several “corrective measures” after the civil war broke out in 2011. It was previously suspended from accessing Interpol’s databases and communicating with other member states regarding requests for international arrests. Continue reading...

The actor says the Weinstein orc was intended as a message to the domineering sexual predator producerOne orc among many in the Lord of the Rings movies was designed to resemble Harvey Weinstein as a “sort of fuck you” to the notorious producer, Elijah Wood, who played the hobbit Frodo in the series, told a Hollywood podcast.“It’s funny,” Wood told the actor Dax Shepard’s podcast, Armchair Expert. “This was recently spoken about because Dom [Monaghan] and Bill [Boyd, who played hobbits Merry and Pippin] … were talking to Sean Astin [Samwise] about his first memory of getting to New Zealand [where the series was filmed]. Continue reading...

Coroner says a focus will be whether lives might have been saved had police investigated first deaths differentlyThe “competence and adequacy” of the police investigations into the murders of four gay men by the serial killer Stephen Port will be examined at the inquests into their deaths, a jury has heard.One key focus will be whether lives might have been saved if police had investigated the early deaths differently, said Sarah Munro, the assistant coroner for east London. Continue reading...

A new compilation surveys the enduring influence of a German landmark that fuelled a techno revolution from a damp, fungi-riddled bank vault on the old East sideFor electronic music fans, Berlin’s Tresor has long been considered the Valhalla of Germany’s illustrious club circuit. In March 1991, months after the official dismantling of the Berlin Wall, Tresor, the city’s first techno club, opened near Potsdamer Platz. In short order, the club’s vanguard of DJs, eccentrics, punks, goths and artists birthed a new subculture of Teutonic dance music that united the youth movements of east and west on the dancefloor.To commemorate the club’s 30th anniversary, Tresor Records is releasing Tresor 30, a 12-record box set of classic and new techno artists from its in-house label. It runs the gamut from early Detroit techno (Underground Resistance’s 1991 sci-fi epic The Final Frontier; Jeff Mills’ Late Night) to ambient techno (the savant-like Function) and third generation, post-techno musicians (Afrodeutsche, Sophia Saze, Grand River), demonstrating Tresor’s trademark, big tent approach to electronic dance music. Continue reading...

The first trailer for the upcoming fantasy spin-off promises epic action on a vast scale, with “gods, kings, fire and blood”. Resistance is futile!The Game of Thrones finale is still fresh in the mind of the public. Why, it only seems like yesterday since the world came together to witness the culmination of George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire saga, asking itself questions like “WHY IS EVERYTHING SO DARK?” and “WHY HAS MY FAVOURITE TV SHOW GOT MASSIVELY CRAP?”But two and a half years is a long time in the world of intellectual property and, reasoning that it’s still much easier to get viewers to watch a spin-off of something they grew to hate than to make them invest in something new, GoT prequel House of the Dragon is now on the horizon.House of the Dragon will premiere in 2022 Continue reading...

Audrey Hepburn’s star-making turn as Holly Golightly remains as luminous as ever in Blake Edwards’ sweetened yet still bittersweet adaptation of Truman Capote’s novelBreakfast at Tiffany’s was a sacred film in my household growing up. My mother’s VHS tape, fuzzily recorded off TV, was plastered in “do not tape over” warning labels, a defence I might have to explain to someone born 10 years later than I was. The opening credits on this worn copy were briefly disrupted with footage from the 1988 Wimbledon men’s final – still overlaid, in an altogether lovely technological blip, with the wistful strains of Henry Mancini’s Moon River theme. The warning labels dated from shortly after this unfortunate, swiftly aborted overlap.I thus grew up thinking of Breakfast at Tiffany’s as a film that belonged – via the tape, in a most literal and physical sense – specifically to one person. And then, by extension, to me, as a kind of inheritance. We watched it many times in my childhood, when I was rather too young to understand what exactly Manhattan socialite Holly Golightly did with her life – though, in my defence, the film rather sidesteps the issue too. No matter: it was probably one of my first encounters with pure movie star power, or at least one of the first times I recognised it as such. Audrey Hepburn, so perfectly doe-eyed and beehived and brightly funny and winsomely sad, seemed as much to me a force of magic as Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, even if the person she was playing made less sense to me. And not least of all – probably most of all, if I’m being honest – there was a cat. Cats were a cheap and easy way to my heart in a movie: the whiplash of panic and relief I felt over the rash disposal and cute retrieval of Holly’s ginger mog returns to me every time I watch it still. Continue reading...

Condemnation by MEPs and Oxfam prompted by removal of Anguilla, Dominica and Seychelles

Church asks for forgiveness as it accepts findings of ‘appalling’ abuse by clergy and lay members over 70 yearsThe French Catholic church has expressed “shame” and pleaded for forgiveness, after a devastating report found that at least 330,000 children were victims of sexual abuse by clergy and lay members of church institutions over the past 70 years.The publication of the landmark report on Thursday, France’s first major reckoning with what the Catholic church accepted was “appalling” abuse, has shaken the country with its horrific findings of a “massive phenomenon” of sexual abusers of children operating for decades within the church and its associated institutions. Continue reading...

Taiwan needs to be on alert for China's 'over-the-top' military activities which are violating regional peace, Premier Su Tseng-chang has said after incursions by Chinese warplanes into Taiwan's air defence zone. China has sent nearly 150 planes into the zone in the first four days of October, in what mainland figures and media have labelled a demonstration of strength but which world governments have condemned as an act of intimidation

Ferdinand Marcos Jr tipped for alliance with Sara Duterte, outgoing president’s daughter, in 2022 electionThe son of the Philippines’ former dictator Ferdinand Marcos has announced he will run for president in the 2022 election.Ferdinand Marcos Jr, known as Bongbong, who has defended President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial drug war and supported the death penalty for traffickers, declared his candidacy in a video broadcast on Facebook. Continue reading...

Almost 20 years ago, a police shooting left David Makara without an arm and facing jail. Inspired by the blind lawyer who saved him, he now defends others facing injusticeWhen the police started shooting at David Makara in his home town of Nyahururu, in Kenya, he ran before quickly collapsing. Two bullets had hit him – one in his right arm, one in his hip – but he only realised when he looked down and saw his hand dangling from his wrist and blood pouring out.“I thought I was going to die,” he says. Continue reading...

Victorian teacher Belinda Cetnar and her husband Jack argue they could lose their livelihoods if they don’t get vaccinated

The Boss’s trusty sideman has many plans – from saving central America to TV Hogmanay at the Playboy Mansion – and he’s more than happy to share his rock wisdomIt is the middle of the 1980s, and Stevie Van Zandt, having departed the E Street Band and left Bruce Springsteen’s side, is pursuing a solo career. He has also parlayed decades of experience playing in bar bands into a new and unusual role: international activist and campaigner against injustice. And so he finds himself, in company with Jackson Browne, in Nicaragua, against which the US is waging a proxy war.He arranges a meeting with Rosario Murillo, the wife of Nicaragua’s president, Daniel Ortega, as he notes in his memoir, Unrequited Infatuations. “After a few drinks, I moved off the small talk and suddenly asked her if she loved her husband. She was taken a bit aback but said, Yes, señor, very much. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you should spend as much time with him as possible, because he’s a dead man walking. It’s just a matter of time and time is running out’ … She was a very smart woman married to a revolutionary. But she was expecting a pleasant conversation about the arts, and the reality of what I was saying hit her hard.” Continue reading...

Josh Frydenberg in isolation after staff member tests positive; Victoria reports national record of 1,763 cases; Latrobe Valley will emerge from lockdown from midnight; NSW records lowest cases since mid-August; Dominic Perrottet sworn in and will ‘continue the plan’ for reopening that Gladys Berejiklian started; ACT records 33 cases; no new cases in SA; Qld records two local cases. This blog is now closed

Lava is destroying much of La Palma but the last eruption in the Canaries appears to have ‘fertilised’ the surrounding seasThe eruption of the volcano on La Palma in the Canary Islands is a vivid reminder of the destructive power of nature but, as it lays waste all before it on land, for marine life it is likely to be a blessing.When the lava reached the sea near the La Palma marine reserve on Tuesday night, every marine organism that was unable to swim out of danger was instantly killed. However, unlike on land, which lava renders lifeless for decades (and with forest not returning for more than a century), marine life returns quickly and in better shape, research shows. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Les Van Hagen, whose daughter Suzanne was killed by her partner, calls for inquiry into culture of policingThe father of a woman who died after being choked by her abusive partner has accused police of paying “lip service” to the protection of women and girls and called for a public inquiry into the culture of UK policing.West Midlands police apologised last month for a number of failings in the case of Suzanne Van Hagen, 34, who suffered months of domestic abuse before she died in February 2013. Continue reading...

The photographer toured the four tournaments shooting thrilled fans instead of sweaty stars. He talks about why street photography is becoming impossible – and life after his cancer diagnosis

The Navotas mudflats are among the last of their kind and act as a crucial feeding ground for migratory birds, but they are being buried in plasticThere are stray, abandoned flip flops, old foil food wrappers, crumpled plastic bags, and discarded water bottles. The Navotas mudflats and mangroves in Manila Bay are buried in a thick layer of rubbish.It is “almost choking the mangrove roots,” Diuvs de Jesus, a marine biologist in the Philippines who photographed the area on a recent visit, said. Continue reading...

PM’s comments fuel suggestions former NSW premier could run for a federal seat after Icac hearings

Experts have raised alarm the bill is a tool to crush dissent, with media watchdog saying it carries ‘the seeds of the worst totalitarian leanings’Singapore’s parliament has passed a law aimed at preventing foreign interference in domestic politics, which the opposition and activists have criticised as a tool to crush dissent.The law, approved after a marathon session that stretched to near midnight on Monday, would allow authorities to compel internet service providers and social media platforms to provide user information, block content and remove applications used to spread content they deem hostile. Continue reading...

Tuesday: Dominic Perrottet is expected to be elected leader of the NSW Liberal party to replace Gladys Berejiklian as premier. Plus: Luna the dog’s 16-month journey homeGood morning. The New South Wales Liberal party is set to get a new leader today after the shock resignation of Gladys Berejiklian on Friday. The climate crisis is taking the Australian military away from security issues to deal with severe weather events. And we’ll have plenty more from the Pandora Papers throughout the day.Dominic Perrottet is expected to be elected leader of the NSW Liberal party today. Labor should not underestimate the new leader, who comes with a powerful alliance who can unite the Liberal factions. But can the new alliance sell themselves to the public? Perrottet has been working hard on building a profile in recent months but despite serving in the NSW government ministry since 2014, for many voters, Perrottet is a largely unknown quantity. Here’s what we know about the conservative MP set to take NSW’s top job. Continue reading...

Brexit minister says he expects Brussels response to UK demand to renegotiate protocol within 10 daysThe UK will react in a “robust” manner if the EU launches a retaliatory trade war in the event of Brexit talks on Northern Ireland breaking down, the government has warned.The Brexit minister, David Frost, said he expected the EU to issue its formal response to the UK’s demand for renegotiation of the Northern Ireland protocol within the next 10 days, as he outlined fresh detail on the timeline for talks. Continue reading...

The Guardian/Birdlife Australia bird of the year poll is in full swing and the once-crowded field of 50 is rapidly narrowing with each day of voting. Which warbler will reign supreme?We hear from journalists, comedians and a former prime minister about the bird they’re supporting. They also discuss their wildest feathered encounters and the race to save some native species from extinctionYou can also read: Continue reading...

David Taylor, who was a police officer for 30 years, offers an insight into the handling of ‘minor’ crimes, while Ann Kelly and Caroline Ley reflect on the language used by ministers and the mediaHaving been a police officer for 30 years, serving as a detective inspector and in the police complaints arena, I can say officers and staff nationwide will have been horrified by the murder of Sarah Everard (Sarah Everard’s killer might have been identified as threat sooner, police admit, 30 September). The approach of all police forces, not just the Met, as to how they deal with “minor crime” is now under scrutiny. Such crime is only considered “minor” by the police and not by the victim, otherwise they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of reporting it.While every day many officers and staff successfully conduct criminal investigations and go the extra mile for victims, this is not the case for all; you only have to report a crime considered by the police to be “low level” to realise this. Each crime is assessed based on its seriousness and its solvability, often by desk-based staff under pressure to file the case without further investigation. This “don’t look too close” approach means any evidence that potentially exists is not pursued or is ignored. In my experience, too many police officers and staff lack investigative professional curiosity, compounded by the fact that there is often a complete lack of challenge from first-line supervisors towards staff they consider as their mates, or where such scrutiny could attract accusations of bullying. Continue reading...

International Air Transport Association chief calls for simpler travel rules and fewer border restrictions to help sector recoverThe International Air Transport Association (Iata) has said the airline industry is now over the worst of the Covid pandemic, but urged governments to simplify travel rules and open borders to help the aviation sector operate within a now “endemic” phase of the virus.Total industry losses are expected to fall to $11.6bn (£8.5bn) in 2022, according to Iata forecasts, which would mean a cumulative loss of just over $200bn in three years as a result of Covid. Continue reading...

High court decision could cost Home Office millions in back-paymentsA Home Office decision not to give thousands of asylum seekers money to make calls to friends and family during the pandemic has been ruled unlawful by the high court.The government could now be forced to backdate the weekly payments for an estimated 10,000 asylum seekers, potentially costing millions of pounds. Continue reading...

The filmed Broadway show has crash-landed early on the streamer with hilariously awful songs, a musical mess to rival CatsLogically, it makes perfect sense that Diana: The Musical should exist. After all, Diana, Princess of Wales lends herself extraordinarily well to musical theatre. Hers was a story of wealth and betrayal, of high camp and tragedy, plus she also happened to be an enormous fan of the medium. If you built a time machine and used it to tell Diana that she would one day get her own Evita, she would be absolutely thrilled.However, Diana died a quarter of a century ago and will never get to see Diana: The Musical. Some people get all the luck. Continue reading...

Former Catalan separatist leader says he’s ‘very happy’ after walking free from Sardinian courtCatalonia’s former separatist leader Carles Puigdemont has walked out of a Sardinian courthouse after a judge delayed a decision on Spain’s extradition request and said he was free to travel.Puigdemont walked out with his lawyer, shook hands and embraced supporters, saying he was “very happy”, as he got in a van and was whisked away. Continue reading...

This part fiction, part documentary film captures the spontaneity of young friends Leonel and AntuànDirected by Pablo Briones, Sean Clark, and Jace Freeman, here is a film that blurs the lines between fiction and documentary as it accentuates bittersweet childhood connections, full of teases, mischief and innocent tenderness. Following Leonel and Antuàn, a pair of friends who grew up in the small Cuban town of Pueblo Textil, this mesmerising promenade through abandoned landscapes doubles as a journey to the cusp of adulthood.With a script based on the real-life relationship and conversations between the two friends, Baracoa has an authentic spontaneity of children’s interactions so rarely captured in fiction films that rely on precocious child actors. The camera quietly observes the pair’s wanderings through ruined and deserted compounds whose austerity is transformed by the boys’ imagination. At one point, Leonel and Antuàn pretend to drive as they sit atop a broken down, rusted car frame. The moment is poetic, yet also full of melancholy. Soon, they will not find such childish daydreams so entertaining. Continue reading...

A cyclone that made landfall in Oman on Sunday has killed at least 13 people, and others are missing as the storm moved further inland and weakened. Omani state television broadcast images of flooded roadways and valleys as the storm churned deeper into the sultanate, its outer edges reaching the neighbouring United Arab Emirates

Fact-finding mission says migrants and detainees particularly exposed to violations since civil warWar crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, torture, enslavement, extrajudicial killings and rape have been committed in Libya since 2016, a United Nations investigation has found.The independent fact-finding mission on Libya, commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council, said migrants and detainees were particularly exposed to violations that have occurred since the country was plunged into a state of instability and civil war. Continue reading...

Military colleagues and prime minister pay tribute to former commandant general Matthew HolmesBoris Johnson led tributes from across the military to the former head of the Royal Marines who was found dead on Saturday at the age of 54.

PC David Carrick is accused of attacking woman in St Albans last year after they met on dating appA Metropolitan police officer who is accused of raping a woman he met on the dating app Tinder has been remanded in custody.PC David Carrick, 46, who serves in the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command, was arrested at the weekend after being accused of attacking the woman after they met for drinks in St Albans last year, a court heard. Continue reading...

In his speech to the annual Conservative party conference, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said when he backed Brexit five years ago, he was told his political career would be over before it had begun. He went on to outline why, despite the challenges, he believes Britain's departure from the EU will be positive for the UK

Cyclone causes landslide in Oman and dust storm in Iran, as warning issued to residents in UAEA cyclone that made landfall in Oman on Sunday has killed 12 people, and others are missing as the storm moved farther inland and weakened.Authorities in Oman said they found the body of a man who disappeared when flood waters swept him away from his vehicle. Continue reading...

The Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Canary island of La Palma threw lava and rocks into the air as the eruption continued to gather momentum. Local media reported that the north side of the crater had collapsed late on Sunday, causing a faster flow of lava. Cadena Ser radio said the collapse had formed a new lava flow that was threatening several nearby towns

Igor Memic’s award-winning drama Old Bridge, staged at the Bush theatre in London, charts teenage romance at a time ‘when the world stopped spinning’The bridge in the middle of Mostar is the spiritual and social heart of the city. It’s where people meet and gossip, snatch a first kiss or dive into the waters of the river below. The Bosnian city takes its name from the arched Ottoman-era bridge and it became a terrible symbol for the shattering of Yugoslavia when it was destroyed by Croat paramilitaries in 1993, though it has since been rebuilt.“It’s the soul of the town,” says Igor Memic, whose play Old Bridge, which won the Papatango prize for new writing last year, is now in rehearsals at the Bush theatre in London. Memic is from Mostar himself. His family came to the UK in 1992, “just 10 days before things popped off”. He doesn’t think of himself as a Bosnian playwright. Immigrant identity is more complex than that and his mother “left it up to me to discover who I was and who we were”. Continue reading...

Joe, 32, and Beth, 31, met in 2014 after a message she was sending to one of her friends went astray. They now live together in Wiltshire with their puppy, HansWhen Joe was at university in 2010, his housemate went through a phase of logging into his Facebook page to play practical jokes. “He used to add random people as friends on my account. I think he thought it was funny because it made me look lonely,” he says. One day his housemate sent a friendship request to Beth, who accepted. “I saw that Joe was from Devizes in Wiltshire, which is near me, so I assumed I knew him from a night out,” she says.They never spoke, and Beth soon forgot all about it. Joe had no idea she was on his friend list until April 2014, when she contacted him by accident. “I was arranging to meet my friend Jo and sent it to the wrong person,” says Beth. “Joe got in touch to tell me I’d made a mistake.” They struck up a conversation, and tried to work out how they knew each other. “Neither of us had any idea how we’d met. We didn’t work out what happened until years later,” laughs Joe.Want to share your story? Tell us a little about yourself, your partner and how you got together by filling in the form here. Continue reading...

Junta pursue charges against ousted Myanmar leader as warnings grow of worsening conditions for displaced peopleAung San Suu Kyi has requested her court sessions be held every two weeks rather than every week on health grounds, according to her lawyer, as hearings for a series of legal charges filed against her by Myanmar’s junta continue.The 76-year-old, who faces charges ranging from corruption to the illegal possession of walkie-talkies, requested the change, saying “she had to spend all weekdays at court so her health conditions seemed strained”, her lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said in a statement. The judge said he would make a decision next week. Continue reading...