Campaigners fear climate breakdown, Covid and violent conflict are threatening any progress made in food security in recent yearsGlobal targets to eradicate hunger by 2030 will be missed as a “toxic cocktail” of the climate crisis, conflict and the Covid-19 pandemic reverses progress, new projections have revealed.The fight to end hunger is “dangerously off track” and the UN sustainable development goal of zero hunger “tragically distant”, according to the 2021 Global Hunger Index (GHI), published on Thursday. Forty-seven countries will fail to achieve even low levels of hunger (ie countries that have adequate food and low numbers of child deaths) by 2030 and millions of people will experience severe hunger in the coming years. Continue reading...
by Caitlin Cassidy and Matilda Boseley (earlier) on (#5QPB8)
Josh Frydenberg says 90% of jobs lost in September were in Victoria as state records most infectious day with 2,297 cases; NSW reports 406 cases and six deaths; ACT records 46 cases, one death. This blog is now closed
Migrants, many fleeing the Taliban regime, claim they are being beaten, harassed and turned back by Turkish border forcesAs the sun sets over a dusty ravine on the outskirts of Van city in eastern Turkey, Muhammdullah Sangeen and dozens of other Afghans are preparing for another night sleeping rough.The 22-year-old, who has a bruised left eye and fresh cuts all over his arms, arrived from Iran a few days earlier with the help of smugglers. “I am not OK,” said Sangeen, his legs trembling. “I’m not feeling human.” Continue reading...
From painting nudes at a time when it was forbidden to sleeping among the troops in both world wars, the vitality of her work makes her still strikingly relevant“It is my opinion that fine realism is indeed true abstractionism,” the British painter Laura Knight wrote in 1954. Her critics complained that she was just copying life, but Knight believed that she transformed the world more than abstract painters, who seemed to her, to ignore its sensuality and specificity.We can decide for ourselves at the largest exhibition of her work since 1965, curated at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes. What becomes swiftly clear is the copiousness of Knight’s subject matter and style. She was a modern painter in many ways: committed to taking on modern life and experience, and to being a modern woman. She wanted to do all that men could do, painting nudes at a time when female art students weren’t allowed to do so. She treated her subjects with seriousness and commitment, but also with enormous sensuous energy and a feel for the pleasures of looking, whether it’s the naked women on Cornish beaches, the garish clowns in her 1930s circus pictures, or even the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force commanders of the 1940s, surrounded by the meticulously rendered paraphernalia of their working lives. Continue reading...
Unmasking tax dodgers, sexual predators and corrupt officials can be lonely, daunting, unnerving work. But it can change the worldInvestigative journalism is costly, time-consuming, risky and difficult, and sometimes results in legal threats, personal abuse to our journalists – or no publishable story at all. So why do we do it? Six of our investigative journalists answer questions from editor Mark Rice-Oxley.Why does the Guardian feel it has to do this work – isn’t investigation for the police, or parliament?Make a contribution from just £1.Become a digital subscriber and get something in return for your money.Join as a Patron to fund us at a higher level. Continue reading...
Competition opens to find six young creators in sub-Saharan Africa who will be funded to produce movies for 2022For Nelson Mandela they were “morsels rich with the gritty essence of Africa but in many instances universal in their portrayal of humanity, beasts and the mystical.”Passed down through the generations, whispered at bedtimes and raucously retold by elders, folktales have long been a mainstay of African cultural heritage. Continue reading...
A new two-part HBO Max series on the Clueless actor’s shocking death at 32 in 2009 is less monument to her short life than exploitation of her deathIt’s telling that What Happened, Brittany Murphy?, a new docuseries on the Clueless and Girl, Interrupted actor’s confounding death in December 2009, is bookended by two overwrought sleights of hand. The two-part HBO Max series begins with the frantic 911 call by her mother, Sharon Murphy, over a recreation of the EMS trip from Murphy’s house in Hollywood Hills to Cedars Sinai medical center, where she died from a combination of pneumonia, severe anemia and several prescription and over-the-counter medications at age 32. It ends with a hammy montage of fan videos made by internet detectives – straight-to-camera, brightly lit, skeptical recaps that often double as makeup tutorials – spliced with scenes from Murphy’s films, as if her expressive face is in conversation with their fascination.That dialogue is a ruse; for the two hours between these moments, What Happened, Brittany Murphy? takes on the role of amateur sleuth. Combing through tabloid reports, medical documents and first-hand accounts of people orbiting her death, it purports to explain Murphy’s tragic, untimely demise and, more pertinent to headlines, her abusive, constrictive marriage to Simon Monjack, who died five months after her of pneumonia. Continue reading...
Rossiglione receives 740.6mm of rain in 12 hours, while 496mm falls over Cairo Montenotte in six hoursTorrential thunderstorms in Italy have set new European rainfall records, with a colossal 740.6mm (29in) of rain falling in just 12 hours over Rossiglione in Genoa on 4 October. In another record, set 20 miles west, Cairo Montenotte received a 496mm deluge in just six hours.Above average temperatures, rich moisture-laden Mediterranean air and an advancing low pressure system aided spectacular thunderstorm development over large parts of Italy. The staggering rainfall amounts caused landslides, damage to fields and blocked roads. Continue reading...
At the 1968 Olympics, Tommie Smith, winner of the men’s 200 metres, stood on the podium and lifted his hand to protest racism. That moment would end his running career – and shake the worldTommie Smith still gets chills when he hears the opening bars of The Star Spangled Banner. It takes him right back to that night in October 1968 when he stood on the Olympic podium in Mexico City, wearing his gold medal, and made the raised-fist salute that has defined his life. “It’s kind of a push, when I hear ‘dum, da-dum’,” he says, singing the opening notes of the United States national anthem. “Because that’s the first three notes I heard in Mexico, then my head went down, and I saw no more of it until the last note.”While the anthem played, all that was going through Smith’s head, he says, was “prayer and pain”. Pain because he had picked up a thigh injury that day on the way to winning the 200m final (he still set a world record). And prayer because Smith was not just putting his career on the line – he was risking his life. There was a real possibility that somebody in the stadium might try to shoot him or his team-mate John Carlos, who was making the salute beside him after winning bronze. In the months leading up to the Olympics, he had been receiving death threats. Two weeks before, Mexican police had fired into a crowd of student protesters, killing as many as 300 people. Martin Luther King had been assassinated just six months earlier. So Smith fully expected that the last thing he would hear, halfway through The Star Spangled Banner, would be a gunshot. “So when I hear that ‘dum, da-dum’, I get chills,” he says. “I got chills then when I sang it,” he laughs, holding out his arms to show the hairs standing on end. Continue reading...
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has watched an extreme martial arts demonstration by soldiers at a military event marking the 76th founding anniversary of its ruling party. In the video aired by the North's state-run television station, KRT, soldiers performed multiple shows of strength: smashing items, breaking free from chains, lying on glass and throwing knives. Kim smiled and clapped as he watched the show at the Defence Development Exhibition 'Self-Defence-2021'. During the exhibition, Kim said his country's weapons development is necessary in the face of the US' hostile policies and a military buildup in South Korea.
Fully vaccinated travellers from select countries including New Zealand and Australia will be able to visit from NovemberFiji says it is already experiencing a boom in demand after announcing this week that it would open up quarantine-free travel to visitors from select countries, almost two years after closing its borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic.“Our website data is well up – we are seeing a real lift in interest. It is exciting, and we want to encourage people to come and spend Christmas and new year in Fiji,” Tourism Fiji chief executive Brent Hill said. Continue reading...
Police say suspect in his 30s lived in the town of Kongsberg, where the attacks took placeA Danish citizen in his 30s has been arrested and charged after five people were killed and two others injured in attack using a bow and arrows in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg, police said.The suspect lived in the town and was transported to the nearby town of Drammen on Wednesday night, the police said in a statement issued early on Thursday. Continue reading...
Northern Territory chief health officer Hugh Heggie has blamed misinformation from faith organisations and anti-vaccination groups for influencing the slowing vaccination rates in the Top End. In an emotional press conference, Heggie said misinformation is spreading through social media among Indigenous communities. 'Who is going to take responsibility for the first death in the Northern Territory? Who is going to take responsibility for the first Aboriginal death in the Northern Territory?' he said► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube
The former Olympic sprint champion and broadcaster is launching Defiance, a documentary-style podcast series that focuses on athletes who have made a stand against social injusticeMichael Johnson had not yet been alive for a year when Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood atop the 1968 Olympic podium in Mexico City with their gloved fists in the air in salute of Black Power, a defining moment of activism in sport and one they proceeded with despite knowing it would cost them so much. As he grew up and began an athletics career that would yield four Olympic gold medals, Johnson initially only had a “vague” familiarity with his Games forefathers.That changed in his late teens as he began to study all of the great sprinters before him, searching for nuggets of insight he could learn to further himself. His eyes naturally fell on Smith, one of the few sprinters who was special in both 200m and 400m. Studying Smith’s stride pattern naturally led him on to the 1968 Olympics, and what he learned about Smith and Carlos left him “in awe” of the decisions they made a year after he was born. Continue reading...
Chloë McCardel finally achieved her dream of crossing the English Channel more times than anyone else. The 36-year-old Australian completed her 44th crossing a little after 2pm BST, eclipsing the previous record held by British swimmer Alison Streeter. ‘I’m buzzing right now, I feel like I could go again and swim the channel again tomorrow, although that's not a very good idea’, she said. After starting in the dead of night at Shakespeare Beach at Dover, she touched land at Wissant Beach on the French side, before returning to her support boat to celebrate► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube
Andreas Fontana’s debut feature is an unnervingly subtle drama about a Swiss private banker visiting clients in Argentina during the period of the military junta and ‘disappearances’Pure evil is all around in this unnervingly subtle, sophisticated movie; an eerie oppression in the air. Andreas Fontana is a Swiss director making his feature debut with this conspiracy drama-thriller, shot with a kind of desiccated blankness, about the occult world of super-wealth and things not to be talked about. The title is a Swiss banker’s code-word in conversation for “Be silent”.It is set in 1980 in Argentina, at the time of the junta’s dirty war against leftists and dissidents, and you could set it alongside recent movies including Benjamín Naishtat’s Rojo (2018) and Francisco Márquez’s A Common Crime (2020), which intuited the almost supernatural fear among those left behind when people they knew had vanished and joined los desaparecidos, the disappeared ones. But Azor gives a queasy new perspective on the horror of those times, and there is even a nauseous echo of the Swiss banks’ attitude to their German neighbours in the second world war. Continue reading...
Thursday: Ticket prices hit Australians’ holiday hopes. Plus: Chloë McCardel completes world-record Channel crossingGood morning. Australians hoping for an overseas holiday in coming months face astronomical air fares, Scott Morrison faces internal resistance to higher emission reduction targets, and the Australian marathon swimmer Chloë McCardel has completed a world-record 44th crossing of the Channel.Thousands of Australians face $5,000 return flights as experts warn “it could take a full year” until international flight tickets return to pre-Covid prices. More than 45,000 Australians remain stranded overseas, with a scarce supply of tickets into the country available, despite both the prime minister and NSW premier’s optimism that travel could be “fast-tracked” by early November. The outback town of Wilcannia is celebrating two weeks Covid-free after the virus hit “like a cyclone” in August, but Aboriginal people in the Hunter-New England region have experienced a 400% increase during the past fortnight. Meanwhile, regional advocates have called for telecommunications to be enshrined in legislation as an essential service, with bushfires, floods and now the Covid pandemic causing outages across as many as 1,400 facilities nationwide. Continue reading...
by Daniel Boffey and Jennifer Rankin in Brussels on (#5QP49)
Maroš Šefčovič attempts to end tussle at press conference but ‘big gap’ remains to UK’s demandsThe EU will scrap 80% of checks on foods entering Northern Ireland from Britain but Brussels officials were “preparing for the worst” amid signs Boris Johnson is set to reject the terms of the deal.Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s Brexit commissioner, also announced that customs checks on manufactured goods would be halved as part of a significant concession to ease post-Brexit border problems. Continue reading...
Opposition politicians launch proceedings against Sebastián Piñera over possible irregularities in mining company saleOpposition politicians have launched impeachment proceedings against Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, over possible irregularities in the sale of a mining company, after new details about the deal were revealed in the Pandora papers.Lawmakers cited an “ethical duty” to hold the president accountable for the alleged irregularities in his involvement in the controversial Dominga project. Continue reading...
The European Commission is offering substantial concessions. If Boris Johnson refuses, it will prove that he prefers conflict to resolutionA detail in the story of Brexit, often forgotten, is Boris Johnson’s support for Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement at a third Commons vote in March 2019. Having resigned from the cabinet in protest at Mrs May’s plan, he endorsed it, not because he changed his mind about the content, but because it seemed expedient in the moment. The motive was fear of losing Brexit altogether; the intention was to kill Britain’s EU membership, take any deal available and then try to change it from the outside.Mrs May lost that vote. Mr Johnson became prime minister and his sign-and-renege strategy became government policy. Hence the decision in October 2019 to agree to the Northern Ireland protocol, placing a customs border in the Irish Sea. Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s chief adviser at the time, has said that there was never intent in Downing Street to stick with the terms of what had been agreed. A typically self-serving and pugnacious Twitter outburst by Mr Cummings included the assertion that “cheating foreigners is a core part of the job”. Continue reading...
Hazrat Wali, 18, who came to UK two years ago, attacked near sports field where children were playing rugbyA teenage Afghan refugee was stabbed to death on a sports field in south-west London in front of schoolchildren playing rugby.The victim, named as 18-year-old Hazrat Wali, from Notting Hill, was attacked at about 4.45pm on Tuesday on Craneford Way, Twickenham, yards away from Richmond upon Thames College, which he attended. Continue reading...
by Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor on (#5QP46)
Rights watchdog accuses Britain of turning a blind eye to degrading treatment of those who lived under ISBritain is colluding in torture and degrading treatment by refusing to repatriate women and children held in indefinite detention in Syrian prison camps, according to a report from a human rights watchdog.The assessment by Rights and Security International (RSI) accuses the UK and others of turning a blind eye to lawless and squalid conditions in two camps that contain 60,000 women and children, many held since the collapse of Islamic State. Continue reading...
Four men have been charged with killing Tom Kennedy, 28, whose body was found in river near GoriThe family of a British musician allegedly murdered in Georgia have spoken of their devastation.The body of Tom Kennedy, 28, who was born in Manchester and lived in County Mayo in Ireland, was found in the Mtkvari River near Gori, about 50 miles (80km) west of the capital, Tbilisi. Continue reading...
by Jessica Murray Midlands correspondent on (#5QP2Q)
PC Geoff Marshall acted to prevent Whaley Bridge being catastrophically flooded in 2019A police officer in Derbyshire who risked his life to stop a dam from collapsing and sending billions of tonnes of water on to a nearby town has won an award for his bravery.PC Geoff Marshall put his life on the line to save thousands of people in Whaley Bridge when it was feared a dam at nearby Toddbrook reservoir would burst. Continue reading...
President Vladimir Putin says Russia is ready to provide more gas to Europe if requested, emphatically rejecting the suggestion that Moscow is squeezing supplies for political motives. European gas prices have hit record levels this month, but the Kremlin has repeatedly denied that Russia is deliberately withholding supplies in order to exert pressure for quick regulatory approval of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea to Germany
Leicester East MP was accused of making unwanted phone calls and threatening her partner’s female friendAn MP has been found guilty of harassment and is expected to face demands to stand down from her seat.Claudia Webbe, the independent MP for Leicester East, was accused of carrying out a campaign of harassment through unwanted telephone calls against Michelle Merritt, a female friend of her partner. She allegedly called Merritt a slag, threatened an acid attack and said she would distribute naked pictures of Merritt to her family. Continue reading...
Billy Hood’s family and campaign group Detained in Dubai working to appeal against convictionsA British football coach has been sentenced to 25 years in jail in Dubai after police discovered four bottles of vape liquid containing CBD in the boot of his car.Billy Hood, 24, from Kensington, was sentenced for trafficking, selling and possessing drugs after he claims he was forced by police to confess in Arabic, a language he does not speak. Continue reading...
The UK star said she felt ready to release her fourth album, out 19 November, after learning ‘a lot of blistering home truths’ in the past three yearsAfter a slow drip-feed of information – the name of her new single, an unprecedented two simultaneous covers of Vogue in the US and the UK – Adele has officially confirmed the release date of her fourth album.30 will arrive on 19 November – as fans had guessed when Taylor Swift pulled her latest release forward a week from 19 November to 12 November, presumably to avoid a clash with another pop titan. Continue reading...
Group of more than 300 descendants of people born under Italian rule accuse state of ‘crime of colonial racism’Hundreds of Eritreans of Italian descent who trace their ancestry to the period of Italy’s colonial rule are demanding Italian citizenship, a right denied to them by Benito Mussolini’s racial laws.A group of more than 300 grandchildren or great-grandchildren of people born to Italian fathers and Eritrean mothers have written to the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, and other government officials urging them to “finally examine and resolve an issue that has never really been addressed, a crime of colonial racism that marked the life of thousands of innocent women and men, and which continues to discriminate against generations of Italians”. Continue reading...
Oliver West tells inquest former soldier Spencer Beynon, who later died, charged at him, shoutingA former police officer who fired a Taser at a former soldier with mental health issues who died told an inquest jury he had no choice but to discharge the stun gun because he feared for his own safety and that of bystanders.PC Oliver West, who has since left the police after being convicted of stealing a car battery, said he found Spencer Beynon slumped in a doorway with a serious neck wound but claimed he suddenly got up and charged at him, shouting: “I want to die.” Continue reading...
Report accuses strongman Alexander Lukashenko of interfering in running of sportThe regime of the Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko has systematically interfered in the running of the country’s football federation and used the sport as a “pro-government propaganda” instrument, a report has claimed.The report, which is based on testimony by senior referees and professional footballers, was produced by the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation (BSSF), an organisation that supports players, coaches, and other professionals in sport facing pressure for speaking out against Lukashenko, the longtime president. Continue reading...
Priti Patel is seeking legal protections for officers who ‘push back’ migrant boatsBorder Force staff who enact Priti Patel’s plans to “ push back” migrant boats in the Channel could be given immunity from conviction if a refugee dies, officials have confirmed.The home secretary is seeking to introduce a provision in the nationality and borders bill that could give officials legal protections in the event that someone drowns. Continue reading...
José Manuel Villarejo is accused of spying on and working to discredit high-profile Spanish figuresA former police inspector accused of spying on and working to discredit some of Spain’s most high-profile politicians and business people has gone on trial to face charges including bribery, forgery, extortion and influence peddling.José Manuel Villarejo, 70, a former officer in Spain’s national police force, was arrested in 2017 and could face a jail term of 109 years if convicted. He is accused of involvement in a network of corrupt politicians, businesspeople, police officers and media figures known as the “sewers of state”. Continue reading...
We would like to hear from people in the UK about the economic issues affecting them and what they would like to see in the October budgetRishi Sunak will announce his autumn budget on 27 October, setting out plans to inject £140bn of extra spending into the economy.The chancellor has said he wants to balance funding for public services with “keeping the public finances on a sustainable path”. Some government departments have had their budgets slashed by up to 40% over the past decade. Continue reading...
Pair were taken away by armed men on motorbikes and later found shot dead on edge of townThe murder of two boys for allegedly shoplifting in Colombia has evoked memories of some of the country’s darkest days of armed conflict.The pair, who were 12 and 18, were allegedly trying to rob a clothing store in Tibú, a small town near the Venezuelan border, last Friday when they were apprehended by bystanders who taped their hands together, according to witnesses quoted by local media. Continue reading...
Ministers from Muslim-majority nations to travel to Kabul to discuss ban on girls going to secondary schoolForeign ministers from several Muslim-majority countries are planning to go to Kabul in part to urge the Taliban to recognise that the exclusion of women and girls from education is a distortion of the Islamic faith.The proposal has the support of western diplomats, who recognise that calls from them concerning universal values are going to have less traction with the Taliban than if the request comes from leaders of largely Islamic states. Continue reading...
His betrayal rocked the family, but we got back together. Now our sex life is nonexistent, but we still love each other. What should I do?My husband had an affair about seven years ago, just after we got back together from a two-year separation. We have been married for nearly 25 years. The affair damaged me and our daughters, especially our oldest daughter. It took her a long time and therapy to trust him again. His initial reaction was emotionally brutal and self-righteous. After several months, he became ashamed of what he did and now finds it hard to discuss. I still harbour feelings of mistrust towards him. Our sexual relationship before his affair was almost nonexistent; since the affair, all these years ago, it has been totally nonexistent. We love each other very much and get along extremely well. He would like to have an intimate sexual relationship with me, but I just can’t bring myself around to having sex with him. It doesn’t interest me. I’m at a loss as to what to do.It takes time to rebuild your trust, but it is seven years since he broke it and you are still not sexually reconnected. Perhaps it is time to accept that your marriage has many positive aspects, but that it excludes sex. Perhaps you never had strong desire for him – if so, just accept that. Marriages can take many forms. Since you are still together after two years’ separation plus a traumatic betrayal, there is clearly something that bonds you deeply. Neither of you has to conform to anyone else’s idea of what a marriage should be; you might find it beneficial – and fair – to express this to your husband.Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions: see gu.com/letters-terms.Comments on this piece are premoderated to ensure discussion remains on topics raised by the writer. Please be aware there may be a short delay in comments appearing on the site. Continue reading...
Drug dealing, assaults and thefts from gift shop among more than 200 crimes recorded in year to MarchTwo drug dealers were arrested and 13 people were detained for possession of various drugs on the parliamentary estate in the space of a year, according to Scotland Yard.Those were among more than 200 crimes recorded at the Palace of Westminster by the Metropolitan police in the 12 months to March. While this is fewer than in some recent years, it was at a time when few MPs and staff were even present, due to Covid restrictions. Continue reading...
by Niko Kommenda, Niels de Hoog and Ashley Kirk on (#5QNS0)
The geographic centre of the world’s carbon emissions used to sit atop the UK. Now it sits squarely over ChinaA new Guardian visualisation reveals how the “centre of gravity” of global emissions has moved over the past 200 years.The analysis shows how the geographic centre of the world’s carbon emissions used to sit directly atop the UK before being pulled westwards by the US and back towards the east by the rise of China.
Constant Covid testing when travelling from the UK to countries such as the Netherlands should soon be a thing of the pastTrips to Europe over October half-term could become easier for British travellers after Brussels said a technical tie-up with the EU ensuring the NHS Covid pass is recognised across over 40 countries would be “going live soon”.In some European countries, such as the Netherlands, tourists from the UK have faced constant Covid tests as the NHS app proving full vaccination status is not recognised at the Dutch border or in its bars, restaurants and museums. Continue reading...