Many returned to a country they had not seen for years, and many are already plotting another escape as gang violence has left Haiti on the brink of civil warWhen Reynold Joseph was deported from the US back to Haiti after five years in South America, he was unprepared for just how bad things had become in his homeland.Outside a ramshackle guesthouse near downtown Port-au-Prince, where he and a dozen other deportees are staying, some goats were grazing on burning piles of rubbish, while drivers honked and cursed in a queue for petrol that snaked round the block. Each night, Joseph’s three-year-old son stirs in the sweltering heat, and bursts of gunfire ring out in the distance. Continue reading...

Drone footage shows lava flows carrying huge boulders from the Cumbre Vieja volcano in La Palma. The advancing rivers of molten rock prompted a lockdown on Monday, as houses in their path were destroyed. More than 1,000 homes have been destroyed since the eruption began on 19 September, and 6,000 people have been evacuated from the area

Director Tomás Ó Súilleabháin’s beautifully shot film takes on one man’s battle with the British, but without judgmentIt’s 1847: an Irishman sings a murder ballad about folk hero Colmán Sharkey, a peasant who shot dead his landlord. But the story that emerges in this tough atmospheric drama is that the killing did not go down like that. Set during the potato famine, Arracht is in Gaelic with English subtitles (it was Ireland’s foreign film Oscar entry) and stars Dónall Ó Héalai as Connemara fisherman and farmer Colmán, who brews poteen on the side to trade in the village. His character is unsatisfactorily written, to be honest: too saintly by half, he won’t touch a drop of his own liquor and there are a few too many scenes of him doting on his wife and his baby son.The film opens two years before the ballad, at the beginning of the great famine. Colmán finds his potatoes rotting in the field, afflicted with potato blight. At the same time his Anglo-Irish landlord (Michael McElhatton) is putting up the rates; Colmán decides to pay him a visit to reason with him. Director Tomás Ó Súilleabháin plays out these scenes brilliantly: rather than make the landlord a cruel, easy-to-hate villain, he’s instead monumentally clueless. Colmán warns him that half the village will be in their graves by spring. Nonsense, exclaims the landlord, and in a let-them-eat-cake moment explains that a little hardship will be good for the people and will wean them off their dependency on potato crops. Continue reading...

Anti-corruption watchdog also hears thousands of dollars in stamps used for political purposes bought with public fundsA Labor staffer has told a Victorian anti-corruption hearing he handled “wads of cash” from MPs to pay for party memberships and bought thousands of dollars worth of stamps with public funds that were used for political purposes.Adam Sullivan, who worked in a series of roles for MPs in Labor’s moderate faction, gave evidence on Wednesday at the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac) investigation into branch stacking within the Victorian branch of the ALP. Continue reading...

Most people in Australia have been bitten at some point by something poisonous and they don’t know what

Members raised concerns about ‘extreme’ positions taken by individuals involved in Restore TrustThe National Trust has warned of the “damage” it faces from an “ideological campaign” waged against it by self-styled “anti-woke” insurgents whom the charity has accused of seeking to stoke divisions.It was prompted to speak out as members raised concerns about a range of “extreme” positions taken by individuals involved in a group called Restore Trust, which is backing a slate of candidates in elections for the NT’s governing council. Continue reading...

First came K-cinema, then K-pop and K-TV. Now South Korea’s young stars are conquering the world with K-art. But what do their dark visions say about their nation’s psyche – and ours?Ohnim is having a blue period, just like Picasso. Over Zoom from a gallery in Seoul, the Korean rapper Song Min-ho, better known as Mino to K-pop fans but Ohnim in the art world, shows me a painting he finished the previous evening in collaboration with artist Choi Na-ri. It depicts a blue crouched figure, like a depressed version of Rodin’s Thinker. It may be still wet but will soon be shipped to London’s Saatchi Gallery for an art fair that showcases work by three of Korea’s biggest K-pop stars.The meeting of K-pop and K-art is making the art world lick its lips. Businessman David Ciclitira, who set up the StART Art Fair at the Saatchi, says: “K-pop stars have immense reach through their social media. Guys like Mino, Henry Lau and Kang Seung-yoon, whose work will be in the show, have six to seven million followers each on Instagram. In Seoul, fans queue round the block just to see a work of art by any of them. Then they fight each other to buy. I don’t suppose it’ll be quite like that at the Saatchi Gallery, but you never know.” Continue reading...

Antisemitism ‘allowed to flourish’ on platforms whose users are mainly younger people, says researchA new generation of users of “younger” social media platforms such as TikTok are being introduced to antisemitic ideas they would be unlikely to encounter elsewhere, warns a report.The research comes amid warnings that those drawn into conspiracy theories around Covid-19 are at risk of adopting antisemitic views. Continue reading...

Woman and child taken to hospital as 70 firefighters are sent to blaze in BatterseaA woman and child have been taken to hospital after a fire broke out on the 20th floor of a tower block in south-west London.The London fire brigade sent 70 firefighters to Westbridge Road in Battersea shortly after 8pm, as images online showed flames peeling from the top of the block and a dark plume of smoke drifting into the sky. Continue reading...

The statue is a replica of a mysterious carving of an Indigenous figure unearthed in January known as the Young Woman of AmajacA replica of a mysterious pre-Hispanic sculpture of an Indigenous woman has been chosen to replace a statue of Christopher Columbus on Mexico City’s most prominent boulevard.The statue was unearthed in January in the Huasteca region, near Mexico’s Gulf coast. It’s known as the Young Woman of Amajac, after the village where she was found buried in a field. But nobody really knows who the stone sculpture was supposed to depict. Continue reading...

Letter says protest planned for 15 November has ‘the open intention of changing the political system in Cuba’Cuba has denied government opponents permission to stage what they said would be a peaceful march for civil liberties in the capital Havana and a few other provinces on grounds it was part of efforts to overthrow the government, according to a letter handed to organizers.Protests rocked the communist-run country for two days in July, with the biggest anti-government demonstrations in decades resulting in hundreds of arrests, one death and calls for US intervention by some Cuban Americans. Continue reading...

Wednesday: New poll suggests majority favour serious action to address climate crisis. Plus: rock’n’roll photographer Tony Mott’s unseen imagesGood morning. The Coalition is edging towards a net zero emissions target and the climate roadmap makes it way to cabinet today. Australia will make tracks on the moon after signing a deal with Nasa to build a rover. And lockdowns have kept rock’n’roll off the stage but have given time for the music photographer Tony Mott to go through his archives and share some of his best shots and stories.More Australians than ever are worried about the climate crisis and want serious action to address it, according to an annual survey, which found 75% of respondents are concerned. The poll suggests a clear majority – 69% – want the government to put Australia on a path to net zero emissions. Cabinet meets today to consider a new climate roadmap, and Darren Chester has declared there’s “about a 95% chance” the Nationals will line up behind a net zero target because “Barnaby Joyce can count, and most of the room is in favour of credible action”. Continue reading...

Rooftop catwalk show celebrated the city and its ‘unpredictable skies’, said designer Sarah BurtonTwenty years after a young Lee McQueen signed a deal with Gucci and moved his catwalk shows from East End carparks in London to plush Parisian salons, the Alexander McQueen brand marked the world’s shifting back on to its axis by coming home.The first McQueen show in 18 months brought actors Vanessa Kirby, Emilia Clarke and Kosar Ali to a front row of folding chairs on the 11th floor of a Wapping multistorey where the Shard, Gherkin and Walkie-Talkie buildings gave an alfresco catwalk a recognisable London backdrop.

Brexit negotiator insists the EU do exactly what Britain wants in relation to Northern Ireland protocolYou have to hand it to Lord Frost. He sure knows how to lose an audience. Not that the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator had much of one to start with. There were only a few dozen people in the British embassy in Lisbon and under 300 watching on the Cabinet Office live Twitter feed to hear Frost give his keynote speech on the Northern Ireland protocol. How many were still awake by the time he got to the end of his 30-minute confused ramble is anyone’s guess.Then again maybe that was the point. Being dull is what Frost does best. He numbs the senses to distract you from the more obvious weaknesses in his own arguments. As a negotiator his main tactic is to bore you into submission, by hoping you will have forgotten much of what he said by the time you come to sign on the dotted line. The only flaw with this is that sometimes it’s him who nods off and forgets what he’s agreed to. Something that appears to have happened with the Brexit deal he concluded less than a year ago and which he is now desperate to change. Don’t worry. Lord Frost was on hand to clear up the damage caused by Lord Frost. Continue reading...

James Gray mixing up Nadhim Zahawi and Sajid Javid ‘not an isolated incident’ ex-MEP saysBoris Johnson has been urged to drive out a “dinosaur mentality” from the Conservative party amid warnings that an MP mixing up two ministers of Asian heritage was “not an isolated incident”.James Gray confused his Tory colleagues Nadhim Zahawi and Sajid Javid at a charity reception in parliament last month, allegedly saying “they all look the same to me,” it emerged on Tuesday. Continue reading...

A star in rugby union and league, and now a professional boxer, the New Zealander reveals his inner torments and what drives him on“I get pretty emotional talking about it, bro,” Sonny Bill Williams says quietly as he explains how he feels whenever, like now, he reflects on his extraordinary life. Williams has won the World Cup twice with the All Blacks and been a superstar in rugby league, where he lifted two NRL titles in Australia. When he switched codes he won a Super Rugby title and played rugby sevens in the Olympics and became New Zealand’s heavyweight boxing champion.Williams has also overcome low self-esteem, a drinking problem, a wayward life and rediscovered himself in Islam. He is now retired from rugby, having played at the highest level for 16 years, but he speaks out against prejudice while dedicating himself to his new career as a professional boxer. Continue reading...

Australia overall may be at the lower end of OECD vaccination rate tables, but our often derided capital city has gotten the jab done

He’s partied with Queen. Tom Petty had his email. Now one of Australia’s most accomplished rock photographers has been digging through his negativesRock’n’roll photographer Tony Mott has led the kind of life that for the rest of us seems like a surreal dream. Travelling with Paul McCartney. Partying with Queen. He has photographed everyone from Prince to Rihanna to Marianne Faithfull. But when he talks about his work, what’s clear is his unbridled passion and affection for music and its creators, regardless of genre or fame.Rihanna on stage at the Sydney Super Dome, 2008. Continue reading...

Penelope Jackson, 66, is accused of murdering her husband in the kitchen of their Somerset bungalowA woman who stabbed her husband to death left a note saying she had “taken so much abuse over the years” and that she accepted “her punishment”, a court has heard.Penelope Jackson, 66, is accused of murdering her husband of 24 years, the retired army lieutenant colonel David Jackson, in the kitchen of their bungalow on 13 February, Bristol crown court heard. She admits manslaughter but denies murder.In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org Continue reading...

Bishop says church looking into moving urn, amid claims plot was deliberately chosen by extremistsThe church management of a cemetery outside Berlin has said it made a “terrible mistake” by allowing the ashes of a prominent Holocaust denier to be buried in the gravesite of a Jewish-born musicologist.Henry Hafenmayer, a 48-year-old neo-Nazi activist, was laid to rest last Friday at Stahnsdorf South-Western cemetery in Brandenburg in a ceremony that was attended by notorious rightwing extremists including Horst Mahler, the founding member of the Baader-Meinhof group turned neo-Nazi. Continue reading...

Magic FM DJ Emma Wilson says police ‘laughed in her face’ when she reported incident in south LondonA radio DJ has said she believes she was flashed by Wayne Couzens 13 years before he murdered Sarah Everard, but police “laughed in her face” when she reported it.The Magic FM DJ Emma Wilson, known as Emma B, has waived her right to anonymity and claimed that the police officer exposed himself to her in 2008 when she was walking in Greenwich, south-east London with her baby in a pram after dropping her elder child off at school. Continue reading...

Novelist Mark Billingham advises readers to angrily launch a book across the room after 20 non-gripping pages – but almost 40% of people will keep going right to the endName: the 20-page rule.Age: this one’s actually more about page than age. Continue reading...

Mother speaks out after misconduct finding over death of Kelly Hartigan-Burns, who was found unresponsive in a Blackburn police cellThe mother of a vulnerable woman who died after failings by a Lancashire police officer has said a “stray dog” would have received better care.The custody sergeant’s actions amounted to gross misconduct, a misconduct panel ruled. Continue reading...

This gorgeous and moving melodrama finds two women in 1950s Rio under suffocating family expectations – and sees what happens when they are defied‘What do you want from life?” a husband drunkenly yells at his wife in Karim Aïnouz’s gorgeous and very moving melodrama set in 1950s Rio de Janeiro. The man’s wife is Euridice (Julia Stockler) and what she wants is to be a classical pianist. Her husband is angry and hurt: why can’t she just be happy in the kitchen? Adapted from a novel by Martha Batalha, this is the story of Euridice and her sister Guida (Carol Duarte): their inner conflicts and rebellion against the suffocating patriarchy of home.The film beings a few years earlier: Euridice is 18 and applying to study music in Vienna. Her heart is broken when boy-mad Guida runs away with a no-good sailor to Greece, promising to write when she is married. Predictably, she returns with a baby bump and no wedding ring. There’s an appalling homecoming scene when their dad, a baker, violently shoves Guida out of the house; she’s nine months pregnant at the time (and the film never lets us forget that violence can be done to these women at any time of a man’s choosing). Unforgivably, Guida’s dad says that Euridice has left Rio and is living in Vienna. The truth is she’s up the road, married to an insightless oaf. Continue reading...

A single winner would become richer than Adele and prize will be capped at £187m if it rolls over againThe EuroMillions jackpot has reached £184m, making it the largest ever lottery prize in British history.The prize rolled over into Tuesday’s draw when no ticketholders won on Friday. A single winner could now suddenly count themselves richer than the singer Adele – whose net worth is £130m, according to the Sunday Times rich list. Continue reading...

Man told police he was mimicking style of TV series’ suave master criminal, Assane DiopA man told police he was mimicking the style of the suave master thief in the French TV series Lupin when he attempted to rob the bar of a church oratory in northern Italy.Donning a leather jacket, similar to the one worn by the protagonist of the Netflix show, the 21-year-old, who has not been named, said he waited for the church bells to ring so as to muffle the sound of him smashing through the glass door of the oratory’s bar on Saturday night. Continue reading...

Nightmarishness meets nostalgia as Jamie Dornan and Judi Dench star in a scintillating Troubles-era coming-of-age taleThere is a terrific warmth and tenderness to Kenneth Branagh’s elegiac, autobiographical movie about the Belfast of his childhood: spryly written, beautifully acted and shot in a lustrous monochrome, with set pieces, madeleines and epiphanies that feel like a more emollient version of Terence Davies. Some may feel that the film is sentimental or that it does not sufficiently conform to the template of political anger and despair considered appropriate for dramas about Northern Ireland and the Troubles. And yes, there is certainly a spoonful of sugar (or two) in the mix, with some mandatory Van Morrison on the soundtrack. There’s a key climactic scene about how you disarm a gunman in the middle of a riot if you have no gun yourself, which has to be charitably indulged.But this film has such emotional generosity and wit and it tackles a dilemma of the times not often understood: when, and if, to pack up and leave Belfast? Is it an understandable matter of survival or an abandonment of your beloved home town to the extremists? (Full disclosure: my own dad left Belfast for England, though well before the era of this film.) Continue reading...

Landmark judgment will apply to thousands who may otherwise have been sent back to home countriesThousands of victims of trafficking who have been left to languish in the immigration system for years should be granted leave to remain, the high court has said in a landmark ruling.Prior to the ruling, people the UK government accepted were foreign victims of trafficking could be sent back to their home countries, where they might be at risk of being trafficked again by the same criminals. Continue reading...

The writer has refused to sell Hebrew translation rights to her latest novel Beautiful World, Where Are You due to her stance on the Israel-Palestine conflictSally Rooney has turned down an offer from the Israeli publisher that translated her two previous novels into Hebrew, due to her stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict.The Irish author’s second novel Normal People was translated into 46 languages, and it was expected that Beautiful World, Where Are You would reach a similar number. However, Hebrew translation rights have not yet been sold, despite the publisher Modan putting in a bid. Continue reading...

Organisers of exhibition on history of British fascism say parallels can be drawn with current thinkingA surge in Covid-19 conspiracy theories risks boosting antisemitism, hate crime campaigners have warned after the opening of an exhibition shedding light on interwar British fascism and its parallels today.The Wiener Holocaust Library in London is staging the exhibition – focusing on the motivations and propaganda of British fascists and their European peers in the 1920s and 30s – out of concern about the recent growth of far-right ideas and populism in the UK and abroad. Continue reading...

The Hull Fair, one of Europe’s largest travelling fairs, has returned after a break due to the coronavirus pandemic. More than 250 rides and stalls have returned to the city for the annual event which was last postponed during the second world war. The fair began in 1279 and was extended to an 11-day event in 1752. The fair runs until 16 October this year Continue reading...

An executive assistant in Adem Somyurek’s office tells commission she was told to work on ALP factional activities instead of minister’s portfolios

The former minister says ‘despite all his other faults, Barnaby Joyce can count, and the majority of the room is in favour of credible action’

Labor and environmental groups are demanding that General Electric stop offshoring jobs and invest in renewable energyKevin Smith, of Salem, Virginia, worked at General Electric for about 20 years before the town’s plant was shut down at the end of 2019, and the work moved to a factory in India.“It was a total shock because of how things had been going, with all the overtime we were working, everything just seemed great, like there was no way this was happening. All I wanted to do was wake up, that I had a nightmare, but that wasn’t the case,” said Smith, 50, who was one of about 265 GE workers who were laid off due to the closure. Continue reading...

Stephen Barclay, the minister for the Cabinet Office, refused multiple times to apologise for the deaths and suffering caused by Covid, after a parliamentary report called the government's early response to the pandemic one of the UK's 'worst ever' public health failures. The report, led by two former Conservative ministers, concluded that 'groupthink' and a deliberately slow approach meant the UK fared 'significantly worse' than other countries.Speaking on LBC, Barclay repeatedly declined to apologise to families who lost loved ones, saying: 'We followed the scientific advice and the knowledge we had at the time'

As mandatory checks began, not everyone in the queue for the Pryzm club was prepared

An ensemble cast of Guardian reporters and editors reflect on why investigative journalism is so important for a healthy democracy and what it feels like, on a more personal level, to be going up against powerful governments, tax-dodging billionaires, institutional racism, human rights abuses and moreSupport investigative Guardian journalism

Federal health minister Greg Hunt has celebrated Australia’s vaccination rate passing that of major global powers, including the US and the EU.“We’ve now passed the [United States], we’ve passed Israel, we’ve passed the [European Union] over the weekend, Germany and the OECD,” Hunt told RN Breakfast on Monday.Victorian Labor MP Luke Donnellan has resigned from cabinet after an Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission hearing heard he had paid for other people’s party memberships.In explosive evidence given on the first morning of public hearings, federal Labor MP Anthony Byrne said that Donnellan, the Victorian minister for disability, ageing and carers, and the minister for child protection, had paid for party memberships. Continue reading...

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has attended celebrations for the 76th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' party of Korea. Kim made a speech to a gathering of officials, the KCNA news agency said. State media showed Kim addressing a room full of officials, with little social distancing, masks or other Covid measures apparent. Kim urged officials to focus on improving citizens' lives in the face of a 'grim' economic situation

Dowries, illegal since 1961, still cause 20 deaths a day in India. But Babawayil has had no divorces or violence against women since it banned themBabawayil, in the foothills of the Zabarwan mountains by the Sind River, is a typical village in Indian-administered Kashmir. Groups of men and women sit on their lawns breaking open green husks of walnuts, freshly gathered from the giant trees shading the sleepy hamlet. Other villagers are busy in the paddy fields bringing in the harvest. Harud, the harvest season, is usually busy.Most of the 150 households make their living from farming and weaving pashmina shawls. Continue reading...

Exclusive: UK scientist says giving booster jabs rather than sharing doses fairly will cause hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths

The award has put a spotlight on the struggle of journalists and activists fighting President Rodrigo Duterte’s attacks on press freedomThe news that journalist Maria Ressa has been awarded the Nobel peace prize has been greeted with joy by defenders of human rights in the Philippines.Ressa last week became the first Filipino journalist to be awarded the prestigious prize, which she shared with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov. Continue reading...

Michael Baker said lack of discussion with independent experts was a ‘stark contrast’ to earlier pandemic decisions

The creation of the modern, interconnected world is generally credited to European pioneers. But Africa was the wellspring for almost everything they achieved – and African lives were the terrible costIt would be unusual for a story that begins in the wrong place to arrive at the right conclusions. And so it is with the history of how the modern world was made. Traditional accounts have accorded a primacy to Europe’s 15th-century Age of Discovery, and to the maritime connection it established between west and east. Paired with this historic feat is the momentous, if accidental, discovery of what came to be known as the New World.Other explanations for the emergence of the modern world reside in the ethics and temperament that some associate with Judeo-Christian beliefs, or with the development and spread of the scientific method, or, more chauvinistically still, with Europeans’ often-professed belief in their unique ingenuity and inventiveness. In the popular imagination, these ideas have become associated with the work ethic, individualism and entrepreneurial drive that supposedly flowed from the Protestant Reformation in places such as England and Holland. Continue reading...

The award-winning standup is known for his exuberance, but, as he writes in his memoir, he has had to dodge snobbery throughout his career. He discusses family, fame and being funnyRob Beckett is one of those comedians without whom many TV formats would collapse. He is an accomplished standup who made his debut in 2009, at 23, performing anywhere that would have him, often not even for petrol money. He has a rare combination of warmth and edge. He can present Wedding Day Winners with Lorraine Kelly without making her seem square; do a pitch-perfect double-act with Romesh Ranganathan that makes the audience feel as though they are included in the friendship; pack out the Hammersmith Apollo with a solo show for which his notes amount to 10 words; and hold his own on Mock the Week, famous for its bear-pit atmosphere and comic-eat-comic sensibility.We meet in a cafe in south‑east London, a greasy spoon that the owner says has been there since 1932 (they dated it from the fly-posted film billboards in an old photo). Strangers open up with Beckett in the room; I have never had a conversation so intently eavesdropped. It is partly that he has natural charisma, partly because he has a celebrity gloss – slightly exaggerated features, not classically handsome so much as screen-ready – and partly because what he is saying is novel and his delivery is vivacious and so incredibly fast. Continue reading...

Restaurant plants Japanese flag in seafood dish moulded in shape of islands that are also claimed by South KoreaA simple bowl of curry is at the centre of the latest row in a long-running territorial dispute between Japan and the Koreas.Media in North and South Korea reacted angrily after an online media report about a seafood curry sold in Japan that includes mounds of rice shaped to resemble the Takeshima islands, which Koreans refer to as Dokdo. Continue reading...

A 48-year-old man has been charged by police after allegedly stealing a monitoring tag from a shark he accidentally caught

The leader of the nuclear-armed country says there is ‘no basis’ to believe US actions are ‘not hostile’ during military exhibitionNorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un reviewed a rare exhibition of weapons systems and vowed to build an “invincible” military, as he accused the United States of being the “root cause” of instability.In an apparent continued effort to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul, Kim also said his drive to build up his military isn’t targeted at South Korea and that there shouldn’t be another war pitting Korean people against each other. Continue reading...

Allowing the virus to become endemic would mean the regular closure of schools and businesses and thousands of deaths each yearAs New Zealand switches from elimination to suppression, those who argue that Covid-19 will become endemic and part of our lives either do not understand or ignore what this would actually mean.Elimination has always been a tricky word because it implies eradication. But we have only ever eradicated one human disease – smallpox – and are close with several others. Continue reading...