by Vincent Ni China affairs correspondent on (#5PFG3)
Expert’s clever analogies and frank messages to public have won him respect – and millions of followersEarly last year, as Covid-19 began to disrupt livelihoods in Shanghai, local media struggled to persuade the public to stay at home. Then they turned to an infectious diseases expert, Dr Zhang Wenhong, who also heads up Shanghai’s expert panel on Covid-19.“You’re bored to death at home, so the virus will be bored to death, too,” Zhang said in rapid-fire mandarin mixed with a distinctive Shanghainese accent. “Stay at home for two weeks … then we’ll be an inch closer to success.” Continue reading...
I was kicked out of corporate America after the economic crisis – but I learned to find joy and meaning in a life on the road“Happy birthday,” my boyfriend said, sheepishly handing me a brown paper sack.We were standing in “the kitchen” of our van, meaning in front of the mini-fridge and tiny stove situated between the platform bed and the two captain’s chairs. Continue reading...
Women have long been taught to be ashamed of their vulvas, with increasing numbers turning to cosmetic surgery in pursuit of genital ‘perfection’. But a new generation is fighting backWhen Florence Schechter opened the Vagina Museum – the world’s first museum dedicated to gynaecological anatomy – in London in 2019, it was partly a response to a dramatic rise in labiaplasty surgery. Instances of such surgery more than doubled in the first decade of this century, then carried on climbing. Zoe Williams, the spokesperson for the museum (who shares my name), says part of the problem is that most women have not seen other vulvas. “Quite a lot of people have never even seen their own, so it’s hard to have a concept of what’s normal. Certainly, throughout art history, the pictures of nude women very seldom had any protruding labia; you just had a neat little cleft.”Labiaplasty is surgery to alter the appearance of the vulva – generally by trying to reduce the size of the labia minora, the inner genital lips, so that they don’t hang below the labia majora, the outer ones. The reasons for such surgery are not solely cosmetic – they could be related to childbirth, or chafing during sport – yet the rise is staggering. The number of labiaplasty surgeries in 2016 was up 45% on 2015 – the biggest growth of any cosmetic surgery procedure, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Continue reading...
Find out who is leading the polling to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor of GermanyGermans will vote on Sunday 26 September to elect a new Bundestag, or federal parliament. The result – after coalition negotiations likely to involve two or three parties – will decide who will succeed Angela Merkel, who is standing down after 16 years as chancellor.A two-way coalition between the conservative CDU and the German Greens had long looked the most likely outcome. However, neither party fared well in their response to the devastating floods that hit Germany in July, giving a boost to the confidence of smaller parties. Continue reading...
Twenty years on, cinema is littered with failed attempts at helping people understand the aftermath of 9/11, from American Sniper to WIn November 2001, George W Bush’s White House met studio bosses to discuss how the entertainment industry could help in the “war on terror”. Twenty years on, Hollywood’s role in portraying the conflict remains unclear. Cinema ought to have been central to how we perceived the aftermath of 9/11 but, in retrospect, the bad films outweigh the good.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...
Find out who is leading the polling to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor of GermanyGermans will vote on Sunday 26 September to elect a new Bundestag, or federal parliament. The result – after coalition negotiations likely to involve two or three parties – will decide who will succeed Angela Merkel, who is standing down after 16 years as chancellor.A two-way coalition between the conservative CDU and the German Greens had long looked the most likely outcome. However, neither party fared well in their response to the devastating floods that hit Germany in July, giving a boost to the confidence of smaller parties. Continue reading...
Deposed Myanmar leader was experiencing motion sickness and could not take the stand, says lawyerThe deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been unable to appear at a court hearing for health reasons, a member of her legal team has said, describing her condition as dizziness caused by motion sickness.Aung San Suu Kyi, 76, who has been detained on various charges since her overthrow in a military coup on 1 February, did not have coronavirus but felt ill having not travelled in a vehicle for a long time, Min Min Soe, a lawyer, said. Continue reading...
Analysts say massively indebted China property group likely to be dismantled to avoid triggering market-wide panicThe troubled Chinese property group Evergrande has edged closer to a government-engineered restructuring which could see bondholders take huge losses as Beijing’s price for saving millions of homeowners from financial ruin.With the likelihood increasing every day that the massively indebted group will be dismantled to avoid triggering a market-wide panic, trade in one of its bonds was suspended in Shanghai on Monday after it plunged 25%. Continue reading...
More than 600 health, social work and education professionals write to home secretary over ‘oppressive’ billA new policing bill that will be debated this week risks deepening racial and gender disparities in the justice system while forcing professionals to betray the trust of vulnerable people, hundreds of experts and a report have warned.In a letter to the home secretary, 665 GPs, nurses, social, youth and outreach workers and teachers have warned that the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill is “oppressive” and would force frontline professionals to betray the trust of vulnerable people and become complicit in surveillance, ahead of a debate in the House of Lords this week. Continue reading...
For more than 20 years the designer and presenter has shown viewers what it really costs to build a dream home. He talks about the frayed emotions, failure and why the UK needs radical land reformThe first couple of episodes of the current series of Grand Designs have already aired, but – as if it was itself an over-running building project – Kevin McCloud is still filming. When we speak over Zoom, from the small studio he set up “in a cupboard”, he has only just got home from filming; and as soon as we finish, he will be recording a line or two of his famously lyrical thoughts for an episode that goes out this week. It sounds stressful and I feel every bit as on edge as I do watching one of his couples race to finish a house before the weather closes in, or the woman gives birth, or the money runs out, but McCloud looks relaxed. He has, after all, been doing this for more than 20 years.The current series of Grand Designs is the 22nd. McCloud says he is always coming up with new reasons for its popularity. “The oldest explanation is I think it’s the last great big adventure that we can all go on and, therefore, we all connect to the idea of that,” he says, of the huge task that is building a house. “Also, we connect to the idea of home, because the notion of home is not simply a concept, it’s a place of psychological dependency.” Watching someone else create a home “strikes at something very primal within us”, he reasons. The characters are fascinating, of course – how do they have so much money? Why does this man (it’s almost always a man) think it’s a good idea to turn a nuclear power station or a sewage plant into a family home? And there is something deeply satisfying in the end result – an imposition of order on a quagmire of a building site, overcoming supply issues and dwindling funds. Finally, despite McCloud’s scepticism early on in the episode and the occasional barbed comment, his climactic monologue will be celebratory. At the very least, he will find something to praise. It is not a cynical show. Continue reading...
16 September 1971: Through a haze of rose countless geometric webs of spiders bridge darkling gaps, glittering and opalescentNORFOLK: Sunrise over the fen on these autumn mornings brings transient splendour to a realm of dew-wet reeds and a lingering cloak of mist. Through a haze of rose which turns to gold countless geometric webs of spiders bridge darkling gaps, glittering and opalescent. Spear-leaves and drooping purple reed-plumes are beaded with silver and the pincushion umbels of angelica are pricked out with a million diamond points of light. Tassels of hemp-agrimony and magenta spires of loosestrife achieve a brightness and perfection which beautifies them, while white bellbines shine with the pallor of fading stars through the morning vapours. There is a scent of water mint distilled from the night. The air is so still that even the gossamer does not tremble. The reed-warblers have gone; there is no chorus of chattering and husky music to greet the new day; but presently a wren trills, a woodpecker’s “chipping” breaks the silence of the nearby woods, and bullfinches utter plaintive whistles in the sallow bushes. A pheasant wakes in a sedgy jungle roost and rises like a rocket, scattering the dew in its rude progress and raising a general alarm.Related: An exuberance of life on the undrained fen Continue reading...
She took tea with Sigmund Freud, had an affair with Stephen Spender, risked her life in the Austrian resistance – and inspired an Oscar-winning film. Can a new show about Muriel Gardiner capture her extraordinary life?In 1978 the novelist Mary McCarthy ignited one of the fiercest feuds in literary history by claiming on a TV chatshow that every word of Lillian Hellman’s memoir was a lie, “including ‘and’ and ‘the’”. Hellman, a screenwriter and playwright, immediately launched a $2.5m defamation suit. McCarthy’s charge centred on Hellman’s claim to have been close friends with a heroic American member of the resistance in 1930s Vienna. So captivating was the story of their relationship that it had been made into an Oscar-winning film, starring Jane Fonda as Hellman and Vanessa Redgrave as the eponymous Julia.At her home in the US, psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Muriel Gardiner had become aware of the memoir, Pentimento, when it was published in 1973, after friends began to call, suggesting that Julia must be her. “I have never met Lillian Hellman,” she later wrote, “but I read the story and was indeed struck by the many similarities between my life and her heroine’s.” When the film came out, the calls became more regular. A consultation with the director of Austria’s resistance archives confirmed that there had only ever been one American heiress in the country’s anti-Nazi underground: Muriel Gardiner, whose code name was Mary. Continue reading...
The two stars took home the night’s top awards, along with Justin Bieber, at an MTV ceremony that mostly stuck to music and away from pandemic and politicsIt was a night of triumph for teen stars current (Olivia Rodrigo) and former (Justin Bieber) at the MTV Video Music Awards, in a show that strayed from the pandemic markers and political gestures that have defined most award ceremonies since early 2020.Bieber, the teenage pop phenom of the early 2010s coming off a several year hiatus from touring, kicked off the night with a duet with 18-year-old Aussie rap phenom the Kid Laroi. Now 27 and appearing at the VMAs for the first time since 2015, Bieber took home two of the night’s top awards: artist of the year and best pop video, for Peaches, featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon. Nominated in every category beside him, and taking home best new artist, was 18-year-old Olivia Rodrigo, whose single – and best song winner – Drivers License became the most streamed song ever in January. Continue reading...
Both sides have applied for role, raising fears military leadership could be emboldened if chosenThe United Nations will face a dilemma when its general assembly convenes next week, after both Myanmar’s military junta and the country’s shadow national unity government (NUG) launched rival bids to fill the country’s seat.Myanmar’s military, which seized power in February, has sought to replace the current representative, Kyaw Moe Tun, an outspoken critic of the coup. Both the junta and the NUG, which was set up partly by ousted politicians, are believed to have submitted applications to the UN’s credentials committee. Continue reading...
by Hannah Ellis-Petersen South Asia correspondent on (#5PF98)
New Delhi faces problem of greater Pakistani influence on Afghanistan and implications for Kashmir insurgencyAs the Taliban last week announced the cabinet set to now govern Afghanistan, 600 miles away in Delhi, the mood was sombre. Of the 33 men who were given key posts, almost all have been with the Taliban since the group emerged in the 1990s, and – aside from five who had been held in Guantanamo Bay until last year – all had spent the past 20 years in hiding in Pakistan.The Haqqanis, a faction of the Taliban known for their close ties to Pakistan and hardline belief in global jihad, were particularly well represented in the cabinet. Continue reading...
Lil Nas X, Alicia Keys and Megan Fox among the stars to hit the red carpet at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards, marking the channel’s 40th anniversary. Justin Bieber won artist of the year and the show mixed moments from early stars like Cyndi Lauper and show opener Madonna with high-octane performances from newer figures such as Olivia Rodrigo, Camila Cabello and Chloe Bailey Continue reading...
How does Australia’s coronavirus vaccine rollout and schedule compare with other countries, and when will Australia reach 70% and 80% double dose vaccination? We bring together the latest numbers on the vaccination rate in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and other states, as well as stats, maps, live data and Indigenous vaccination rates.
Singer posts video of sparkling ring, days after father filed to end the conservatorship that controls her lifeBritney Spears has announced her engagement to her boyfriend Sam Asghari with an exuberant post displaying a diamond ring engraved with the word “lioness”.She wrote “I can’t fucking believe it!“ with an Instagram video post in which she winks, kisses a smiling Asghari on the cheek and answers “yes!” when he asks if she likes it. Continue reading...
by Nick Evershed, Andy Ball and Josh Nicholas on (#5PF58)
Here are the current coronavirus hotspots and Tier 1, 2 and 3 Covid-19 public exposure site locations in Victoria and Melbourne, and what to do if you’ve visited them
Centre-left frontrunner Olaf Scholz gets another boost after second of three televised debates between would-be Merkel successorsCandidates representing the two parties that have governed Germany in a “grand coalition” for 12 out of the past 16 years tore into each other’s record on Sunday night, in a televised election debate that saw centre-left frontrunner Olaf Scholz declared winner despite swipes from his conservative rival.In the second of three televised debates, hosted by Germany’s two public broadcasters, conservative candidate Armin Laschet of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) tried to turn his fortunes around by attacking finance minister Scholz of the Social Democratic party (SPD) over his track-record on tackling money laundering and corruption. Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent on (#5PF2V)
Customs duties rose to record £2.2bn in first six months since trade deal came into effect on 1 JanuaryThe trade barriers that made the import of Marks & Spencer’s Percy Pig sweets one of the first casualties of Brexit has added an extra £600m in costs to British importers since January, it has emerged.Customs duties paid by UK businesses shot up from £1.6bn in the first half last year to a record £2.2bn in the same period this year, according to an analysis of HMRC data. Continue reading...
Stephen Karam’s Tony-winning play makes the leap to film with ease, an extraordinarily well-acted, uncomfortably intimate look at a family at ThanksgivingThere’s a surprising urgency to Stephen Karam’s adaptation of his Tony-winning play The Humans, a vitality one might not expect from a film that sounds like something we’ve seen many times before. Not only is the set-up of a dysfunctional multi-generational family descending on a Manhattan apartment for Thanksgiving as dilapidated as most Manhattan apartments themselves (the post-American Beauty world of indies was forever damaged by the increasingly cliched quirky family subgenre) but the decision to film a one-location, one-act play (especially by the person who originated it on stage) can often be the result of vanity rather than necessity.Related: The Guilty review – Jake Gyllenhaal’s tense 911 call thriller Continue reading...
Group’s 1977 disco hit Yes Sir, I Can Boogie has become the unofficial anthem of Scotland football fansMaria Mendiola, one of the members of Baccara, whose 1977 disco hit Yes Sir, I Can Boogie is the unofficial anthem of Scotland football fans, has died.Mendiola, who was one half of the Spanish duo, was best known for her rendition of the hit song. She died in Madrid surrounded by her family on Saturday morning at the age of 69. Cristina Sevilla, her partner in a later iteration of the group, expressed her gratitude on social media in a message written in Spanish. Continue reading...
In his first international trip since undergoing intestinal surgery in July, Pope Francis urged Hungary to 'extend its arms towards everyone'. His stance on immigration and refugees stands in stark contrast to Viktor Orbán, who was in in the front row as the pontiff spoke Continue reading...
A wide-ranging crackdown and leftist rhetoric have stirred fears of a return to the apogee of MaoismFifty-five years ago, China was in turmoil. Mao had launched the Cultural Revolution to eradicate opposition in the party and cleanse the country’s political soul, using the power of the masses. It would last a decade and claim well over a million lives; 36 million people were hounded, including Xi Jinping’s father, who had previously been a senior leader. The current president was himself denounced and spent years living in bleak rural poverty.Unsurprisingly, Mr Xi has spoken scathingly of the Cultural Revolution in the past. Yet many now see growing echoes of the era. The Communist elders who survived the disaster sought to cage the power of the leader through consensus and new conventions. Under those, Mr Xi would be expected to step down as general secretary of the party – the role that gives him real power – next autumn, after 10 years. But putative successors have been sidelined or ousted, and dismantling term limits for the presidency, his other position, was a clear sign he plans to continue. The overt hostility to foreign influences is growing. A personality cult is flourishing; new textbooks on Xi Jinping Thought tell young schoolchildren that “Grandpa Xi Jinping has always cared for us … ” Continue reading...
Six year-old Eitan Biran, who is at centre of custody battle, reportedly taken to Israel by grandfatherItalian prosecutors have launched an investigation after a six-year-old boy who was the only person to survive a cable car crash in Italy in May was taken by his grandfather to Israel, against the wishes of other members of his family amid a bitter custody battle.Eitan Biran, whose parents and two-year-old brother died in the Stresa-Mottarone aerial tramway crash on 23 May, has been at the centre of a custody battle between relatives in Italy and Israel. Continue reading...
by Hannah Ellis-Petersen South Asia correspondent on (#5PEKY)
Islamic dress code will be compulsory as new regime enforces gender segregation in AfghanistanThe Taliban have announced that women in Afghanistan will only be allowed to study at university in gender-segregated classrooms and Islamic dress will be compulsory, stoking fears that a gender apartheid will be imposed on the country under the new regime.On Saturday, the Taliban raised their flag over the presidential palace on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, signalling that their work governing the newly formed Islamic emirate had begun. The white banner bearing a Qur’anic verse was hoisted by Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, the prime minister of the interim Taliban government. Continue reading...
by Rowena Mason Deputy political editor on (#5PEGR)
Christina McAnea points to rise in national insurance and says PM is pushing social care sector towards collapseThe general secretary of the UK’s biggest union has warned this could be the year of industrial action over pay as workers “feel they have had enough” with low wages, a national insurance rise and universal credit cut after working hard during the pandemic.Christina McAnea, who took on the role at Unison in January, also told Boris Johnson that his “smoke-and-mirrors” offer on social care and the mandatory Covid-19 jab policy for care workers was putting the sector at risk of collapse, with many unvaccinated staff having already received notice they were at risk of dismissal. Up to 10% of care staff could lose their jobs because of refusing to be vaccinated by November, worsening the sector’s existing workforce shortages. Continue reading...
Legend has it that the crown will remain out of reach until all members of the 1951 team have diedThe myth of Mayo’s curse remains intact after Tyrone clinched the All-Ireland football championship title. Hopes of County Mayo winning their first title since 1951 were dashed yesterday when they lost to Tyrone.Mayo have not won the Gaelic football final for 70 years since they beat County Meath. Legend has it that a curse was placed on the team by an enraged priest after they apparently failed to pay their respects to a funeral they passed on their homecoming journey following the victory. The story goes that the side would not win again under the curse until all the members of that team had died, as the Observer reported last week. Continue reading...
Remote learning and its detrimental effect on their study have forced many teenagers to rethink tertiary educationMorgan Vella and his friends used to hold high ambitions for what life would look like after graduating high school: leaving their regional Victorian town for university in the city, enjoying a world of busy dormitories, student bars and lecture theatres.But two years and seven lockdowns later, the Kyabram P-12 College year 12 student says a lot of his friends have simply “given up” and plan to complete their Victorian College of Education (VCE) certificate without an Atar. Continue reading...
She was a crucial part of a cultural movement in the 1980s. Now a first solo exhibition in 15 years will allow her work to shineFrom the 1980s to the early 2000s, artist and archivist Rita Keegan fervently collected and preserved newsletters, leaflets, photographs and exhibition literature from the British Black arts scene. “It [didn’t] matter how fabulous the show – if you didn’t have the ephemera, it was hard to say that you existed,” she told the Art Newspaper last summer. “It’s very easy to be written out of history, if you don’t have those pieces of paper.”Boxes and files stored behind the sofa in Keegan’s living room and a garden “shedio” in her south London home are a portal to the past, specifically, into the seminal British Black arts movement founded in 1982. This pivotal moment in art history saw artists such as Sonia Boyce, Eddie Chambers, Denzil Forrester, Lubaina Himid and Maud Sulter galvanised to create and curate works together in the aftermath of the 1981 Brixton uprisings and in response to their marginalisation from the mainstream art world. Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent on (#5PDR9)
Partners and spouses are being kept apart by Home Office delays in processing revised versions of entry permits to BritainA British woman has told how she had to separate her six-year-old son from his French father because post-Brexit rules prohibited her spouse from returning with her to the UK for a new job without prior Home Office approval.After 11 years in France, the couple, who work in highly skilled jobs in the defence industry, decided to move back to the UK and thought it would be as simple as getting on a Eurostar train. Continue reading...
National Crime Agency, Border Force and Australian Federal Police seize drugs worth £160m on yacht off PlymouthSix men including a Briton have been arrested off the coast of Plymouth after authorities seized more than two tonnes of cocaine worth about £160m.Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said an operation involving its personnel as well as the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Border Force arrested the British man from Stockton-on-Tees and five Nicaraguans aboard a Jamaican-flagged yacht 80 miles out to sea. Continue reading...
Discover real variety in these gluten-free dishes: moreish noodles with lime and crab chilli oil, tropical lentil pancakes with mango and coconut relishes, and a rich baked polenta with feta and spiced tomatoesThe increased interest in gluten-free recipes garners strong opinions. On the one hand, coeliacs can find the confusion between them and those who have chosen a gluten-free diet frustrating (and possibly dangerous). Those who elect to go gluten-free, meanwhile – often on the grounds that they just feel much better without it – are equally baffled by the frustration (and even antipathy) that their choice inspires in others. For my part, while my diet will never be gluten-free simply for the sake of it, mealtimes are all the more interesting and varied for occasionally omitting it. Continue reading...
A retired bishop faces a bigger tax bill after swapping his old diesel VW for an environmentally friendly vehicleA retired bishop who replaced a polluting diesel car with a much greener plug-in hybrid model has described the government’s environmental policies as “completely mad” after his road tax rose from zero to £480 a year.The Rev Robert Paterson, who lives near Evesham in Worcestershire, was hit with the bill after switching to a secondhand BMW 330e plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), which claims a maximum fuel economy of 200 miles per gallon, and emits only 32g of CO per km, according to its official rating. It cost about £33,000. Continue reading...
She’s already broken out of Nashville to become an unconventional pop superstar. Now she’s stretching the limits of country again – with the help of psychedelics and a four-poster bed in her studioIt is mid-morning in Nashville and Kacey Musgraves is padding around her new home, looking in the fridge and checking on her dogs while she talks. She moved in in April, after spending a year having it renovated. From what I can see on Zoom, the results of her renovations are exceptionally tasteful, in a very upmarket boutique hotel way: everything – walls, furniture, the floor – seems to be in shades of muted, natural off-white. As with the breakfast she’s just finished – which involved a very specific kind of rosemary sourdough, an equally specific kind of slow-cultured, grass-fed butter “from this place in Atlanta” and a “pretty fucked-up” Japanese machine that steams bread – it seems to suggest someone doing very well for themselves, which indeed Musgraves is.In 2018, her fourth album, Golden Hour, finally broke through, fulfilling the line about her that people had used from the start: “The country star for people who hate country music.” It went platinum in the US, made the top 10 in the UK, topped umpteen end-of-year critics’ lists and won four Grammys, including album of the year. It’s not unknown for a country artist to receive the latter award – the [Dixie] Chicks won it in 2007, as did Taylor Swift in the days when she was still country’s brightest young star rather than an all-conquering pop behemoth, and Glen Campbell in 1969 – but it doesn’t happen often. Continue reading...
Despite its unpopularity, the ruling LDP party looks unassailable. The country is stagnating because of itJapan will soon have a new prime minister. Not because there is a general election coming up – although there is – but because the leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP), the deeply unpopular Yoshihide Suga, abruptly resigned last week. Following a series of local election defeats, an Olympics staged against the public will, and a related fifth Covid wave that has pushed Japan’s medical system into “disaster mode”, Suga’s approval rating had plummeted to its lowest since the LDP’s return to power in 2012. Resignation was surely a wise decision, one that put the party first.Given how disastrous the last few months have been, one might imagine that Suga’s replacement – almost certainly a man – would have his work cut out to avoid catastrophe in the general election. But that’s not how Japanese democracy works. Continue reading...
Fears loneliness among older people could be exacerbated with signal still down after mast blazeThey might live in one of the most picturesque areas of the country but residents of the small village of West Witton in the Yorkshire Dales are having to deal with the loss of a different sort of view: their TV signal stopped working a month ago after a fire.“The wife’s not happy,” said Eddie Hammond, a retired haulier, sitting in the Fox and Hounds pub. “She hasn’t seen Emmerdale in weeks. Mind you, one of the actors lives in the village so at least she gets to see him walk past the house sometimes.” Continue reading...
Who can look after my 95-year-old mum? How do I support my troubled teen? Experts’ top tips for the sandwich generation crushed by conflicting demandsWhen I was born, my grandmother was only 58. Her own parents were both dead, her mother having died in her 70s a few years earlier. I am 58 myself now, but my future grandchildren are still probably some years away. Two of my children are still living at home, with all the needs that entails, while my mother, a sprightly 83-year-old, can have every expectation of living into her next decade. But she will need me more as she ages, and my daughters are, I hope, going to want me to help with their offspring when the time comes. All this means life is likely to get a whole lot busier and more stressful as I get older.Many of my friends are there already – last year, a Bank of Scotland survey found grandparents saved their children almost £4,000 per family – and I sense the frayed edges of lives being pulled in too many directions. How can we survive this squeeze? How do we stop ourselves being spread so thin that there’s nothing left of us, or for us, at a time when we hoped things would be getting easier, not tougher? I put your questions to the experts. Continue reading...
King Mohammed VI asks businessman to form government after his RNI party trounced the long-ruling IslamistsMorocco’s King Mohammed VI has named businessman Aziz Akhannouch to lead a new government after his liberal RNI party thrashed the long-ruling Islamists in parliamentary elections.The king appointed Akhannouch “head of the government and tasked him with forming a new government”, following Wednesday’s polls, a statement from the palace said on Friday. Continue reading...
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