Claudia Webbe, who has had the Labour whip withdrawn, denies harassment chargesAn MP has been accused of threatening to use acid against a woman she believed to be in a relationship with her partner, a court has heard.Claudia Webbe, 56, allegedly became “obsessed” with Michelle Merritt due to her friendship with the Leicester East MP’s partner, Lester Thomas. Continue reading...
Christopher Johns talks about what conditions are like for drivers in the UK and whether any solutions might be forthcomingChristopher Johns, 37, from Burwash, Sussex, has been an HGV driver for more than 10 years, and drives long distance in UK and Europe. Here he speaks about what conditions are like for HGV drivers in the UK, and why he feels there may be no quick solution to the current truck driver crisis.“I’m always staggered by how much truck drivers have been taken for granted in the UK. We work so hard for very little money. Our wages have desperately needed improving for such a long time. A friend’s starting salary at Lidl is the same as that of many trucker friends. I could earn more if I did temp work, like many others do, but I have a wife and three kids, I need job security. I only earn enough now because I do a lot of overseas work, where you get bigger expenses allowances. Continue reading...
Actor helped deliver food to people onboard NGO vessel that was refused entry to Italian port by then ministerRichard Gere has agreed to testify against Italy’s far-right former interior minister Matteo Salvini, who is standing trial for refusing to let a Spanish migrant rescue ship dock in an Italian port in 2019.Prosecutors in Sicily have accused Salvini of dereliction of duty and kidnapping for blocking the NGO vessel Open Arms from docking in August 2019 as part of his closed-ports policy. Onboard were 147 people rescued in the Mediterranean. During the standoff, as the ship was anchored off the island of Lampedusa, some people threw themselves overboard in desperation. Continue reading...
‘Spotters’ were seen scoping out movements of Mark Rutte, who cycles to work in The HagueThe Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, who cycles to work in The Hague, has reportedly been given extra personal security in response to raised fears of a kidnapping or attack by organised crime.The decision was made after “spotters” were seen scoping out Rutte’s movements, raising concerns about a possible move by one of the country’s drug gangs. Continue reading...
A leading epidemiologist says if people are admitted to hospital in time ‘it could be in fact a life-saving presentation’A leading epidemiologist has expressed concern at the number of Covid-positive people dying at home in Australia without having a test for the virus.Associate Prof Sanjaya Senanayake from the Australian National University said there had been multiple deaths from Covid due to people developing severe symptoms at home without being tested and receiving medical assistance. Continue reading...
Frances, 70, and Rien, 68, met on a European exchange visit in 1972. Having brought up their family in England, they now live in the Dordogne, FranceWhen Frances finished school, she took a college course in cartography, the study of maps. By May 1972, she had found a job as a cartographer with the civil service. As part of her work, she went to Delft in the Netherlands to visit the Dutch equivalent of Ordnance Survey. At the time, Kingston upon Thames (where she had studied) was twinned with Delft, a city in South Holland, and residents of the two regions were encouraged to do exchange visits, where they would stay with local families to get to know the area. Frances agreed to go, even thought she was terrified. “I was 20 and it was my first time out of the country. I didn’t speak a word of Dutch,” she says.Frances soon discovered she would be staying with Rien, who lived with his parents and siblings. When she arrived at the town hall, he was there to pick her up. They were introduced by the mayor of Kingston and the burgemeester of Delft. “My instant reaction was that she was beautiful and I needed to get to know her. It was love at first sight for me,” he says. She was grateful that he was able to speak English and over the course of the next week a friendship blossomed. “He was friendly and handsome, but it was just friendship for me at first,” she says. “I’m more pragmatic than romantic.” Continue reading...
Documents seen by Guardian refer to fast-track system not intended to be used in trafficking casesThe Home Office detained more than 100 Vietnamese nationals who arrived on small boats in May but planned to speedily remove them from the UK despite them being potential victims of trafficking, the Guardian has learned.In an exercise codenamed Operation Ammonite, the Home Office chartered two deportation flights to Vietnam, one in April of this year and one in July. The flights carried 27 and 21 deportees respectively. However the Home Office plan was to fill the second plane with many more Vietnamese nationals. Continue reading...
Dr Nader Alemi, who opened the country’s first private psychiatric hospital, had received death threats before being taken on his way home from work last weekOne of Afghanistan’s most prominent psychiatrists has been abducted on his way home from work by a group of armed men.Dr Nader Alemi, 66, who opened the country’s first private psychiatric hospital in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, was stopped by seven men in a white car last week, said his family. Continue reading...
Confident microbudget feature zones in on one woman’s unhappiness, and how skydiving provides an unlikely but dramatic releaseDeragh Campbell is an award-winning Canadian actor and film-maker whose recent movie MS Slavic 7 I have to confess to finding weirdly inert and indulgent. She has a starring role in this movie, which is a confident, intimate microbudget feature shot almost entirely in searching closeup, directed by Campbell’s longtime collaborator Kazik Radwanski. It is a more approachable piece of work and Campbell’s performance is unsettlingly real.She plays Anne, an unhappy young woman with a job in a children’s daycare centre and an undiagnosed anxiety disorder, whose life is turned upside down when she tastes the ecstatic thrill of skydiving. Anne gets on pretty badly with her grumpy, humourless colleagues – who may nevertheless have a point about her unprofessional, casual and derisive attitude – and argues with her mother. She meets a nice guy called Matt (Matt Johnson) at a co-worker’s wedding, though she may well be about to alienate him too. But all this is against the background of skydiving, which she took part in as part of the bachelorette party: the bride and all the maids-of-honour did it once, but Anne wants this amazing and passionate experience again and again. Could it be a miraculous therapy for her? Or is skydiving simply enlarging and intensifying her already troublesome and anarchic personality? Continue reading...
Restrictions amount to ‘sexual assault’ on women by Japanese state, say rights campaignersWomen’s health campaigners have urged Japan’s government to amend a law that forces married women to seek consent from their husbands before they can have an abortion.Japan is one of only 11 countries that require third-party consent for abortions, despite calls to end the practice by the World Health Organization and other groups. Continue reading...
Harrison McLean was one of hundreds of people arrested after Victoria police and protesters clashed in rallies across the cityOne of the organisers of Australia’s anti-lockdown movement has been charged with incitement.Harrison McLean was one of hundreds of people arrested by Victorian police after a week of protests across Melbourne saw violent clashes between officers and demonstrators. Continue reading...
Lack of jobs and Covid lockdowns fuel boom in cheap but lethal hooch made in backyard stillsIt is 7pm and inside the shebeen, or unlicensed bar, in Harare, men and women clutch small bottles of “whisky” and talk animatedly as they dance to loud music.One man staggers and falls over, to the amusement of other drinkers. He mumbles inaudible words as he drifts into sleep. Nearby, two other men doze after spending hours in the bar on a sweltering September day. Continue reading...
Largest major survey of its kind finds 70% of respondents first saw child sexual abuse material when they were under 18The largest major survey of people who watch online child sexual abuse has found that one-third of respondents attempted to directly contact a child as a result of the illegal images they watched online.The survey, by Protect Children, a Finnish human rights group, was posted on the “dark web” so users would find it while actively searching for illegal content of children. The analysis was based on more than 5,000 people who responded initially to the survey about why and how they watched children being abused online, although 10,000 responses have been received so far. Continue reading...
Hoshyar Ali has cleared more than 750,000 landmines in 104 villages, despite having lost both legs to landmines. Iraqi Kurdistan is one of the most contaminated countries for landmines and explosive remnants of war, according to a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian AffairsA dust cloud trails behind a metallic grey Kia Sportage as it meanders along a rocky dirt road toward the last town on this thoroughfare before reaching the Iraq-Iran border.People walk along the road, waving at independent deminer Hoshyar Ali as he drives by, recognising him by the red flag on his antenna, indicating the vehicle is transporting explosives, and by the stickers of various landmines on his vehicle. Continue reading...
The UK/Australia Season is the largest ever cultural exchange between the two nations, including the sacred knowledge held in songlines, a 19th-century Indigenous cricket team and uprising anthems linking Brixton to Palm IslandMargo Neale is feeling proud. “Here we are,” she says, “250 years after the British set out to colonise and civilise us, taking our culture to the British – to teach them how to survive in this fragmenting world.” Neale, an Indigenous Australian from the Gumbaynggirr and Kulin nations, is just warming up. “It is our civilisation,” she continues defiantly, “that had the resilience to survive over millennia: the ice age, sea rises, drought, invasion, violence, all sorts of oppression and pandemics. So, this is us showing Britain we have the knowledge to survive – knowledge held in the songlines.”Neale, who is also of Irish descent, is talking about the plan to bring the National Museum of Australia’s extraordinary 2017 exhibition Songlines, which she co-curated, to Britain. The show will have its European premiere at the Box in Plymouth – which is where, Neale can’t resist pointing out, Captain James Cook set sail from in 1768, becoming the first European to set foot on the east coast of Australia. Continue reading...
Former Afghan government’s ambassador in Greece appalled by Athens’ media blitz against ‘illegal migrant flows’In other times, Mirwais Samadi would have welcomed a campaign to deter his compatriots from opting to become illegal migrants and embarking on the often dangerous trek from Afghanistan to Europe.By far the worst part of his job as Afghanistan’s ambassador to Athens – apart from the strange limbo he has found himself in representing a nation whose leaders he refuses to recognise – is notifying families back home of loved ones who died along the way. Invariably they are the victims of smuggling networks motivated solely by profit. Continue reading...
Two Israeli soldiers were also seriously wounded after violence erupted when troops tried to arrest suspected Hamas militantsFive Palestinians have been killed after gun battles erupted when Israeli troops conducted a series of raids against suspected Hamas militants across the occupied West Bank.The fighting on Sunday was the deadliest violence between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the West Bank in several weeks. Two Israeli soldiers were seriously wounded. Continue reading...
The former army colonel, who was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity, died in hospital in MaliTheoneste Bagosora, a former Rwandan army colonel regarded as the architect of the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsi and Hutus who tried to protect them were killed, has died in a hospital in Mali.His son Achille Bagosora announced the death in a Facebook post: “Rest in Peace, Papa.” Continue reading...
Initial election result gave women 33 seats, but total was later revised down to 30Iceland briefly celebrated electing a female-majority parliament on Sunday, before a recount produced a result just short of the landmark for gender parity in the north Atlantic island nation.The initial vote count gave female candidates 33 seats in Iceland’s 63-seat parliament, the Althing, in an election in which centrist parties made the biggest gains. The result would have made Iceland the first country in Europe to have more women than men in parliament. Continue reading...
Over 40% of residents of landlocked state in central Italy voted to end total ban in place since 1865Residents in San Marino have voted overwhelmingly to legalise abortion.Over 40% of the population of about 33,000 in the tiny state, which is landlocked within central Italy, participated in the referendum, with 77.3% voting in support of allowing abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, according to results published by San Marino TV. Continue reading...
Exit polls suggest Olaf Scholz’s centre-left SPD will be the largest party in Germany’s federal parliament. Get all the latest results as they come in, and find out what coalitions will be possible to form the country’s new governmentGerman election 2021 – live coverage
Ministers to discuss emergency plan Operation Escalin after BP reveals a third of its forecourts have shortagesHundreds of soldiers could be scrambled to deliver fuel to petrol stations running dry across the country due to panic buying and a shortage of drivers under an emergency plan expected to be considered by Boris Johnson on Monday.The prime minister will gather senior members of the cabinet to scrutinise “Operation Escalin” after BP admitted that a third of its petrol stations had run out of the main two grades of fuel, while the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents almost 5,500 independent outlets, said 50% to 90% of its members had reported running out. It predicted that the rest would soon follow. Continue reading...
Serious themes are undercut by the flippant tone of this story about a Syrian refugee who becomes a conceptual art objectHere is a muddled caper of movie that doesn’t know what it wants to say; it doesn’t work as a satire of the international art market, nor as a commentary on the racism of white European culture. And its attitude to Syria is undermined by a silly and unconvincing ending that leaves a strange taste in the mouth. It is inspired by the Belgian conceptual artist Wim Delvoye and his human artwork called Tim: in 2008, Delvoye tattooed an elaborate punk-crucifixion scene on the back of a Zurich tattoo parlour owner named Tim Steiner, who in return for a cash payment agreed to sit still with his tattooed back on show in galleries for a certain number of times a year and have his tattooed skin surgically removed and put on display after his death. And of course it is this macabre destiny that lends fascination to the ongoing live events.This movie from writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania imagines a Syrian man, Sam Ali (Yahya Mahayni) in love with a well-born woman Abeer (Dea Liane). But when he is wrongfully arrested by the tyrannical Assad government, Abeer’s family pressures her into marrying a smooth diplomat, Ziad (Saad Lostan), who takes her to live with him in Brussels where he is an embassy attache. Sam Ali manages to escape from police custody (the least of the film’s implausibilities) and get over the border into Lebanon where, hungry and hard up, he gatecrashes art exhibitions and gobbles the free canapes. And this is where he is approached by a preeningly arrogant artist, Jeffrey Godefroi (Koen De Bouw), who looks like Roger De Bris, the theatre director in Mel Brooks’s The Producers. If Sam will agree to the humiliation of having a massive “Schengen visa” tattooed on his back, then Jeffrey will be legally able to transport him to Brussels as a conceptual art object rather than a human being, as part of a show about the commodification of humanity, and Sam will be able to see Abeer. Continue reading...
Alan Partridge star will take on ‘complex’ character of notorious paedophile in The ReckoningSteve Coogan will play Jimmy Savile in a forthcoming BBC drama series about how the high-profile presenter spent decades living a double life as one of the country’s most notorious paedophiles.The Alan Partridge star said the decision to portray Savile on screen was not one he “took lightly” but the series had “an intelligent script tackling sensitively an horrific story which – however harrowing – needs to be told”. Continue reading...
Melanie Chisholm, Boyzone’s Shane Lynch and S Club 7’s Hannah Spearritt latest to allege voicemail interceptionA group of 1990s pop stars are among the latest individuals to launch phone-hacking cases against Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, as the scandal that has dogged the company for more than 15 years continues to rumble on at the high court.Melanie Chisholm from the Spice Girls, Shane Lynch from Boyzone, Hannah Spearritt from S Club 7, and Steps’s Ian Watkins and Lee Latchford-Evans have recently filed claims against the company. Continue reading...
New analysis reveals misogyny increasingly prevalent online and being used to steer people into racism and antisemitismSexual violence is increasingly being promoted by the British far right, according to new analysis documenting how misogyny is used to steer individuals towards adopting racist and antisemitic views.Investigators found that pro-rape comments were “not uncommon” among the UK extreme right and that a culture has taken root that endorses sexual violence. Analysing misogyny and anti-feminist channels on the messaging app Telegram, a key online platform for the far right, they found sexual assault was a “prominent theme”. Continue reading...
Parliamentary delegation to hold talks with university in effort to shed light on student’s killing in EgyptAn Italian parliamentary delegation is to travel to Cambridge this week to hold talks with the university over the 2016 death of the postgraduate student Giulio Regeni, who was abducted and killed in Cairo while researching Egyptian trade unions.Four senior members of Egypt’s powerful security services were last year charged by a Rome judge over their suspected role in the disappearance and murder of the 28-year-old Italian. The trial will take place in absentia after the Egyptian state refused to recognise the Italian legal process or extradite the four suspects. Continue reading...
Andrew Hickman’s obituary of Carmel Budiardjo, the campaigner for human rights and justice in Indonesia, refers to the political effects of the cold war in south-east Asia. One consequence was that the west turned a blind eye to the 1965 massacre in Indonesia and to the anti-left purge under General Suharto.Carmel’s organisation Tapol was a lonely voice in exposing the plight of tens of thousands of political prisoners and their families. She was wonderfully forthright and focused on the cause. In 1990 when I visited Indonesia for the Guardian to cover the – largely ignored – 25th anniversary of the massacre, her help with contacts included the great novelist and ex-prisoner Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and proved to be invaluable. Continue reading...
‘Marriage for All’ proposal backed by 64.1% of voters in nationwide referendumSwiss voters have decided by a clear margin to allow same-sex couples to marry, in a referendum that brings the Alpine nation into line with many others in western Europe.Official results showed the measure passed with 64.1% of voters in favour and won a majority in all of Switzerland’s 26 cantons. Continue reading...
Police say they are questioning 36-year-old on suspicion of murder in ‘significant development’Detectives are questioning a 36-year-old man on suspicion of the murder of the London schoolteacher Sabina Nessa, in what they called a “significant development” in the case.The man was arrested at 3am on Sunday at an address in East Sussex and was taken into police custody. He is the third man arrested over the killing. Continue reading...
Leeds United have offered support but players face return to Taliban regime unless accepted soonThe UK government is being asked to urgently resettle female players from Afghanistan’s junior football team who fled the Taliban and have been offered a new life with Leeds United.The 35 young women – many of whom are in their teens – their families and football coaches are in Lahore, Pakistan, on 30-day visas. But the 136-strong group face returning to Afghanistan unless they are accepted by a third country soon – they have to leave Pakistan by 12 October. Continue reading...
The painter expresses sadness at how social media, Covid and new buildings have made it a challenge to find places to create artThe far south-west of Britain has long been regarded as a wild and romantic spot, a place where you can lose yourself in rugged landscapes beloved of artists and dreamers.But a renowned Cornish-based artist celebrated for his images of the world’s great wildernesses has expressed sadness and frustration that social media, new building and the rush to the countryside caused by Covid has made it a challenge to find remote, lonesome places in his backyard to paint. Continue reading...
A coalition is inevitable but there are likely to be months of complicated negotiations in the months aheadPolling stations have opened in Germany as the nation decides who will succeed in the race to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor after 16 years.As final rallies were held across the country by the the main candidates on Saturday, with polls showing the lead held by the Social Democrats’ Olaf Scholz over Armin Laschet of the Christian Democrats to have narrowed to a tiny margin, voter participation among the more than 60 million Germans eligible to vote, was predicted to be high. Continue reading...
Tough controls on immigration, a restricted role for European courts, a new politics of patriotism: why is the EU’s former Brexit chief negotiator, now running for the French presidency, sounding more and more like a Eurosceptic? As his Brexit diaries are published in English, he reveals allMy Secret Brexit Diary, Michel Barnier’s blow-by-blow account of the Brexit negotiations, is at times quite a dry and technical read. But every now and then it offers glorious moments of comic relief. There is, for example, the day that Lord Digby Jones and a jovial bunch of leave-voting businessmen pitch up optimistically at Barnier’s Brussels office, plonking a patriotic gift-basket on his desk. Running his eye over it, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator spies some cheddar, wine, tea and jam, a book of Shakespeare’s plays and an essay on Winston Churchill’s life and political philosophy. With a smile, Barnier points out that some of the foodstuffs are processed from European products and protected by EU designations of origin. As for Shakespeare and Churchill, one, he suggests, was a very “continental playwright” and the other a “very European British statesman” who backed a united Europe.This false start is the prelude to some unsuccessful lobbying by the British delegation on behalf of the City’s financial services industry. When Barnier bats away demands for full post-Brexit access to European markets, he writes that the mood suddenly turns sour: “Digby Jones dares to say to me: ‘Mr Barnier, your position is contrary to the interests of the economy. You are going to make life even more difficult for the worker in the Ruhr, the single woman in Madrid or the unemployed man in Athens.’” The rhetoric and tone, concludes Barnier in his diary entry for 10 January 2018, was “morally outrageous”; the desired bespoke agreement on financial services never materialises. Continue reading...
Scott Gottlieb has written a fine account of what went wrong and what we must do better next timeCovid deaths in the US have passed 680,000. More than 2,000 lives are lost every day. The south and south-east are the new killing fields, intensive care units operate at near capacity, vaccination rates stall. In Florida, Republicans contemplate scrapping vaccine mandates for measles and mumps too. Talk about turning back the clock.Related: Peril review: Bob Woodward Trump trilogy ends on note of dire warning Continue reading...
The director’s new documentary weaves together hours of unseen footage to dispel many myths about the band’s final weeks. John Harris, who was involved in the project, tells the inside story
Critics say the leader has hijacked the gathering by getting bogged down in voting issues and losing sight of a focus on policyWhen Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, stood up to huge cheers to address her party’s conference on Saturday, the slogan “Stronger Future Together” was projected on the big screen behind her and all around the vast hall.Before what had been billed as Keir Starmer’s defining conference, when he would reveal the real Keir to the nation, the party leader had also spoken last week of the need for togetherness in the party in a 35-page pamphlet spelling out his vision for Britain. Continue reading...
A former model has launched a website to help online creatives compare deals with brands to prevent exploitationPublic support for workers’ rights and pay equality may be growing but at least one group feels left out: Gen-Z professionals in the modern and comparatively nebulous field of online content creation and influence.It’s a state of affairs that Lindsey Lee Lugrin, a former model with a degree in finance, plans to change with some collective organisation. She has launched an advocacy site, aptly titled F*** You Pay Me, on which influencers review and compare deals with brands, pay-scales and what it’s like to work with them. Continue reading...
The likelihood of a compromise coalition is bad news for both Germany and BritainAngela Merkel’s long goodbye as Germany’s chancellor finally draws to a close this weekend as votes in the federal election are tallied – at least in theory. If the latest opinion polls are to be believed, there will be no clear winner. No party is expected to command an overall Bundestag majority. Coalition talks on forming a new government could take months. In the meantime, in practice, Merkel remains in charge.The uncertainty over who will replace her is a big change from the often predictable politics of the past 16 years. But it would not do to get overexcited. Neither Olaf Scholz, who leads the Social Democrats (SPD), the biggest centre-left party, nor Armin Laschet, Merkel’s conservative choice as her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) successor, offers radically different agendas. Both men stress continuity while promoting modest, incremental change. Continue reading...
The actor and comedian, on Desert Island Discs, tells of her push for non-comic roles and how she stole a note from Kirsty MacCollTracey Ullman does not regret playing characters of different ethnicity in her comedy shows in Britain and America, but would not do so again. “No, I wouldn’t do it,” she said. “It would be different now. But I don’t regret anything or apologise for anything. Just move onwards.”The actor and impressionist from Slough, Berkshire, first made her name on television in the BBC show Three of a Kind, alongside Lenny Henry and David Copperfield, in the early 1980s. Continue reading...
It may not be logical that your heart is broken but it’s important to let the feelings outThe question As soon as I started writing this letter I could feel the hot tears generating in their ducts. I’ve got great friends and family, but I need an outsider’s take.I was seeing a man, for a few months. This ended around eight weeks ago. He was unhappy living in this country and had plans to move even before we met, which he was always very open about, and I was aware the entire time that he was emotionally unavailable and planning to leave. So I feel I should have been prepared for the end of the relationship when it happened. Continue reading...
The Pacific island nation wants clarity on the legal responsibilities owed to its people related to climate changeVanuatu will ask the International court of justice for an advisory opinion on the rights of present and future generations to be protected from climate change.With a population of about 280,000 people spread across roughly 80 islands, Vanuatu is among more than a dozen Pacific island nations facing rising sea levels and more regular storms that can wipe out much of their economies. Continue reading...