Man using the name Sergey Fedotov alleged to have been working with Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov

Government urged to give sanctuary to hundreds of female judges and lawyers living under the TalibanBaroness Helena Kennedy QC has launched an urgent appeal to provide support to judges along with lawyers, women’s rights activists, human rights defenders, and their families at risk in Afghanistan and in need of a safe haven abroad.As part of the #EvacuateHer” campaign, Kennedy has also launched a petition, calling on the UK government to provide sanctuary to Afghan judges and lawyers at risk. The Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (Arap) initially stated judges were eligible under the scheme but no longer includes this group. Continue reading...

It started with construction workers opposing compulsory vaccinations but grew into a broader ‘freedom’ rally which shut down freeways and bridges

Victoria police say 1,000-2,000 people attended second day of protests in Melbourne CBD; NSW cases back over 1,000 as kids allowed to meet in friend bubbles for school holidays; Tweed, Byron Bay and Kempsey LGAs to lockdown from 5pm; Qld records no new local cases; Victoria’s highest number of cases for this outbreak. Follow all the day’s news live

After years caught in the crossfire between the Taliban and security forces, farmers in Kandahar face a new threat, as water sources dry upThe war in Afghanistan might be over but farmers in Kandahar’s Arghandab valley face a new enemy: drought.It has hardly rained for two years, a drought so severe that some farmers are questioning how much longer they can live off the land. Continue reading...

Clément Beaune says Brexit fallout and secret defence pact have undermined Franco-British relationsThe British-French alliance lacks trust, France’s EU affairs minister has said, citing Downing Street’s approach to the post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland and the secretly negotiated defence agreement with the US and Australia.Clément Beaune, a close ally of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said that while the two problematic issues should not be mixed, together they highlighted the flaw in the relationship. Continue reading...

New Jersey-born singer had a US No 1 hit with the R&B trio, and later worked with the Rolling StonesSarah Dash, member of R&B trio Labelle who had a US No 1 hit with Lady Marmalade, has died aged 76.No cause of death has been given, though she had reportedly told family she was feeling unwell in recent days. Continue reading...

Body of Sabina Nessa, 28, was found near community centre in Kidbrooke on SaturdayA south-east London primary school has been left “devastated” by the suspected murder of one of its teachers after her body was found near a community centre on Saturday.The Metropolitan police named the victim as Sabina Nessa, 28, from Kidbrooke, and said her death was being treated as murder. A man in his 40s who was arrested on suspicion of killing her has been released under further investigation. Continue reading...

Henry Vaughan and Fitzroy Maynard sue Home Office, saying delays have caused them years of stressTwo victims of the Windrush scandal have launched legal proceedings against the Home Office over protracted delays in issuing compensation, asking for clarity on how claims can be expedited.Both Henry Vaughan, 67, and Fitzroy Maynard, 55, are struggling financially while living in unsuitable bedsit accommodation. They say they are unable to begin rebuilding their lives after years of problems caused by the government’s mistaken decision to classify them as illegal immigrants. Continue reading...

With poverty deepening, state services are failing to cope with rising rates of addictionKola* was in secondary school in Nigeria when he started smoking cigarettes. He soon graduated to cannabis, heroin and eventually to crack cocaine. Access to drugs was easy and he felt the pressure of friends to participate.In 2002, when he was 39, he was introduced to a private drug rehabilitation centre in Ibadan, in the south-west of the country, where he spent 90 days weaning himself off his addiction. Continue reading...

The moderates are mobilising – and the prime minister’s office knows itAt 7.31am on Tuesday morning, Scott Morrison’s backbench liaison staffer sent out a WhatsApp blast to Liberal MPs asking them not to front the media without first checking with the prime minister’s press office.Obviously there is a lot happening. The prime minister was meant to fly straight to Washington, but has instead diverted to New York in an effort to quell the diplomatic storm from France and its European allies prompted by Australia’s decision to terminate the Naval Group’s $90bn submarine contract. Continue reading...

Record firm’s €40bn flotation is just beginning of new wave of music consumption, says Sir Lucian Grainge

They took RuPaul from obscurity to global fame – inventing The Adam and Joe Show along the way. As Drag Race UK returns to the BBC, we talk to Fenton Bailey and Randy BarbatoMore than 20 years before Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato launched RuPaul’s Drag Race under the banner of their World of Wonder production company, they spotted the future drag superstar in the lobby of the Marriott hotel in Times Square, New York. It was the mid-1980s, and the 6ft 4in RuPaul Charles was sporting football shoulder pads, thigh-high waders, a loincloth and a mohican.“We were, like: ‘Oh my God,’” says Bailey. “There was simply nowhere else you could look.” Continue reading...

Heroin production has boomed in Afghanistan in recent years and the country produces most of the world’s supply of the drugNearly three tonnes of heroin with a street value of $2.7bn (£2bn) from Afghanistan have been seized from a western Indian port in a major bust, officials said.Two Indians were arrested after the heroin, which was kept in two containers marked as carrying talc, was found by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) at Mundra Port in the western state of Gujarat, the government agency said. Continue reading...

Demand for MIQ spaces is vastly outstripping supply, with spots snapped up in just two hours

Thanks for following along – this blog is now closed. You can catch up with the latest coronavirus coverage here.12.16am BSTThanks for following along – this blog is now closed. You can catch up with the latest coronavirus coverage here.11.09pm BSTHere are the key developments in today’s Covid news: Continue reading...

This intimate portrait of genius physicist Stephen Hawking shows the true toll of his physical decline on his family, via revealing interviews with his first wife and childrenThe brief history of Stephen Hawking is one we all know. Diagnosed at the age of 21 with motor neurone disease and given three years to live, he went on to marry his sweetheart Jane, have three children and become – despite increasingly severe disability and many health crises – a groundbreaking physicist and cosmologist. He was also a member of the Royal Society, the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge (a seat once held by Newton) and a world-famous author and lionised public figure after writing the bestselling A Brief History of Time. He died in 2018 at the age of 76.You could easily fill a documentary with stories of his genius. What Hawking: Can You Hear Me? (Sky Documentaries) did was take on the trickier task of illuminating the man and examining what it took, from him and all those around this hyper-focused, hyper-competitive mind, to accomplish all that he did. Continue reading...

Tuesday: Victoria’s construction industry shut for two weeks following violent protests. Plus: France seeks to delay EU-Australia trade deal amid Aukus falloutGood morning. Tensions are rising between Australia and the EU amid fallout from the Aukus submarine pact. Violent protests in Melbourne have led to a shut-down of the Victorian construction industry. And if the pandemic has made you look at your style differently, we have tips on how to fix your ill-fitting fashion.Victoria’s construction industry will shut down for two weeks after a protest against mandatory vaccines for workers in the sector became violent. Hundreds of construction workers and their supporters stormed the CFMEU office building and police used pepper spray and rubber bullets to move the crowd. Meanwhile, NSW recorded the lowest daily Covid caseload in more than three weeks, with 935 new cases, but premier Gladys Berejiklian warned that despite the falling infection numbers, hospitalisations and deaths will probably be worse in October. Pfizer report its vaccine has produced strong antibody responses in children aged five to 11. Its use in children has not yet been approved and adults in Australians have been told not to wait for Pfizer jabs due uncertainty over when the 9m doses due in October will arrive. Continue reading...

France seeks EU support to delay deal as punishment after Australia cancelled £48bn submarine contractFrance is seeking to enlist European Union support to delay a planned EU-Australia trade deal, as part of a plan to punish Australia for what it regards as serial deceit and subterfuge by Canberra before it cancelled the contract for 12 attack-class French submarines.The A$90bn (£48bn) submarine contract was the centrepiece of French-Australian cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, but the Australians have instead opted to form a US-UK-Australia pact dubbed Aukus, and build eight nuclear-powered submarines likely to be delivered between 2030 and 2040. Continue reading...

The pandemic has only made worse the sense of isolation felt by boarding students from remote communities

Lawyers say whiteboard image of man hanging was a ‘disrespectful, degrading and hurtful parody’A vulnerable Indigenous inmate who prison officers allegedly depicted hanging from a noose on a prison whiteboard is suing the Australian Capital Territory government, alleging the drawing was a “vile and racist caricature” of “another Indigenous person they wished to see die in custody”.In May 2018, correctional officers at the ACT’s jail, the Alexander Maconochie Centre, allegedly drew what appeared to be a game of hangman on a staff whiteboard. The man depicted hanging from the noose was an Indigenous inmate who has mental health issues and has previously attempted suicide. Continue reading...

Paul Rusesabagina, an ex-hotel manager, was subject of a Hollywood film about 1994 genocidePaul Rusesabagina, a businessman whose role in saving more than 1,000 lives during the 1994 genocide inspired the film Hotel Rwanda, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of terrorism offences by a court in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali.The 67-year-old was found guilty on Monday after a seven-month trial and faces a life sentence. Rwandan authorities accused Rusesabagina of being “the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits … operating out of various places in the region and abroad.” He denied all the charges against him. Continue reading...

Readers respond to the new pact between the UK, Australia and the US, and its implicationsThe Aukus pact is not a “new global order” (17 September) but very much an old order; it is colonial gunboats. I do not expect politicians to have read history such as the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1839, but I do expect them to be aware of history in their own lifetimes. Eton may not teach the failures of empire, but China has been very clear about Taiwan since 1950.When Biden said, “This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries”, he was committing to another battle in the Pacific. The global dominance of China has been clear for more than 20 years, and yet we are unwillingly signed up to face this new empire?

Man arrested on suspicion of murder after Derbyshire police were called to property in KillamarshTributes have been paid to three children and a woman who are suspected to have been killed at a house near Sheffield at the weekend.A man, 31, was arrested on suspicion of murder after Derbyshire police were called to a property in Killamarsh, Derbyshire, at 7.25am on Sunday. Continue reading...

The Aukus deal has enraged China and humiliated France, when British diplomacy should be concentrated on EuropeThe Aukus defence deal between Britain, the US and Australia grows murkier by the day. Essentially it is the outcome of an industrial dispute over who will build eight submarines for the Australian military. Australia ordered £48bn-worth of diesel-powered ones from France and then changed its mind, reneging on the deal. It now wants nuclear-powered ones from the US and Britain.Crewed submarines are approaching obsolescence, near useless in an age of “transparent” oceans and underwater drones. Like tanks, they drip with cost, inefficiency and a craving to fight outdated wars. But defence contracts have a corporate and political existence that transcends utility. If Australia seriously thinks China is a threat, it might as well have some new gold-plated weapons ready. Continue reading...

Dr Hossam Metwally injected girlfriend with anaesthetic drugs in belief she was possessed by spiritsAn anaesthetist has been given a 14-and-a-half year jail sentence for injecting his partner with drugs during a series of exorcism ceremonies that left her close to death.Dr Hossam Metwally, 61, made dozens of recordings of himself administering fluids through a cannula to Kelly Wilson, who was left with multiple organ failure. Continue reading...

Gay and trans people in Afghanistan already faced stigma, but now even a call from an unknown number sparks fearLaila, a transgender woman in Afghanistan, rubs her eyes to wipe tears away. “I am terrified. It’s like a nightmare. I don’t feel safe even in my room. I’m scared of the Taliban. When I see them I feel they will know who I am and they will come to beat me, kick me or send me to prison.”After the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, Laila is far from an isolated case. Rehmat, a gay man, said: “Our lives are in danger. We are afraid of having mobile phones. I get afraid when I receive calls from unknown numbers, worried that it might be the Taliban.” Continue reading...

A surge of lava has destroyed about 100 homes on Spain’s Canary Islands a day after a volcano erupted, forcing 5,000 people to leave the area. Cumbre Vieja erupted on Sunday, sending vast plumes of thick black smoke into the sky and belching molten lava that oozed down the mountainside on the island of La Palma, one of the most westerly of the Atlantic archipelago off the coast of Morocco

Tourism minister derided for suggesting La Palma volcano could lure visitors to Spanish archipelagoSpain’s tourism minister has been accused of insensitivity after suggesting a devastating and ongoing volcanic eruption on the Canary island of La Palma could be used as an “attraction” to lure visitors to the archipelago.About 5,000 people have been evacuated and dozens of homes destroyed after the eruption in the Cumbre Vieja mountain range, one of the most active volcanic regions in the islands. Continue reading...

State government set to make announcement Monday night after Victoria police used pepper spray and rubber bullets to move crowd outside CFMEU office

Restrictions will be eased from midnight on Tuesday with more businesses allowed to provide click-and-collect services, PM saysAfter nearly five weeks in lockdown Auckland will move out of the highest setting, New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has said, adding she was confident there was no undetected transmission of the Delta variant in the community.New Zealand recorded 22 new cases of coronavirus in the community – including three cases outside Auckland – on Monday which some had feared could put the brakes on the easing of restrictions. Continue reading...

Research highlights six firms that increased their profits by a total of £16bnCampaigners have issued fresh calls for a windfall tax on companies that prospered during the pandemic, after research highlighted six firms that increased their profits by a total of £16bn.The outsourcing firm Serco and online clothes retailer Asos were among the companies that saw their global profits more than double over the last financial year, while one investment trust, Scottish Mortgage, saw its returns grow to nine times the average of preceding years. Continue reading...

The biggest night in television has seen major wins for Kate Winslet, the stars of The Crown and breakout football comedy Ted Lasso5.04am BSTAnd here was one of the best speeches of the night, courtesy of Debbie Allen:4.48am BSTHere’s a look at Seth Rogen’s viral intro for one of Ted Lasso’s many wins: Continue reading...

£1.1bn project adds nearly two miles of tunnel and two new stations – Nine Elms and Battersea Power StationThe first major addition to the London Underground this century comes into service on Monday, when the Northern line extension opens to carry passengers to new stops at Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station.Taking six years of construction and testing, and a longer period again of design and planning, the £1.1bn project – adding nearly two miles of tunnel as well as the two stations – has put the dramatically changing area of south London on the Tube map. Continue reading...

Guardian Australia brings together all the latest on active and daily new Covid-19 cases, as well as maps, stats, live data and state by state graphs from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, WA, Tasmania, ACT and NT to get a broad picture of the Australian outbreaks and track the impact of government responses

Poll declares Olaf Scholz of the SPD victor of all three televised debates before next Sunday’s voteThe centre-left frontrunner to replace Angela Merkel emphasised his eagerness to form a government with the Greens in the last TV debate before next Sunday’s German elections, as the ecological party’s candidate came close to ruling out joining a coalition with the outgoing chancellor’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU).A snap poll declared Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to have emerged victorious from three out of three televised debates, with more respondents describing him as the winner of Sunday night’s showdown than the CDU’s Armin Laschet or the Green party’s Annalena Baerbock. Continue reading...

Thanks for following along – this blog is now closed. You can catch up with the latest coronavirus coverage here.11.07pm BSTThanks for following along – this blog is now closed. You can catch up with the latest coronavirus coverage here.9.25pm BSTMore than 100m Covid vaccine doses are due to expire and be “thrown away” unless global leaders urgently share surplus supplies with the world’s poorest countries, Gordon Brown has warned.Related: Gordon Brown calls for urgent action to avert ‘Covid vaccine waste disaster’ Continue reading...

Monday: Australian women more likely to drop out of the workforce during the pandemic, figures show. Plus: how to plan a holiday in uncertain timesGood morning. Gender inequality is hitting headlines today. Australian women are more likely to drop out of the workforce during the pandemic, figures show, and there are fewer receiving additional Covid support payments. Women also receive worse medical treatment for heart attacks. And the UK-France defence summit has been cancelled in the Aukus row.A curfew in the 12 greater Sydney hotspots has been lifted as New South Wales hits the 80% single dose vaccination milestone. Starting from today, restrictions will be relaxed in the western Sydney LGAs to equalise them with the rest of the city. Public pools will be able to reopen across the state from Monday 27 September. Continue reading...

More than 100m doses could be discarded by December if global leaders do not share jabs with poorest countries, warns former PMMore than 100m Covid vaccine doses are due to expire and be “thrown away” unless global leaders urgently share surplus supplies with the world’s poorest countries, Gordon Brown has warned.The “staggering” number of stockpiled “use now” jabs will be of no use to anyone by December, according to a new report from the research group Airfinity. Continue reading...

When the ‘subscription social network’ OnlyFans announced it would be banning the sexually explicit content that made it a billion-dollar business, sex workers were up in arms – and many observers wondered how the move could make financial sense. Then it had second thoughts. So what does this tech saga tell us about where pornography fits into the future of the internet – and is it just another example of the sex industry treating women as disposable?This episode includes discussion of sex and pornography. It first aired on Today in Focus.OnlyFans bills itself as a wide-ranging ‘subscription social network’ where content creators of any kind can charge their followers to view their output – but in reality its hugely successful business is largely based around sex. That emphasis only grew during the pandemic, with more and more users spending their free time online – and more people wondering about a new source of income. With the company valued at about $1bn (£720m), and celebrities like Cardi B and Bella Thorne signing up, it was hard to see it doing anything other than more of the same. Continue reading...

Popular senator pursues anti-corruption crusade, threatening jail for dishonest officialsThe boxer Manny Pacquiao has said he will run for president of the Philippines next year, after railing against corruption in government and President Rodrigo Duterte’s “cozy” relationship with China.One of the greatest boxers of all time and the only man to hold world titles in eight divisions, Pacquiao accepted the nomination of his political allies during the national assembly of the faction he leads in the ruling PDP-Laban party, days after a rival faction nominated Duterte’s longtime aide, Christopher “Bong” Go, as its presidential candidate. Continue reading...

York Theatre Royal

Gladys Berejiklian has revealed a roadmap out of lockdown for the state, and an easing of restrictions for some parts of regional NSW. Here’s the full list of what you can and can’t do in NSW and the ACT

Kicking post-Brexit import controls down the road for a second time puts UK goods at a disadvantageIt came as a little surprise to anyone in the UK’s logistics industry or at its ports when the government announced its decision to delay – for the second time in a little over six months – the introduction of post-Brexit import controls on goods arriving in Great Britain from the EU.New checks on food and animal products imported from the continent will now not be brought in until 1 July 2022, a full year after they were originally intended to begin. The introduction of other requirements, including the paperwork that accompanies imports of food and animal products, has also been delayed from 1 October to next year. Continue reading...

Ursula von der Leyen says the union’s vaccination programme is now a success after its stumbling startWe did it,” said Ursula von der Leyen in her annual state of the union address last week. With more than 70% of its adult population now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, Europe is, “against all critics, among the world leaders”.Moreover, the Commission president said, the EU had exported half its vaccines: “We delivered more than 700 million doses to the European people, and we delivered more than 700 million doses to the rest of the world. We are the only region to achieve that.” Continue reading...

Analysis by National Crime Agency finds more than 1,700 UK criminal groups involved in drug supplyBritish organised crime groups are collaborating closely with former international rivals like the Italian mafia to import increasingly bigger cocaine shipments into Europe, a senior investigator has revealed.Related: Cocaine, the yuppie drug? Not now, say experts – its lure is crossing all classes Continue reading...

As the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials approaches, Ilse Cohn’s grandson calls for international law to ensure those committing atrocities today face retributionThe man who ordered the murder of my grandmother never stood trial for the crime. Nor did he stand trial for any of the other 137,000 murders he ordered during five short months in 1941.I know who he was. His name was Karl Jäger, and he was the commander of a Nazi execution squad in Lithuania, where my 44-year-old grandmother had been deported from her home town in Germany. He is just one of several hundred thousand men and women who were never brought to justice for the part they played in the Nazi holocaust. It’s estimated that up to a million people were directly or indirectly involved in holocaust atrocities, yet only a tiny fraction – perhaps no more than 1% – were ever prosecuted. Continue reading...

More of us are cooking or eating solo – it’s time to break free from the stigma of dining alone“We call it a crisis of loneliness. In France, it’s a crisis of manners. In China, it’s a crisis of family,” Dr Mukta Das tells me. “Every nation around the world has this idea that eating together is better, and that eating alone is against the norm.” An anthropologist at Soas University of London, Das is fascinated by the shift of eating from a predominantly communal, convivial activity to something we now frequently experience by ourselves.There are 8 million single households in the UK and in 2019 the Wellbeing Index revealed almost a third of British adults are eating alone “most or all of the time”. This shift may well have been exacerbated by lockdown, during which those who lived alone necessarily ate alone – but it was in motion long before, says Das, thanks to the “transformation of our family-oriented culture into something more individualistic”. Continue reading...

A new biography says paternity would have been impossible for the musician because he was sterile due to illness and an accidentBB King was born into poverty in Jim Crow Mississippi and raised on a cotton plantation before becoming a street busker then finding fame and fortune as a guitarist, singer and songwriter. But the “King of the Blues” also had a far from conventional private life, fathering 15 children, many of whom reportedly squabbled over his multimillion-dollar estate after his death in 2015.But they could not have been his biological children because he was sterile due to illness and an accident, a forthcoming biography claims. Continue reading...