Mohammad Zaman Khadimi was forced to make an impossible choice as he fled the Taliban for sanctuary in Australia. Assistant news editor Shelley Hepworth recommends this profile by Ben Doherty about Khadimi, a young Hazara man who walked out of class one morning and into a world entirely changed

As pressure to reduce Australia’s emissions to net zero by 2050 increases, there has been a slight shift in language from the Morrison government on its climate targets. But as the PM points to a roadmap for reduced emissions, Morrison must appease his Coalition counterparts. Lenore Taylor and Adam Morton speak to Gabrielle Jackson about the shifting politics of climate action

Nine arrests in Netherlands over gang said to be linked to at least 15 bombings on German cash machinesDutch and German police have broken up a criminal gang involved in making video tutorials on how to bomb cash machines after one of its members blew himself up in the process.One suspect was killed and another was badly hurt in the Dutch city of Utrecht when a trial run went wrong at an illegal “training centre” for explosives attacks on ATMs, Europol said. Continue reading...

Struggle between cartels to control smuggling routes leads to third – and deadliest – prison riot this yearA bitter struggle between rival Mexican cartels to control cocaine trafficking routes in Ecuador has erupted in a day of bloodshed inside a high-security prison which left 116 inmates dead. Many of the victims were butchered with chainsaws or beheaded with machetes.As security forces battled to retake the Litoral penitentiary in the coastal city of Guayaquil on Wednesday, scores of bodies were found dumped in bathrooms and corridors, piled and burned in courtyards, or even stuffed into air ducts. Continue reading...

With its shocking developments, is Daniel Craig’s final outing as James Bond a slap in the face for 007 fans? Will it be an asterisk in the canon or change the franchise for ever?

Neighbours launched him, and since then the star of Memento and Zone 414 has seized his Hollywood roles with a unique intensity. He talks about death, drugs, being a dad and divorceAt the start of this century, Guy Pearce was sitting pretty. He had shaken off the frothy soap bubbles of Neighbours, where he was one of the show’s original batch of pin-ups, along with Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, and was proving himself a versatile film actor – first as a sharp-clawed drag artist in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, then as a clench-jawed cop in LA Confidential.Awaiting release was the existential thriller Memento, directed by a promising up-and-comer named Christopher Nolan. First, though, he heard whispers that Kenneth Turan, the film critic of the LA Times, had been singing his praises in a review of the military courtroom drama Rules of Engagement. Continue reading...

Roman Dobrokhotov, founder of the Insider, who worked on high-profile cases has been placed on a wanted listRussian authorities are seeking to detain a prominent investigative journalist, in another sign of increased government pressure on independent media, opposition supporters and human rights activists.Roman Dobrokhotov, the founder and editor-in-chief of the Insider news site is being investigated on charges of “illegally” crossing the border, and has been placed on a wanted list as part of the investigation, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday. Continue reading...

Singer held up her dirty and torn bag as evidence on Instagram: ‘They’ve destroyed everything’Shakira said two wild boars attacked her in a Barcelona park and destroyed her bag.In an Instagram story post, the singer held up her dirty and torn bag as evidence, which she said boars tried to carry off into the woods. Continue reading...

Irmgard Furchner, charged with aiding and abetting murder of thousands, detained several hours after abscondingA 96-year-old woman who worked as a secretary for a Nazi concentration camp commandant has been caught several hours after she absconded from her care home and missed the start of her trial in northern Germany.Irmgard Furchner, who was 18 when she started work at Stutthof camp on the Baltic coast in Nazi-occupied Poland, was due to stand trial on Thursday on charges of aiding and abetting the murder of thousands of prisoners. Continue reading...

Inspectors say force has failed to address ‘significant delays’ in handling of serious crimesInspectors have issued an unprecedented warning about public safety in Greater Manchester after finding serious failings in the region’s police force – four years after the alarm was first raised.The inspector of constabulary said he was deeply concerned that Greater Manchester police (GMP) was failing vulnerable victims of crime, with some waiting days or weeks for a response. Continue reading...

The UN must urgently appoint a special rapporteur on climate change and human rights to galvanise action on the biggest threat to fundamental freedomsClimate breakdown is making a mockery of human rights.Start with the most fundamental right of all: the right to life, liberty and security. Two million people have died as a result of a five-fold increase in weather-related disasters in our lifetimes. And given that 90% of these deaths have occurred in developing countries, which have contributed the least to global heating, the climate crisis is also making a mockery of the notion that we are all born equal – as the UN Declaration of Human Rights and numerous national constitutions assert. Continue reading...

China’s surveillance machine has grown with the aid of Chinese and international technology companies. But few have faced repercussionsAbdusalam Muhammad recalls local police interrogating him and his family in their home of Yakan in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region as early as 1995. At the time, his family was deeply involved with the local mosque. His father was the imam, and his grandfather was the mosque’s secretary. As for Muhammad, he said he prayed five times a day, was a “non-smoker” and a “well-behaved man”.

Many private schools may not reopen after staff laid off during lockdown say they will not return to the professionThe last message Mary Namitala received from the private school in which she taught was in March last year, the day all schools in Uganda were ordered close due to Covid-19. The message read: “No more payments until when schools open.”“My husband and I decided to leave our rented house in town and shifted to the village, to our unfinished house. We could not afford to continue paying rent,” says Namitala, from her home in Bombo in central Uganda, about 20 miles north of the capital Kampala. Continue reading...

The Māori who have been screwed by the system are once again being silenced and ignoredSorry means you don’t do it again. So goes a phrase used by Aboriginal protesters in Australia in recent years.The phrase references the national apology in 2008 by prime minister Kevin Rudd to Aboriginal peoples for the Stolen Generations, the thousands of children who were taken from their families. Continue reading...

Channel island’s government rejected third of French boats and ordered them out of its waters within 30 daysJersey’s government is bracing itself for a blockade of its main port by angry fishers and France said it would look at “retaliation measures” after a third of French boats applying to fish in the Channel island’s waters were turned down.The French maritime minister, Annick Girardin, said France and the EU would work on potential responses over the next two weeks unless the UK was able to resolve the dispute quickly. Continue reading...

Sentencing hearing told that Met officer ‘hunted for a female to rape’, as footage shows him staging a false arrest of his victimWayne Couzens used his police warrant card and handcuffs to lure Sarah Everard off the street before strangling her with his police belt and burning her body, depriving her family of the chance to say a final goodbye, a court has heard.Video footage released on Wednesday showed Couzens, then a serving Metropolitan police officer, staging a false arrest of Everard as she returned from a friend’s house in south London in March during a period of coronavirus lockdown measures. Continue reading...

Backlash after Mexican president bizarrely claims movement had been formed to oppose his administrationMexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has picked yet another fight with the country’s burgeoning feminist movement, saying it only started “two years ago” and bizarrely claiming it had been formed to oppose his administration.Asked on Wednesday about a march in Mexico City for International Safe Abortion Day, the president spoke conspiratorially of the women’s movement, alleging it had become “conservative” – a term he uses to deride his critics. Continue reading...

Southwark Playhouse, London

Group of whistleblowing doctors gave 10,000-page dossier to investigators last month with allegations against Prevent SeniorOne of Brazil’s biggest healthcare providers has been accused of covering up coronavirus deaths, pressuring doctors to prescribe ineffective treatments, and testing unproven drugs on elderly patients as part of ideologically-charged efforts to help the Brazilian government resist a Covid lockdown.Related: Trump may be gone, but Covid has not seen off populism Continue reading...

Vaccination rates are rising in much of south-east Asia and the Pacific after recent outbreaks, but some of the largest countries are falling behind

Navy chief Tony Radakin and SAS general Sir Patrick Sanders are frontrunners for the positionBoris Johnson has interviewed five candidates to head Britain’s armed forces, with navy chief Adm Tony Radakin and the general responsible for the SAS, Sir Patrick Sanders, frontrunners for the job.Defence sources said the prime minister had been advised to pick a new military leader with “operational experience” to replace the outgoing Gen Sir Nick Carter, whose credibility was damaged by the chaotic exit from Afghanistan. Continue reading...

Ex-model will be treated at the Priory before being sentenced in December following collision near Sussex homeKatie Price faces a possible prison sentence after pleading guilty to drink-driving and admitting taking drugs after a crash near her home in Sussex.She will be treated at the drug rehabilitation clinic the Priory before being sentenced in December. Continue reading...

Turkey’s president wants to shore up the truce because it has been ruptured repeatedly in the last 18 monthsTurkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian president Vladimir Putin have held face-to-face talks for the first time since the pandemic in which they discussed the future of the last pocket of Syria outside regime control.The leaders met in Russia’s Black Sea resort town of Sochi for Wednesday’s summit, Erdoğan sought to shore up a March 2020 ceasefire deal which ended a bruising assault by Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies on Turkish-backed fighters in north-west Syria. The fighting last year brought Ankara and Moscow close to direct confrontation and threatened Turkey – which is already home to around four million Syrians – with a new wave of refugees. Continue reading...

The world’s top coal consumer implements power rationing as supplies dwindle ahead of winterChina has told railway companies and local authorities to expedite vital coal supplies to utilities as the world’s second largest economy grapples with extensive power cuts that have crippled industrial output in key regions.As many as 20 provinces are believed to be experiencing the crisis to some degree, with factories temporarily shuttered or working on short hours. Shopkeepers were left to light their stores by candles, and there were reports of mobile networks failing after a three-day outage hit three north-eastern provinces. Continue reading...

Cardiff pays tribute to woman who became a model for best practice in equality and multicultural educationShe was a pioneer and a rule-breaker, an educator, community leader and race relations campaigner who met Nelson Mandela and rubbed shoulders with royalty – but always had time to call out the bingo numbers at a local event or sign a passport photo.In bright sunshine on Wednesday, a choir from the school Betty Campbell led with distinction sang her favourite song, Something Inside So Strong, as a huge bronze monument to her was unveiled in a Cardiff city centre square. Continue reading...

Taliban deny Morteza Samadi, 21, has been sentenced to death but family concerned for his safety after he was detained while covering women’s protests in HeratFears are growing for a photojournalist who has been detained by the Taliban for more than three weeks after being arrested while covering the women’s protests in Herat.Morteza Samadi, 21, a freelance photographer, was one of several journalists who were arrested at street protests at the beginning of September. All were quickly released except Morteza, whose whereabouts is not known. Some of those detained in Kabul have alleged they were badly beaten and tortured. Continue reading...

Bloc accuses Lukashenko of incentivising migrants to cross Belarus’s border with the EU

Spain brought Catholicism, civilisation and freedom to Americas, says Isabel Díaz AyusoThe rightwing president of the Madrid region has taken issue with the pope’s recent apology for the church’s “very painful errors” in Mexico, and said Spanish conquistadors brought Catholicism, civilisation and freedom to Latin America.Isabel Díaz Ayuso, touted as a possible future leader of Spain’s conservative People’s party, has a history of provocative pronouncements. Continue reading...

Latest updates: Labour leader addresses delegates for first time in person and says Labour will strengthen legal protections for victims of crime

We’d like to hear from UK employers and employees what the end of the furlough scheme will mean for their jobs and businessesThe government’s furlough scheme, introduced in April 2020, will end on 30 September.We’re interested to hear from employees still currently on furlough how they might be affected, as well as from employers. Continue reading...

‘Discriminatory’ banning of I Am Samuel, about a gay man’s struggles with his sexuality, criticised by activists and producersActivists and film producers have criticised a decision by the Kenya Film Classification Board to ban a documentary that tells the story of a Kenyan man struggling with his sexuality.They said banning the 52-minute film, I Am Samuel, amounted to “discrimination and persecution” of LGBTQ+ people. Continue reading...

We are raiding the Audio Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.This week, from 2017: After police failed to solve his son’s murder, Francisco Holgado infiltrated the local criminal underworld in pursuit of those responsible. He became a national hero – but at what cost? By Matthew Bremner Continue reading...

Analysis: plan to reduce abortions as birthrates plunge draws comparisons to The Handmaid’s TaleFar-reaching proposals from Beijing on “women’s development” have sparked concern over a pledge to reduce abortions, with feminists and academics pointing to the government’s history of control over women’s reproductive rights.On Monday China’s state council published its latest 10-year outline for women’s development. The lengthy document contained guidelines for China’s gender-based policy, but it was a short phrase that caught particular attention: a pledge to “reduce abortions conducted for non-medical reasons”. Continue reading...

Élysée says future talks must have substance after Canberra’s decision to cancel submarine contractFrance has said any future talks between Emmanuel Macron and the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, over the fallout from Canberra’s decision to tear up a €56bn (£48bn) submarine deal will have to be “seriously prepared” and have “substance”.The Élysée Palace has denied it is refusing to take Morrison’s calls, saying the president is “always available to talk on the phone”, but has admitted it is not in any hurry to resume contact with Canberra. Continue reading...

Short hemlines evoke ‘revolution and the spirit of youth’, says creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri

Temporary staff at meat plants in the Netherlands share none of the success of the booming industry as agencies withhold pay and threaten evictionRead more: ‘The whole system is rotten’: life inside Europe’s meat industryIn October last year, Lucian Roșu found himself unemployed and homeless in Boxtel, a town in the southern Netherlands. “I went to the railway station and slept there in the cold and the rain,” he says.A few hundred metres away, on the other side of the train tracks, was the headquarters of one of Europe’s biggest meat companies, where he had worked a few days before on the production line. Continue reading...

Kindergarten, year 1 and year 12 students will return on 18 October, the government is expected to announce on ThursdaySchool students in NSW will head back to class earlier than expected with the government bringing forward start dates by one week.The new timetable, agreed to by the state’s crisis cabinet on Wednesday, means kindergarten, year 1 and year 12 students will return on 18 October. Continue reading...

9.43am BSTWith that, we will wrap up for the night. Thanks for being with us. Here are the headlines for today:9.26am BSTThis is our WA COVID-19 update for Wednesday, 29 September 2021.

With travel restrictions in place, campervans provide a way of travelling with the family and are currently very popular in Hidaka of Saitama prefecture, a suburb to the west of Tokyo Continue reading...

This simmering 70s-set domestic drama is warm, expansive and funny – a pure pleasure to readThe times are a-changing in solid, respectable New Prospect, Illinois, where Christmas 1971 arrives in a whirl of sex, drugs and folk music, while the Vietnam war grinds on off stage. Inside the First Reformed church, the worshippers are attempting to ride out the storm, casting about for something rock solid and true. This might be God or family or a fresh myth to believe in, a 20th-century pursuit-of-happiness tale, self-authored if need be.New Prospect is in a state of flux but Jonathan Franzen remains reliably, defiantly Franzen-esque, tending to his faltering flock in fair weather or foul, and whatever the ructions in the country at large. Crossroads, his splendid sixth novel, comes billed as the first part of a proposed trilogy, A Key to All Mythologies, named after Edward Casaubon’s absurd, unfinished tract in Middlemarch. But, in the best possible way, it feels less like a beginning than like the latest yield of a familiar crop, or a newly discovered branch of a big midwestern family. Continue reading...

Seven years after fleeing army clashes with militants, 100 families eking out an existence on a hillside near the Afghan border are unable to return home“Don’t talk to me about the government. They don’t help.”Ninety-year-old Shah Mast is angry. He has been living in the cave he calls home for seven years, ever since an offensive by the Pakistan army against the Islamist militant group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) destroyed his home. Continue reading...

Authorities address concerns over 10-minute wait times on triple zero calls while staff reportedly struggle with workload

He has the most evoked name in Australia thanks to the Covid-19 modelling that bears it. Features editor Lucy Clark recommends Paul Daley’s profile on Peter Doherty, which ranges from politics, books, misinformation and that tweetYou can read the original article here: Covid, Twitter, and Dan Murphy’s opening hours: Peter Doherty on his not-so-restful retirement

Members of the Extinction Rebellion splinter group have targeted the M25 and Port of DoverMore than 50 people arrested in connection with an ongoing series of environmental protests targeting the M25 and Port of Dover have been released under investigation.Police officers made 53 arrests after the Insulate Britain demonstration at junction 14, near Heathrow, on Monday. Continue reading...

Secondary school students and staff describe persistent problems that point to scale of long Covid

Inquiry commissioned by WHO details sexual abuse, including rape allegations, during DRC outbreakThe World Health Organization has described itself as “heartbroken” after an independent inquiry it commissioned said scores of women and girls were sexually abused by aid workers during the devastating 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.The findings were described as “harrowing reading” by the WHO’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, while its regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said she was “humbled, horrified and heartbroken”. Continue reading...

Fund says ‘hundreds of hours a year’ are required to process requests that would be shielded under proposed Coalition legislation• Get our free news app; get our morning email briefingThe $250bn Future Fund says receiving 10 to 20 freedom of information requests a year is “administratively burdensome” and has confirmed proposed changes by the Morrison government would have shielded it from the kind of request that exposed investments in a company linked to the Myanmar military.Last month, the Coalition introduced a bill granting wide-ranging exemptions to the Future Fund from freedom of information law, prompting criticism that it was a “calculated response” to an FoI that revealed its $3.2m investment in an Adani company criticised by the United Nations for an arrangement that gave financial support to the Myanmar military. Continue reading...

Thousands of outsourced workers on inferior pay and conditions to fulfil demand for cheap meat, Guardian investigation showsRead more: ‘The whole system is rotten’: life inside Europe’s meat industryMeat companies across Europe have been hiring thousands of workers through subcontractors, agencies and bogus co-operatives on inferior pay and conditions, a Guardian investigation has found.Workers, officials and labour experts have described how Europe’s £190bn meat industry has become a global hotspot for outsourced labour, with a floating cohort of workers, many of whom are migrants, with some earning 40% to 50% less than directly employed staff in the same factories.

Airport workers occasionally remove stray cats and racoon dogs from the runway but turtle sightings are rareTurtles on a Runway probably will never rival Snakes on a Plane for dramatic effect, but one reptile has made headlines after an innocent amble along the tarmac at Japan’s second-busiest airport, delaying five planes.The turtle, which weighs just over 2kg, was seen moving slowly along the tarmac at Narita international airport near Tokyo on Friday morning, prompting a pilot preparing for takeoff to contact air traffic control. Continue reading...