World news | The Guardian

The source of the rocker’s enviable eternal youth? In the words of the man himself, it’s avidly rooting out new artists into his 70s (and beyond)I keep reading that we decline in our 70s so I try to keep using my brain. Discovering new music opens my mind and the element of surprise keeps me connected. I feel like I’m mining for diamonds – and when you find the diamond, you know. When I heard Chaise Longue by Wet Leg I got really excited: it’s cheeky, with a wicked groove, but it’s the vocals – they’re almost metronomic. You could ask 100 people to sing it and it wouldn’t sound the same.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...

With rural areas of the country left to suffer, aid workers fear funds are drying up as global compassion fatigue sets inDavid Nazaire, a 45-year-old coffee farmer from Beaumont, a small village in rural southern Haiti, was getting ready to harvest when an earthquake struck his home and livelihood. Much of the farming infrastructure – as well as nearby homes, schools and churches – was damaged or completely destroyed. A month later, he and thousands of rural Haitians – those most severely affected by the tremor – are still waiting for relief, and are not expecting it to arrive soon.“The earthquake didn’t destroy our crops, but it did take everything else,” Nazaire says, outside a neighbour’s house, now a pile of rubble beneath plastic roof tiles supported by the remnants of concrete walls. “We were just getting ready to harvest, but that’s lost now.” Continue reading...

Service starting in December will be a charter train only available to those booking holidays through one French operatorWith more Eurostar trains now running again on routes from London to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, travellers have been awaiting news of ski trains to the French Alps and the reinstatement of other services.But recent news from Eurostar news hasn’t been good. This week the train operator announced that services to Marne-la-Vallée (for Disneyland Paris) wouldn’t run until late March 2022. Then it said no Eurostar services would stop at Ebbsfleet or Ashford in Kent until 2023. Continue reading...

Australia and US pledge stronger ties, EU calls for trade deal and Johnson refuses to rule out getting involved in a conflict involving the islandChina’s president, Xi Jinping, has vowed to resist “interference from external forces” as Taiwan welcomed support from major allies after a US-Australia ministerial forum pledged stronger ties with the island and the European parliament called for a bilateral trade deal.Speaking at a meeting of the heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tajikistan via video link, Xi urged members of the grouping to “absolutely resist external forces to interfere [in] countries in our region at any excuse, and hold the future of our countries’ development and progress firmly in our own hands”. Continue reading...

Enforcement of mask rules on public transport to be stepped up as coronavirus cases rise

Exclusive: Summary of sensitivity analysis to be presented at national cabinet says pandemic will continue to be ‘a fire fought on multiple fronts’

Tourism minister announces pilot scheme as NSW records 1,284 new Covid cases and 12 deaths

Ministers assemble for ‘half-time pep talk’ in packed room, contradicting official advice

The PM’s nuclear submarine ‘forever’ partners, Biden and Johnson are on a backslapping unity ticket of ambition on combatting global heating

Jails should not serve as ‘dating centres or media platforms to brag about crimes’, says ministerPrisoners serving life sentences in Denmark are to be prevented from starting new romantic relationships after it emerged a 17-year-old fell in love with Peter Madsen, the murderer of the journalist Kim Wall, while he was in jail.For the first 10 years of their imprisonment, long-term inmates’ contacts, by letter, phone or online, will be limited to people they already knew before they entered prison, under legislation tabled by the social democrat-led government. Continue reading...

My head was edging closer to the gap where it would be crushed. Knowing there was nothing I could do, I felt strangely at ease with my fateI had worked on and off at Argos when they needed seasonal staff since I was 17. By Christmas 2007 I was 21, and I’d picked up regular shifts again. It was December in East Kilbride, and that means it was cold. On this particular morning I was unpacking a delivery in the stockroom, where the heating wasn’t working. I’d come wrapped up for warmth, a long woolly H&M scarf in a looped knot around my neck.The stockroom was across two floors, with an industrial conveyor belt connecting the upper and lower levels. I was on delivery duty upstairs alone, with my colleagues downstairs. The only reason anyone would come up would be to use the staff bathroom. Continue reading...

Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle hopes meeting at his constituency will raise Lancashire town’s profileWhen Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, suggested to Lindsay Hoyle, her UK counterpart, that they hold the G7 speakers’ conference in “his district”, she might not have realised how enthusiastically the Lancastrian would embrace the idea.Hoyle said that Pelosi had asked, “We always go to London, can we get out of London?”, and so this weekend politicians from the world’s richest nations will be descending on the Lancashire market town of Chorley. Continue reading...

Six-year-old is now in Israel after alleged abduction by grandfather, four months after tragic accidentThat a single person survived when a cable car crashed in northern Italy was nothing short of a miracle.Eitan Biran, aged five at the time of the accident, is believed to have been saved by the protective embrace of his father, Amit, as the cable car plummeted to the ground. Continue reading...

She explored her gender and sexuality in the 20s, defied segregation in the 40s and inspired Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Now, a film is bringing her trailblazing achievements to lightIt seems inconceivable that someone like Pauli Murray could have slipped through the cracks of US history. A lawyer, activist, scholar, poet and priest, Murray led a trailblazing life that altered the course of history. She was at the forefront of the battles for racial and gender equality, but often so far out in front that her contributions went unrecognised.In 1940, 15 years before Rosa Parks, Murray was jailed for refusing to move to the back of a bus in the Jim Crow south. In 1943, she campaigned successfully to desegregate her local diner, 17 years before the Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins of 1960. Her work paved the way for the landmark supreme court ruling Brown v Board of Education in 1954 – which de-segregated US schools – to the extent that Thurgood Marshall, a lawyer for the NAACP civil rights group, called Murray’s book States’ Laws on Race and Color “the bible for civil rights lawyers”. Continue reading...

Newly released data from the state government shows the vaccine rollout over time by area

Evacuation of employees, not contractors, ‘splitting hairs’, says HRW, warning of days left to save livesAfghan employees who worked as contractors on UK aid projects fear for their lives after not being granted resettlement in Britain.The Guardian has been in contact with four families who said they had been targeted by the Taliban because they worked for the UK government, and have now been forced into hiding. Continue reading...

As they prepare what could be their final tour after 54 years, the British rock greats reflect on who they lost along the way, how they survived punk – and why Phil is skiving off his vocal practice‘Genesis have always been slightly below the radar,” says keyboardist Tony Banks. “We’ve never been part of a current trend; we don’t tend to get awards; we’re just sort of … there. People that like us really like us, though, and that’s all we care about.”“Below the radar” may be a strange way of describing a band who have sold more than 150m albums. But, then, Genesis have always been peculiarly self-effacing. From their early-70s, Peter Gabriel-fronted iteration, where they quickly ascended to the upper echelons of progressive rock with a combination of theatrical whimsy and fiendish technical complexity, to their slicker, poppier, staggeringly successful 80s years, they remain a wildly popular – yet pleasingly eccentric – proposition. Continue reading...

Arguments flare in the tiny, extremely conservative nation ahead of a vote on finally legalising abortionIt didn’t take long for the debate in San Marino to turn toxic. Soon after campaigning in the lead-up to a referendum on legalising abortion officially got under way, the walls of the tiny country, landlocked within central Italy, were slapped with posters from anti-abortion activists featuring a child with Down’s syndrome. The caption read: “I’m an anomaly, does that mean I have fewer rights than you?”Other posters featured the image of foetus alongside the message: “I’m a child even at 12 weeks, save me!” Continue reading...

Government says it’s ‘working hard’ to ease restrictions next week as country’s case numbers trend steadily down

Discovery made by a local girl comes decades after the bottle was put into the sea by schoolchildren as part of an experiment to monitor ocean currentsA glass bottle that was released into the sea 37 years ago by high school students in Japan has been found on the island of Hawaii, about 6,000km away.Students of the natural science club at Choshi High School in the eastern prefecture of Chiba released the bottle in 1984 as part of a project to investigate ocean currents, Japanese newspaper Mainichi reported. Continue reading...

Ruling on Duke of Edinburgh's will made to protect ‘dignity’ of Queen and her constitutional roleThe Duke of Edinburgh’s will is to remain secret to protect the “dignity” of the Queen because of her constitutional role, the high court has ruled. Philip – the nation’s longest-serving consort – died aged 99 on 9 April, just two months before he would have turned 100.After the death of a senior member of the royal family, it has been convention for over a century that an application to seal their will is made to the president of the family division of the high court. This means the wills of senior members of the royal family are not open to public inspection in the way a will would ordinarily be. Continue reading...

Prince’s lawyer claims settlement between Virginia Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein shields him from sexual assault lawsuitPrince Andrew can request the unsealing of a 2009 settlement agreement that his lawyer claims protects him from a lawsuit alleging he sexually assaulted a girl two decades ago, a US judge in New York has said.Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan said in a written order on Thursday that the prince could seek the information to support arguments that the agreement between Virginia Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein disallows her lawsuit against the prince. Continue reading...

Warnings Alberta facing collapse of healthcare system; Figures for people aged 16 to 24 in UK take in those who have been infected or vaccinated; more than 70% of China’s population now fully vaccinated

Review of 14 international studies suggests long Covid symptoms in children rarely last longer than 12 weeks

Figures suggest remaining applications being dealt with by the Home Office stands at 450,000New government figures suggest the backlog of applications by EU citizens and their families received by the Home Office for the post-Brexit settlement scheme could be cleared by Christmas.Quarterly figures issued on Thursday showed just over 6.1m applications had been received for the scheme that gives EU citizens, EEA nationals and their families the right to live, work, study or retire in the UK if they were in the country at the time of the EU referendum in 2016. Continue reading...

Friday: Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine deal with the US and the UK sparks international fury. Plus: everyone is listening in Liane Moriarty’s new novelGood morning. The US, UK and Australia’s defence deal has upset not only China and France, but climate experts too. Labor’s national secretary has appealed to Google over misinformation concerns ahead of the federal elections. And the controversial British journalist Piers Morgan has joined News Corp.China has denounced Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine deal with the United States and the United Kingdom, raising the question of nuclear proliferation. The criticism from Beijing came as Morrison said he expected a greater US military presence in the Indo-Pacific and deeper UK defence ties. Continue reading...

Independent Office for Police Conduct informed of incident involving 70-year-old driver stopped over broken brake lightThe Metropolitan police has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct over an incident where an elderly black man was hospitalised after officers pulled over his vehicle in south London.The 70-year-old driver was stopped by traffic officers in Bromley over a broken brake light on Monday afternoon. Continue reading...

Nuclear submarine deal with Australia draws criticism from allies and China amid fears of conflictBritain and the US are battling to contain an international backlash over a nuclear submarine pact struck with Australia amid concerns that the alliance could provoke China and prompt conflict in the Pacific.Boris Johnson told MPs that the Aukus defence agreement was “not intended to be adversarial” to China. But Beijing accused the three countries of adopting a “cold war mentality” and warned they would harm their own interests unless it was dropped. Continue reading...

Sigrid Kaag makes decision to go after lower house passes motion of censure against governmentThe foreign minister of the Netherlands, Sigrid Kaag, has resigned after the lower house of parliament passed a motion of censure against the government over its handling of evacuations from Afghanistan amid the Taliban takeover.In a parliamentary debate on Wednesday, Kaag acknowledged that the government’s slow or muddled response to warnings about the situation in Afghanistan meant some local staff and people who had worked as translators for Dutch troops in the country had not been evacuated. Continue reading...

Nitrogen dioxide levels far exceed average recorded on traffic-clogged Marylebone Road, according to a studyThe amount of diesel pollution on some new trains is 13 times higher than on one of central London’s busiest roads, researchers found.Passengers travelling on board a Great Western Railway carriage running from London to Bristol, procured by the government as part of a £5.7bn scheme, are subject to huge spikes in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution when they switched to diesel from electric. Continue reading...

York Theatre Royal

In My Son, the actor goes from scene to scene without a script trying to find his child, a bizarre new low for pandemic cinemaThe pandemic has subjected us to a brave new world of cinematic experiences: a seance horror on Zoom, Anne Hathaway trying to rob Harrods, Naomi Watts taking phone calls in a forest, films that have shown either admirable ingenuity during an impossible period or that it’s really OK, nay better, at times to just put your tools down and bake banana bread instead.Related: What does Covid mean for the future of pandemic movies? Continue reading...

Tessa Stines, who has EU settlement claim in progress, detained by Border Force despite rule changeA French woman who has an EU settlement application under way was detained and held by Home Office officials at a London airport for more than eight hours.Tessa Stines has been living in the UK for the past year and volunteering for a charity, while making trips back to France during that period. Continue reading...

News UK TV station will be rival to floundering GB News and go on air early 2022Rupert Murdoch’s News UK has announced plans to launch a national television station called talkTV, which will be a rival to the floundering rightwing channel GB News and provide a platform for the return of Piers Morgan.In a U-turn after similar plans were cancelled this year, News UK said it would hire “exceptional talent” for the station. Bosses believe Morgan fits in that category and is the biggest name to have signed up to the project. Continue reading...

Google queried over its strategy to prevent being ‘exploited’ by political figures such as Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly, who have been accused of undermining Australia’s response to Covid

Nicola Sturgeon apologises to patients experiencing long waiting times as she calls in army assistance

Armin Laschet and Olaf Scholz face their toughest grilling of campaign at the hands of two 11-year-oldsWhen Germany elects a new government on 26 September the average voter age may be over 50, but a week and a half before polling day it is children who are asking the hard questions of the candidates who want to fill Angela Merkel’s shoes.Armin Laschet, of the outgoing chancellor’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and Olaf Scholz, of the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD), were both left shifting in their seats in what has been hailed as their toughest grilling of the campaign trail – at the hands of two 11-year-olds. Continue reading...

The US, UK and Australia’s new strategic partnership has upset both China and FranceIt is a new three-way strategic defence alliance between Australia, the UK and US initially to build a class of nuclear-propelled submarines, but also to work together in the Indo-Pacific region, where the rise of China is seen as an increasing threat, and develop wider technologies. It means Australia will end the contract given to France in 2016 to build 12 diesel electric-powered submarines to replace its existing Collins submarine fleet. The deal marks the first time the US has shared nuclear propulsion technology with an ally apart from the UK. Continue reading...

Oxfordshire village life does not conform to outdated stereotypes, writes Chris RawlenceIn the piece on boy racers stirring up Cotswold villagers by their visits to Jeremy Clarkson’s farm (‘We’re just not used to it’: Clarkson farm shop causes stir in the Cotswolds, 10 September), I was sad to read the “frozen in time” and “Chipping Norton set” tropes that tend to characterise metropolitan takes on Oxfordshire village life. Chadlington is in fact alive with radical outward-looking initiatives in sustainable farming, arts in health, and sustainable tourism. The village has a thriving music community, being home to several composers and performers with international reputations.The recent Covid-inspired influx of Londoners, while making housing even less affordable for locals, was not driven by a desire to live a “chocolate box” life so much as to escape diesel particulates and find space for young families. And as for Chipping Norton, take a look at the recent local election map. There’s a red splodge there that’s chiming with the Green/Liberal Democrat Fair Deal Alliance that now runs Oxfordshire county council. The Chipping Norton set cliche has had its day.

Premier Jason Kennedy admits ‘we were wrong –and, for that, I apologize’ as he warns ICU beds may run out in 10 daysAlberta’s premier has announced sweeping new restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus, admitting the Canadian province was gripped by a “crisis of the unvaccinated”.The new measures marked a major reversal from Jason Kenney’s hands-off approach to the pandemic previously, and come amid warnings from frontline medical workers that the province’s healthcare system is on the verge of collapse. Continue reading...

Drawing has been in private hands since around 1910 and is now going on display in AmsterdamA pencil drawing of a broken old man, head in hands looking utterly exhausted, has been identified as a work by Vincent van Gogh.The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam said on Thursday that it had authenticated the drawing as being the work of the man himself. Teio Meedendorp, a senior researcher at the museum, said it was a “spectacular” discovery shining light on Van Gogh’s early career as an artist living in The Hague, a time less well known than his years in Paris or the south of France. Continue reading...

Ex-PM asks Boris Johnson what UK’s obligations would be under deal if China attempted to invade islandBoris Johnson has been challenged by his predecessor, Theresa May, as to whether the newly signed Aukus defence pact between the UK, US and Australia could lead to Britain being dragged into a war with China over Taiwan.The intervention came during a Commons debate on the three-country agreement, under which the US and UK will share sensitive technology with Australia to allow it to develop its first nuclear-powered submarines. Continue reading...

She was groomed as a child and has endured trauma – and to say she now ‘looks western’ is an insult to British Muslims

The French actor has directed her first film, a historical drama about women experimented on at a psychiatric hospital in Paris. She talks about the shocking story – and its resonance for women todayTwelve years ago, Mélanie Laurent was shooting Inglourious Basterds, playing a Jewish fugitive on the run from diabolical Christoph Waltz. At the end of each day’s shooting, Quentin Tarantino played music on set. After one particularly arduous day, David Bowie’s Cat People boomed out of the speakers. “We would dance. It was glorious,” she recalls.On the film’s release, Laurent was touted as France’s next big thing. Peter Bradshaw wrote: “She could easily be the new French star to make the crossover into the Anglo-Saxon film world, like Catherine Deneuve or Juliette Binoche or Emmanuelle Béart or Marion Cotillard.” Continue reading...

Student, 21, who said Israeli tourists raped her, launches attempt to clear her name in supreme courtA British woman found guilty of fabricating a gang-rape claim while holidaying in the Cypriot resort of Ayia Napa, has launched an attempt to clear her name before the island’s supreme court.In what lawyers described as a critical day for human rights in Cyprus, the 21-year-old Derbyshire student lodged the appeal as supporters protested outside the Nicosia tribunal. Continue reading...

Joe Biden has introduced a vaccine mandate affecting millions, but some countries have gone further

Staff at hospitals and care homes had refused Covid jab despite warning by Macron of September deadline

European Commission calls for action as it says 908 media workers were attacked in 23 EU states last yearEU governments have been urged by Brussels to take action to protect journalists, after an increase in physical and online attacks on members of the press.Issuing its first-ever recommendation on journalists’ safety, the European Commission called on EU governments to set up free contact points for media workers who face physical or online threats, in order to ensure a rapid response from police and prosecutors. It also wants to make sure journalists who become victims of crime have assured access to counselling, legal advice and shelters. Continue reading...

As she celebrates her engagement and fights for her autonomy, we celebrate the best of an artist who helped to define 21st-century popSpears previously flirted with dubstep on 2007’s Blackout, but it was Hold It Against Me that dragged the then-underground dance music into the mainstream. A decade later, and its blistering amalgamation of industrial EDM and saccharine pop melodies still feels every bit as audacious and innovative. Continue reading...

France’s foreign minister says move to buy nuclear subs from US in new defence pact is betrayal of trust