Germany’s election takes places on 26 September after which Angela Merkel will stand down after 16 yearsOn 26 September, Germany will vote for the 20th parliament of the postwar era, after which Angela Merkel will stand down as chancellor after 16 years. Continue reading...
Everyone has a dish that defeats them – no matter how often they try to make itAll cooks, however competent, have a kitchen skill that defeats them. Some cannot make mayonnaise. Others have a blind spot with pastry. Me? I cannot make bechamel. The first time I tried, it split. It turned into a coagulated, grainy mess, like the milky sick that newborns regurgitate down your back when you burp them. It happened the second time. And the third time. And for ever after that. Now it’s as if the ingredients, the butter and the flour and the milk, can sense my fear and shame. They sit on the work surface staring up at me. We know what you want us to become, they say. We know all about the velvety white sauce you wish us to be. Well, dream on, sucker. Not today.Once, during lockdown, while making souffle Suisse, that indecent Le Gavroche confection of gruyere, cream and whipped, bechamel-enriched egg whites which certain puritanical religious sects would doubtless regard as profoundly immoral, it worked. I made a perfect example. Hooray for me. Nailed it. But it turned out the ingredients were merely laughing at me. Because the next time it split, and the time after that, and so on. Continue reading...
Beijing denounces Aukus pact, raising question of nuclear proliferation, as Morrison expects a greater US military presence in Indo-Pacific and deeper UK defence ties
Protests, citizens’ assemblies, local referendums and mutual aid groups are pushing back against attacks on civil societyThe past decade has been a bruising one for the health of European democracy. The dramatic authoritarian turns in Hungary and Poland have attracted most attention, but nearly all European governments have chipped away at civil liberties, judicial independence and civil society.With Covid accentuating many of the challenges posed by populism, disinformation and a collapse in public trust, the narrative of democracy labouring in deep crisis is now well established. Yet as the threats have mounted, so have efforts to defend and rethink Europe’s democratic practices. Continue reading...
CBS says it will drop X-Factor-style competition from celebrity-fronted show after widespread criticismA reality TV show that planned to pit activists against each other in an X-Factor style contest judged by celebrities is to be drastically “reimagined” after it sparked a backlash from campaigners.The Activist, which had been due to air in the US in late October, prompted incredulity among many campaigners and elsewhere when its format was revealed last week, with many labelling it a “tone-deaf” distortion of true activists’ values. Continue reading...
Star will have operation on hip injury, and will move 22 arena dates to April 2023Elton John has announced he recently suffered an injury in a fall, and has postponed numerous UK tour dates as he recovers.In a statement, he said: Continue reading...
by Helen Davidson in Taipei and Gavin Blair in Tokyo on (#5PKJ2)
Aukus described as ‘exclusionary’ amid French anger at scrapping of $90bn submarine deal with AustraliaChina has told the US, the UK and Australia to abandon their “cold war” mentality or risk harming their own interests after the three countries unveiled a new defence cooperation pact.The trilateral security partnership, named Aukus, was announced on Thursday by the three nations’ leaders via video link, and will include an 18-month plan to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. Continue reading...
Blinded by medical intervention as a baby, Billups became one of the leaders of a groundbreaking, world-shaking 1977 protest. He talks about what drives him and why Barack Obama loves his energy“My mother used to tell us we had to be really good,” says Dennis Billups. “There were always two strikes against us – so you had to hit the third strike out of the park.” The “strikes” were being Black and being blind. And growing up in San Francisco in the 1960s and 70s, both were potential sources of open discrimination. “There were times when, even walking in our own neighbourhood, we would get: ‘You’re supposed to stay inside.’ ‘Don’t you have a dog?’ ‘Don’t you have a cane?’” At times this could turn physical. “Some neighbours would turn water on us and stuff like that.” Finding employment was also a challenge. “Being blind, they didn’t have to do too much except say: ‘We’re not going to hire you,’ or: ‘We don’t think you can do this.’ So it was a glass ceiling, more or less. I’m sure with my twin sister there was a lot more, being a woman, African American and blind as well, but she was a hell of a fighter.”Billups is a fighter, too, albeit one whose principal weapons are determination, congeniality, optimism – and a mellifluous voice. Now in his late 60s, speaking on Zoom from the San Francisco public library, he still radiates an infectious positivity that helped him as a young man when he played a key role in a lesser-known battle for civil rights. Continue reading...
by Justine Landis-Hanley (now) and Matilda Boseley (a on (#5PK8W)
Paul Keating slams submarine deal, warning of US-China tensions; Australian nuclear-powered submarines will be banned from entering NZ waters; Victoria to ease restrictions as state records 514 Covid cases; unemployment rate falls in August but hours worked plummets – follow all today’s news and Covid updates
Emmanuel Macron claims ‘another major success’ after death of Adnan Abu Walid al-SahrawiEmmanuel Macron has said French military forces have killed the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, claiming “another major success” in the fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel.The French president, who recently moved to reduce French troop deployment in the troubled sub-Saharan region amid broad consensus that the intervention was not achieving its aim, gave no further details in his statement on Wednesday night, though he mentioned French casualties. Continue reading...
by Ruth Michaelson and Sayed Tariq Majidi on (#5PKN2)
One was a young footballer, another a dentist. Their shocking deaths haunt the families who could not stop their desperate bids to escapeWhen Zaki Anwari scaled the fence of Kabul airport, he was determined to escape. The 17-year-old footballer with the Afghan national youth team had taken a break from studying maths for his exams to accompany his brother as he tried to catch a flight. Zaki had always told his family he was not interested in going abroad, unless he could return to Afghanistan.But the Taliban takeover had changed things. Zaki did not have a passport but, as night fell on Kabul after the Taliban took control of the city, he told his brother Zakir that he wanted to leave. Zakir did his best to talk him out of it, but he would not let go of the idea. Continue reading...
Covid-19 has shown the effectiveness of local partners. If the sector is to respond and rebuild, it must redistribute powerThe UK’s cut to its aid budget comes to about £4bn a year. Such a dramatic reduction is a blow to many, but most of all to the local organisations who perpetually find themselves last in line for funding.New research by the Vodafone Foundation reveals that, too often, only a small proportion of philanthropic funding earmarked for African development reaches local, African-led civil society organisations. Instead, most development funding favours intermediaries in the global north and international organisations. Continue reading...
by Richard Partington Economics correspondent on (#5PKKQ)
Workers in depressed sectors or regions won’t be able to plug gaps in areas that have been quicker to recover, ministers are being warnedThere are signs outside almost every pub, restaurant and hotel dotting Torquay’s harbour: Staff wanted.“It’s been packed solid busy, you can’t get a table anywhere,” said Brett Powis, owner of three hotels in the area including the Riviera and Lincombe Hall. For the hotelier, staff shortages made it harder to take full advantage of the busiest summertime boom in the Devon resort for decades. Continue reading...
Government has prioritised rescue of current scholars but estimated 70 alumni are still in countryA group of former Chevening scholars have accused the British government of abandoning them in Afghanistan, where they say their lives are at grave risk from the Taliban.The UK government has prioritised the rescue of 35 current Chevening scholars who were due to embark on their studies in the UK before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, but an estimated 70 former scholars are also thought to still be in the country. Continue reading...
Lawyers documented deterioration in health of asylum seekers while staying in accommodationConditions in hotels used by the Home Office to accommodate asylum seekers during the pandemic are akin to detention centres, according to a report that also says accommodation is often sub-standard and sometimes unsafe.The report, Safe Environment: investigating the use of temporary accommodation to house asylum seekers during the Covid-19 outbreak, explores experiences in hotels and similar accommodation. It was conducted by academics at Edinburgh Napier University in partnership with grassroots organisation Migrants Organising for Rights and Empowerment. Continue reading...
Dating apps can be difficult and daunting at the best of times, and many users give up on them entirely. But for some the pandemic was a chance to reassess their priorities, and they were able to forge a much deeper connection
Her huge-hearted portrayal of Blanca has made Rodriguez the first trans performer to be up for a leading actress Emmy. Will she take the crown on Sunday? We join her for a Zoom call with a twistMJ Rodriguez can see me but I can’t see her. This is not the sort of existential issue that afflicted pre-pandemic interviews, but minutes before my Zoom encounter with the actor and singer I get an email from Rodriguez’s rep saying she will no longer be appearing on camera. This comes hot on the heels of another message saying Rodriguez, who this year became the first trans actor in history to be nominated for an Emmy award in a lead acting category, for her fantastic performance in Pose, would rather I didn’t ask her about the ballroom scene. Which is basically the entire world of Pose, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s era-defining drama, set in the New York underground vogueing culture of the late 1980s and early 1990s.I take from this nervy preamble two things. First, constantly being seen as the living embodiment of the importance of representation is exhausting, and curiously diminishing. And second, Rodriguez is ready to walk out of the shadow of her character on Pose: Blanca Evangelista, the no-nonsense “house mother” who takes all of queer New York under her wing, has a seemingly never-ending supply of wise words for them, and a heart bigger than any disco ball. Continue reading...
The pandemic has forced many of us to rethink our lives, not least of which is how we work. For me, it meant returning homeTen days before our birthday, I drove my 2005 blue Nissan Sentra over the Verrazano Bridge and let the tears roll out. He didn’t know it, but I was almost home. The Verrazano spills into Brooklyn, where Scott and I entered the world.We were born a little after 11am on 28 July 1994 in Maimonides hospital, fraternal twins. “Two boychiks!” my father boasted, still in his blue scrubs, as he burst into the waiting room. The cheering section – two grandmas, two grandpas – erupted. Continue reading...
Amid a global call to tear down offensive statues, one Australian city council is asking: what do we do with ours?A large bronze statue of a noble-looking white man stands in a park in central nipaluna/Hobart. Adjacent to the city’s bus mall, it honours William Lodewyk Crowther, a doctor and early premier of Tasmania.Crowther is praised on the accompanying plaque for his “long and zealous political and professional service in this colony.” But the plaque makes no mention of William Lanne, the palawa leader whose corpse he mutilated and skull he stole. Continue reading...
Experts say Aukus military deal underlines Australia’s increasingly close alignment with the US on China – and New Zealand’s relative distanceNew Zealand is not part of a new security pact between Australia, the UK and US, in what experts say is an illustration of the distance between the country and its traditional allies.On Wednesday, the three countries announced a trilateral security partnership, Aukus, aimed at confronting China, which will include helping Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines. New Zealand and Canada were notably absent. Continue reading...
Zalmay Khalilzad says militants agreed not to enter Kabul and to discuss future government before president’s swift departureThe US negotiator on Afghanistan has said that President Ashraf Ghani’s abrupt exit scuttled a deal for the Taliban to hold off entering Kabul and negotiate a political transition.In his first interview since the collapse of the 20-year western-backed government, Zalmay Khalilzad, who brokered a 2020 deal with the Taliban to withdraw US troops, told the Financial Times that the insurgents had agreed to stay outside the capital for two weeks and shape a future government. Continue reading...
by Eva Corlett in Wellington and Tess McClure in Chri on (#5PKF4)
Experts say it’s too soon to say whether measures have failed entirely but it’s already too late for many young peopleAs New Zealand’s average house price closes in on $1m, a generation says they’re being locked out of the market – and the glacial impact of government reforms may come too late, if it arrives at all.“It’s urgent,” says Isla Stewart, 20, a housing advocate living in Auckland, New Zealand’s most expensive city. “The government’s failure to quickly address the housing crisis could result in a generation being frozen out of the housing market. Disconnected from their communities, living in unhealthy, unstable housing situations.” Continue reading...
Minister says health officials found no evidence that any patient reported such side effects: ‘We wasted so much time running down this false claim’Trinidad and Tobago’s health minister has dismissed claims by the rapper Nicki Minaj that a cousin’s friend had become impotent after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine, saying that health officials in the Caribbean country had found no evidence that any patient had reported such side-effects.“As we stand now, there is absolutely no reported side effect or adverse event of testicular swelling in Trinidad … and none that we know of anywhere in the world,” the minister, Terrence Deyalsingh, said in a press conference on Wednesday. Continue reading...
The chair of the joint chiefs of staff sought to prevent the former president from ‘going rogue’, according to new Woodward book• US politics – follow liveJoe Biden threw his weight behind the top US military officer on Wednesday, saying he had “great confidence” in the general who, according to a new book, took steps to prevent the outgoing Republican president Donald Trump from “going rogue” and launching a nuclear war or an attack on China.Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, also defended phone calls he made to his Chinese military counterpart in the tumultuous final months of Trump’s presidency, signaling that the hitherto secret conversations were in keeping with his duties. Continue reading...
by Richard Adams, Sally Weale and Peter Walker on (#5PK32)
Former vaccines minister promoted by Boris Johnson after winning plaudits for efficient and fuss-free jab rolloutNadhim Zahawi, whose star has risen during the pandemic as vaccines minister, is to become education secretary after Gavin Williamson’s gaffe-prone tenure came to an end.Zahawi has been promoted by Boris Johnson after winning plaudits over the efficient and fuss-free Covid vaccine programme, a style that may serve him well in an education sector buffeted by Williamson’s more confrontational style. Continue reading...
The government must stop trying to re-enact old battles with Brussels and focus instead on building new relationsIt is usually worth paying more attention to what ministers do than what they say, especially when the subject is Europe. At the start of this week, the Brexit minister, David Frost, told the House of Lords that Britain was unafraid to invoke article 16 – the emergency suspension clause – of the trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) that Boris Johnson signed with Brussels last year. Days later, the government deferred the introduction of customs controls on goods being imported from the continent.The message is consistent to the extent that Lord Frost’s comments and waiving of border regulation both demonstrate that the UK was unready for Brexit on the terms it negotiated. But there is a difference between menacing rhetoric that is meant to assert UK power and policy action that surrenders border control. Continue reading...
Met makes announcement after looking at Lord Dyson’s report into 1995 interview with royalThe Metropolitan police will not launch a criminal investigation into the then BBC journalist Martin Bashir’s 1995 interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, the force has announced.The decision was made after examining Lord Dyson’s report into the controversial documentary, which found Bashir had acted in a “deceitful” manner by commissioning fake bank statements to get the interview, and which criticised the BBC’s internal investigation into the matter. Continue reading...
Police officer who was shot nine times is on trial for assault after allegedly attacking sergeant in confrontation over bathroom breakA Canadian police officer who was shot nine times by a colleague is now on trial for assault over the confrontation that began over a bathroom break.Constable Nathan Parker, 55, of the Niagara regional police, stands accused of assault with a weapon, intent to resist arrest and assaulting a police officer after allegedly attacking detective sergeant Shane Donovan. Continue reading...
by Angelique Chrisafis in Paris and agencies on (#5PJY2)
Salah Abdeslam says attacks ‘nothing personal’ and François Hollande ‘knew risks’ of targeting ISThe sole survivor of the jihadist cell alleged to have killed 130 people in Paris six years ago has told his trial the attacks were revenge for French airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, and that France had known “the risks” of attacking Islamic State.“We fought France, we attacked France, we targeted the civilian population – but it was nothing personal against them,” Salah Abdeslam said of the coordinated gun and suicide bomb attacks across Paris on 13 November 2015, which began at the national football stadium, continued at bars and restaurants and ended with a massacre inside a rock gig at the Bataclan concert hall. Continue reading...
The director’s latest film, in which he stars as a former rodeo star who travels to Mexico to save a friend’s son, is an inert disappointmentCry Macho, the new 70s-set film from the world’s most prolific nonagenarian director Clint Eastwood, has endured an almost 50 year journey to the screen, a journey that, after actually watching Cry Macho, is of far more interest than what’s ended up in front of us. After his screenplay was rejected in the 70s, writer N Richard Nash turned it into a novel before then pitching the exact same screenplay, which this time got bought by Fox. Eastwood was offered it in the late 80s but decided to star in The Dead Pool instead, while offering to direct Robert Mitchum in the role. In the 90s, Roy Scheider signed on but production was never completed. Over time, Pierce Brosnan and Burt Lancaster were also attached before in 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger picked it as his next role but stepped back when he became governor. As his term ended, he announced that it would be his next project but just as production was set to start, his affair with a household employee who mothered his child caused it to fold.Related: The Eyes of Tammy Faye review – Jessica Chastain nails gaudy TV evangelist Continue reading...
CBS programme has caused a social media storm for its crass choice of format and ill-qualified judging panelProducers have billed it as an exciting new twist on reality television: an X-Factor style competition between campaigners that will give them the chance to lobby world leaders at the G20.But The Activist, a show announced last week by the American network CBS, has already learned to its cost that people power can be unpredictable, ruthless and highly effective. Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent on (#5PJEQ)
Lawyers say government data for first six months of 2021 raises questions over possible racial profilingMore than 60% of EU citizens stopped and questioned at ports by British border officials post-Brexit are from Romania, figures have shown, raising questions from lawyers about possible racial profiling.Data issued by the government shows that in the first six months of the year 7,249 people were stopped either at ferry ports or on Eurotunnel and Eurostar vehicle and train services. Continue reading...
Un Mismo Equipo allows unemployed and often homeless people to advertise their skills to potential employersThe Covid crisis came scything through Alejandro’s* life with a speed, ferocity and vindictive thoroughness that stuns him to this day. Almost overnight, the widowed craftsman’s business supplying leather pieces to shops, markets and the military folded, his meagre savings gave out, his father died from coronavirus, the electricity was cut off and he found himself relying on food banks to feed himself and his teenage daughter.“Things were hard before the pandemic,” he says. “But if you’d told me one day that everything that’s happened to me would happen to me, I’d never have believed you. Continue reading...
A province that has long boasted of its loose coronavirus restrictions has also been the site of North America’s highest caseloadsA surge in coronavirus cases has pushed the healthcare system in the Canadian province of Alberta to the verge of collapse, as healthcare workers struggle against mounting exhaustion and a growing anti-vaccine movement in the region.The province warned this week that its ICU capacity was strained, with more people requiring intensive care than any other point during the pandemic – nearly all of them unvaccinated. Continue reading...
Police Service of Northern Ireland says the men have been detained under the Terrorism ActPolice in Northern Ireland have arrested four men as part of the investigation into the murder of the journalist Lyra McKee in 2019.The four men, aged 19, 20, 21 and 33, were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2006 on Wednesday morning. They were in the Derry area, and are now being questioned at Musgrave police station in Belfast. Continue reading...
Jean-Gabriel Périot’s slow-burn doc asks current students to re-enact films from a different political era and share their thoughtsFilmed in collaboration with students from Ivry-sur-Seine on the edge of Paris, Our Defeats is a snapshot of their feelings about 21st-century society and commitment, or lack of it, to political change. But it conducts this litmus test with a twist: having them first stage scenes from films, including largely soixante-huitard-flavoured ones by Jean-Luc Godard and Chris Marker, featuring disenchanted workers, fulminating strikers and revolutionary manifestos. And then – comprehension exercise-style – it asks the actors what they think of the ideas expressed in each.Confronted with teenagers struggling to define “trade union” or “revolution”, initially it feels like juxtaposing them with such fervent material is a passive-aggressive move on the part of director Jean-Gabriel Périot. There is indeed a striking gap between the often highly charged and persuasive performances they give, and the embarrassed bemusement with which many engage with Périot’s questions. But these rec-room Brechtian tactics seem to have a double purpose: to highlight the theatre inherent in all forms of politics while also to suggest that only by leaping between watcher and actor, and actively grappling with the concepts batted about, do they actually start to have any meaning. Continue reading...
by Justine Landis-Hanley (now) and Matilda Boseley (e on (#5PHTK)
Melbourne public transport will be shut for six hours on Saturday in a bid to prevent anti-lockdown protests; Deadliest day for NSW as state records 12 deaths and 1,259 cases; Berejiklian government will ‘seek legal advice’ over venues refusing entry to unvaccinated people; Victoria records 423 cases and two deaths; no new cases in Qld – follow updates live
The movement launched a generation of leftist activists –and gave them a vision of real changeI sprinted down 7th Avenue, down 6th Avenue, across Canal Street. Trucks and cars stood still as the bodies flooding the street halted their movement. People walked out of stores to cheer. Children pressed their faces to backseat windows while parents held up peace signs from the front.Minutes earlier, I’d been standing in a crowd in New York City’s Union Square. Then the running had commenced, outpacing the police as we took the streets on our way to join another march. Continue reading...
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