World news | The Guardian

As the sun set, the air-con at my uncle’s place in Australia broke, turning it into a house of horrors. Never have I missed Manchester so muchIn 2014, I returned to my place of birth in Melbourne, Australia, to visit family. The 32-hour slog to the other side of the globe was uncomfortable, but it was nothing compared with what awaited me on the ground.One night, the uncle with whom I was staying went to Tasmania to visit friends. Suddenly, place transformed into a horror house. It was about 9pm, the sun was leaving the horizon and the lawn, which had been baked into straw, was getting a much-needed reprieve. Sweat had welded my polyester shirt so tightly to my back that it almost took my spine with it when I finally managed to peel it off. Continue reading...

Singer’s lawyer rejects accusation from staff member after police attended her home on Monday nightBritney Spears is under investigation for alleged battery after a staff member at her home accused the singer of striking her, US authorities have said.Police officers attended Spears’s home in southern California after the staff member reported the dispute on Monday night, the Ventura county sheriff’s office said. No one was injured. Continue reading...

In Sean Durkin’s new film The Nest, Law plays an 80s broker whose financial deals destroy his marriage. He and the director talk about making his character likable – and how US can-do culture changed class-ridden Britain

Administration official plays down president’s comment comparing Taiwan commitments to those in Nato, saying US policy has not shiftedA senior Biden administration official said US policy on Taiwan had not changed after President Joe Biden appeared to suggest the US would defend the island if it were attacked, a deviation from a long-held US position of “strategic ambiguity”.In an interview aired by ABC News on Thursday, Biden was asked about the effects of the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan and responses in Chinese media telling Taiwan this showed Washington could not be relied on to come to its defence. Continue reading...

Chiba made his name with the 1970s Street Fighter trilogy, before Quentin Tarantino’s admiration brought him fame in the westSonny Chiba, the Japanese martial arts movie star who found late-career renown in Hollywood after outspoken admiration from Quentin Tarantino, has died aged 82 from a Covid-related illness.Chiba died late on Thursday in a hospital near Tokyo where he had been treated for Covid since 8 August, his management Astraia said, adding that he had not been vaccinated. Continue reading...

Regional hub in New Plymouth – built on land seized from Māori in 1960 – is up against the likes of New York’s LaGuardia for Unesco’s Prix VersaillesA tiny regional airport in New Zealand that weaves a Māori story of love and longing into its architecture is in the running for a prestigious design award, up against international heavyweights including New York’s LaGuardia.Unesco’s Prix Versailles recognises architecture that fosters a better interaction between economy and culture, and includes a range of categories from airports to shopping malls. The finalists for the airport category include the New York LaGuardia upgrade, Berlin’s Brandenburg airport and international airports in Athens, Kazakhstan and the Philippines. Continue reading...

A familiar face at pro-democracy rallies in the city, Wong felt forced to flee after being named in a hit list of cultural undesirablesFor much of the last year Kacey Wong was waking up in Hong Kong and checking social media to see if friends had been arrested overnight. On a good morning Wong might see a photo of an oval plane window looking out over clouds or a foreign airport, a pictorial sign they had fled to safety.On one of the worst mornings it was the arrest of 53 campaigners, politicians and activists, many of them Wong’s friends, for having the gall to hold a pre-election poll. Continue reading...

Friday: ACT chief minister attacks Gladys Berejiklian’s handling of NSW Covid crisis. Plus: Australia-based charities fear for staff in AfghanistanGood morning. The chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory, Andrew Barr, has accused New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian of putting young people at risk by not toughening restrictions in greater Sydney, and has called on his colleagues to stop presenting 70% or 80% vaccination targets as “freedom day”. Berejiklian on Thursday told locked down residents across the state there are “exciting things to look forward to” when she introduces freedoms for vaccinated people once targets are met in coming weeks. Ahead of what is likely to be a testy national cabinet meeting today, Barr told Guardian Australia political leaders needed to be more frank with the community about when it will be safe to move past lockdowns, given the Doherty Institute modelling painted a much more nuanced picture than simply hitting certain vaccination rates.All Australians aged over 16 will be eligible for Pfizer vaccine from 30 August, coinciding with the anticipated arrival of an extra 5m doses of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines in September. Australia has now reached the milestone of more than half of eligible Australians having received at least one dose. The regional NSW lockdown was extended for at least a week until 28 August as the state set a new daily record of 681 cases on Thursday. Childcare providers across NSW are seeking urgent guidance, saying they are concerned centres may be inadvertently contributing to the spread of the virus. The call came as hundreds of Covid cases were reported in children across the state and more than 160 childcare centres were closed nationally. Continue reading...

The woman, who was trying to make the trip from Africa, was found lying next to two bodies and ‘in a bad state’, officials sayAbout 40 migrants are feared dead after rescuers recovered a lone woman clinging to an overturned dinghy that had been carrying dozens of people trying to reach the Canary Islands.A rescue helicopter carrying the survivor – a 30-year-old woman who appeared exhausted and shaken – landed at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria airport on Tuesday, after a cargo ship found her 135 miles off the coast. Continue reading...

Trump officials tried to convince him to take threat seriously and British experts ‘oddly pessimistic’ on defeating virus, says bookUS officials thought their British counterparts “were out of their minds” in aiming for herd immunity as part of Boris Johnson’s initial policy on dealing with the coronavirus, according to a new book about the global response to the pandemic.As the scale of the threat became increasingly clear in January and February 2020, officials in Donald Trump’s administration were trying to convince him to take the threat seriously, despite personal reassurances he had been given by Chinese president, Xi Jinping, that it was under control. Continue reading...

Analysis: whether Britain should recognise Afghanistan’s new regime, and how soon, is a fraught question for officialsWith the Taliban now firmly in control of most of Afghanistan, British government figures have been wrestling with what that means for everything from counter-terrorism to the drugs trade and aid.How soon should Britain’s battlefield foes be recognised as the de facto rulers of Afghanistan? What attitude should the UK take to the burgeoning resistance coalescing around former Afghan government figures as the threat of renewed civil war looms? Continue reading...

Jerhonda Pace, first witness at the R Kelly sex-trafficking trial, says the singer ‘slapped me and he choked me until I passed out’A key accuser at the R Kelly sex-trafficking trial returned to the witness stand on Thursday, saying he often videotaped their sexual encounters and demanded she dress like a Girl Scout during a relationship that began when she was a minor.Jerhonda Pace resumed her testimony in Brooklyn federal court a day after telling jurors she was a 16-year-old virgin and a member of Kelly’s fan club when he invited her to his mansion in 2009. Continue reading...

Australian consumers say they want durability ratings for white goods and electronics

Raffaele Imperiale, suspected of buying Van Gogh paintings on black market, considered one of Italy’s most dangerous fugitivesOne of Italy’s most wanted men, an alleged top drug trafficker suspected of having bought two stolen Van Gogh paintings on the black market, has been arrested in Dubai.Raffaele Imperiale, an alleged kingpin in the Naples-based Camorra organised crime syndicate, was arrested on 4 August, Italy’s state police and financial crimes police corps said in a joint statement on Thursday. Continue reading...

Sgt Geraint Jones of Devon and Cornwall force given final written warning by disciplinary panelA police officer who sent an offensive meme depicting the arrest of George Floyd to a WhatsApp group of colleagues has avoided losing his job.Sgt Geraint Jones received a final written warning by a police disciplinary panel after an Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation. Continue reading...

Historic England project aims to find ashes of fans buried at football ground slated for redevelopmentThe buddleia is pushing through the concrete of the Grosvenor Road stand at Bootham Crescent. Nature has reclaimed York City FC’s once pristine pitch, and knee-high grass sways in the breeze in the centre of the dilapidated ground.It doesn’t look like the site of a groundbreaking historical project, but the small holes in a carefully excavated site behind where the goal once was tell a different story. Continue reading...

From Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca to wildlife tourism in Nepal, we find out how the crisis has affected people in four travel hotspots – and whether or not they want the tourists to return

Biden’s hasty withdrawal removed leverage in talks with Taliban, says first female vice-president of Afghan parliament Fawzia KoofiJoe Biden delaying the exit of American forces from Afghanistan by just a month could have made a significant difference to the outcome of continuing peace talks with the Taliban leadership, according to one of the negotiators.Fawzia Koofi, an Afghan politician and women’s rights activist, said the chaotic withdrawal undermined all leverage that the US and the Afghan government had had with the Taliban at the talks in Qatar. Continue reading...

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She dated Elvis – then made him look tame with her growling, high-energy rock’n’roll. And at 83 years old, she still can’t quite embrace retirementIn 2019, Wanda Jackson announced her retirement from performing. She had been on the road for 65 years, during which time she had variously been a country star, a rock’n’roll pioneer, a gospel singer and a grande dame hailed as either the Queen of Rockabilly, or its First Lady. It was a career that had taken her from touring with Elvis Presley just as his career took off to collaborating with Jack White, but she was ready to stop travelling: she had suffered a stroke, “problems with my knees and such”, and Wendell Goodman, her husband and manager of 55 years, had died in 2017. She was, she says, “glad of the rest”.And yet, here we are, two and a half years on. Jackson is peering out of my laptop screen from her home in Oklahoma: 83, sharp as a tack, fully madeup, elaborately coiffured and brushing aside queries about what happened to her retirement with a chuckle of “it’s hard to get a good girl down”. Continue reading...

Founder of institute that has transformed lives of impoverished children fears return to ‘silent nation’ under Taliban ruleFor more than a decade, Ahmad Sarmast has taken impoverished children from the streets of Afghanistan and filled their lives with music. One, an orphan girl who hawked chewing gum in one of the most conservative areas of the country, became a conductor of Afghanistan’s first all-female orchestra.All that is now at risk as the Taliban tighten their grip on power. Continue reading...

Government urged to relax UK immigration rules after one in six jobs left unfilled since EU departureThe British Poultry Council has said food producers are facing serious staff shortages because of Brexit as this week’s partial closure of the Nando’s chain threw the spotlight on problems made worse by the fallout from Covid.The trade association said its members, which include 2 Sisters Food Group – the country’s largest supplier of supermarket chicken, said one in six jobs were unfilled as a result of EU workers leaving the UK after Brexit. Continue reading...

Bill Shorten says refusal to disclose details is ‘nothing short of a cover-up’ as Senate inquiry examines schemeThe Morrison government wants to keep its own taxpayer-funded legal costs from the robodebt scandal secret despite no longer facing court action over the program.This month the government again claimed public interest immunity when refusing to answer 19 questions posed by a Senate inquiry examining the scheme, according to an upper house committee report. Continue reading...

Barrott, 54, arrested in Elgin area of northern Scotland four days after death of his wife, Eileen, a Leeds nurseA man suspected of murdering his wife and then going on the run was arrested in Scotland early on Thursday morning. West Yorkshire police took the rare step of naming Mark Barrott, 54, as a suspect in the murder of his wife, Eileen Barrott, at their home in Leeds on Sunday.Barrott was detained by officers from Police Scotland in the Elgin area of northern Scotland at about 4.30am. He will be brought back to West Yorkshire for questioning in relation to his wife’s death. Continue reading...

NT judge dismisses prosecution bid to postpone Zachary Rolfe’s trial for allegedly murdering Indigenous man Kumanjayi WalkerIt remains unclear whether a Northern Territory policeman’s trial for allegedly murdering an Indigenous man during an outback arrest will be further delayed, just days before it is set to start.Cst Zachary Rolfe, 29, is accused of murdering Kumanjayi Walker, 19, who was shot three times in the remote community of Yuendumu in November 2019. Continue reading...

Book claims couple felt Queen’s response to their Oprah interview fell short of addressing problemsThe Duke and Duchess of Sussex believe the royal family did not take accountability for the concerns raised in their Oprah Winfrey interview, an unauthorised biography of the couple has claimed.Harry and Meghan used their March interview with Winfrey to make a series of explosive allegations against the royal family, accusing an unnamed royal – not the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh – of racism, the institution of failing to support a suicidal Meghan, and touching on troubled relationships with the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge. Continue reading...

NSW records 681 local cases and one death, extends regional lockdown as police issue 671 penalties in 24 hours; ACT records 16 cases; Victoria records 57 cases; Queensland reports another Covid-free day; Melbourne has now had 200 days of lockdown. Follow all the day’s news

A record number of people are expected to cross the Channel to the UK in small boats this year to claim asylum.Amid the coronavirus pandemic, more than 10,000 people have already made the dangerous and potentially fatal 21-mile journey across the busiest shipping lane in the world. On 4 August, 482migrants crossed the Channel – a record for a single day.The Guardian journalist Diane Taylor explains what is driving people to take the enormous risk

Posters in Ribadesella warn visitors unhappy about reality of rural life they ‘may not be in the right place’Some called in to complain about braying donkeys. Other tourists dialled up officials in the northern Spanish village of Ribadesella, population 5,700, to notify them of the mess left behind by wandering cows.“Last week we had a lady who called us three or four times over a rooster that was waking her up at 5am,” said Ramón Canal, Ribadesella’s mayor. “She told us that we had to do something.” Continue reading...

Former deputy PM is likely to takeover from Muhyiddin Yassin, taking the UMNO party ousted amid the the 1MDB scandal back into officeFormer Malaysian deputy prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob looked set to form the next government after gaining a parliamentary majority from the same coalition that collapsed earlier this week, media and lawmakers said on Thursday.The choice of Yaakob as prime minister would essentially restore the ruling alliance of Muhyiddin Yassin, who resigned as the country’s leader on Monday after infighting in the coalition cost him majority support. Continue reading...

In a country with shocking brutality against LGBTQ+ people, Alexya Salvador is using her faith to help others like herDesperate calls from LGBTQ+ youths contemplating suicide or from their parents after they have made an attempt on their lives often punctuate Alexya Salvador’s day. When they do, she drops everything to talk.As a transgender woman, she recognises the anguish in their voices. “I feel their pain in my body because I went through this,” she says. “My family went through this.” Continue reading...

As Melbourne notches 200th day of lockdown, premier says state has made tough choices and can beat virus again

Estranged from my parents at 17, I jumped at the chance to go on holiday to Spain. I danced, drank too much – and had a row that taught me about friendshipWhen I was 17, there was a lot I knew little about. I didn’t know about burning in the sun or how to use euros; I had never swum in the ocean.I was part of a big family and we were poor. As my parents were out of work, they couldn’t afford to take the nine of us on holiday. Continue reading...

Poorest areas house high proportion of asylum seekers, analysis shows, but north pledges to be welcomingPolitical leaders in the north of England have promised to welcome refugees from Afghanistan but said they must be distributed fairly across the country, as analysis showed the areas housing the most asylum seekers are among the poorest in Britain.A Guardian analysis has found that almost one in four of the UK’s 44,825 asylum seekers supported by the Home Office are housed in just 10 local authorities, nine of which are among the most deprived in the UK. Continue reading...

Abdul Rahman Khiti has approval for citizenship revoked after Guardian revealed sanctioned businessman among more than 2,000 people who bought passportsVanuatu has reportedly revoked the citizenship of a Syrian businessman who was granted approval to receive a Vanuatu passport earlier this year, after a Guardian investigation into the country’s controversial citizenship by investment scheme.Abdul Rahman Khiti is believed to be the first individual approved for citizenship of Vanuatu under the development support program, which allows foreign nationals to purchase citizenship for US$130,000, to have his Vanuatu citizenship revoked. Continue reading...

Interactive tool features more than 500 women who are often forgotten in the classical music worldTwo siblings, both considered child prodigies, dazzled audiences across Europe together in the 18 century, leaving a trail of positive reviews in their wake. But while Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart went on to be celebrated as one of the world’s greatest composers, the accomplishments of his sister – Maria Anna – were quickly forgotten after she was forced to halt her career when she came of age.However, a new tool is seeking to cast a spotlight on female composers throughout the ages, pushing back against the sexism, stigmatisation and societal norms that have long rendered them invisible. Continue reading...

‘I stood with you .. now, I need to be taken care of,’ says Nowroz Ali, amid calls for Jacinda Ardern to do more to help desperate refugeesIn hiding with his family in Kabul, Nowroz Ali says he is consumed by fear. He can hear gunfire in the darkness. He cannot sleep, getting up every time he hears a door slam.“At night time, I am shivering. I can’t control myself. The more days I spend here, the more worried I get – the Taliban have started looking for people who worked with coalition forces.” Continue reading...

West Mercia police satisfied no other parties involved in deaths of David Louden and three-year-old Harrison in KidderminsterThe deaths of a police officer and his three-year-old son in Kidderminster are being treated as a suspected murder-suicide.West Mercia police assistant chief constable Damian Barratt said that although the deaths of David Louden, 39, and Harrison Louden were originally treated as unexplained, the force was now satisfied no other parties had been involved. Continue reading...

Successful inner-city clinic, a joint initiative of Vinnies, St Vincent’s hospital, City of Sydney and local charities, offers a model

The Guardian and other UK media demand action for those who have helped report from Afghanistan• UK media repeat call for evacuation of Afghan colleaguesDear prime minister and foreign secretary,When British media organisations wrote to you earlier this month about the grave Taliban threat to Afghan journalists and translators who had worked with us, you responded almost immediately. You recognised their vital contribution to a free press by reporting on the British mission in Afghanistan and promised colleagues at risk a path to safety. President Biden did the same in the United States. Continue reading...

The performance artist on her new 10-hour work, rethinking her distance from feminism, and why she told Malcolm McLaren her avant garde covers band was ‘unmanageable’Anne Bean has been revisiting her past. On 21 August the pioneering performance artist is taking part in a 10-hour “durational live event” as part of PSX: A Decade of Performance Art in the UK. Not only did this require her to look back on five decades of practice – her past work, she tells me, is “intimately linked” to her present – but it’s taking place at Bermondsey’s Ugly Duck, a stone’s throw from the Butler’s Wharf studio in London in which she worked from the mid-70s to the mid-80s.Many artists at the time, including Derek Jarman and Andrew Logan, squatted in warehouses there, and in her time Bean has worked with everyone from slapstick clowns the Kipper Kids to artists such as Paul McCarthy and Rose English, as well as sharing bills with Psychic TV, Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti. She even opened for Roxy Music as part of the pseudo-pop band Moody and the Menstruators, an avant garde performance covers group she founded in 1971. Bean has often used sound in her work and loves music – her father was a classical and jazz musician – but Moody was never supposed to be a real band, more “a subversive exploration of the boundaries between art and music”. Continue reading...

Analysis: As the US freezes Afghan reserves and Germany halts aid, the new rulers may find they are far short of what is required to governAfghanistan’s new Taliban rulers are likely to face a rapidly developing financial crisis, with foreign currency reserves largely unreachable and western aid donors – who fund the country’s institutions by about 75% – already cutting off or threatening to cut payments.While the hardline Islamist group has moved in recent years to become more independent of outside financial supporters including Iran, Pakistan and wealthy donors in the Gulf, its financial flows – amounting to $1.6bn (£1.2bn) last year – are far short of what it will require to govern. Continue reading...

The German film director has announced two new books: a memoir and The Twilight World, about a remarkable second world war officerWerner Herzog is writing a book about Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who took three decades to surrender after the end of the second world war.The esteemed German film director’s take on the life of Onoda, The Twilight World, will be translated by the poet Michael Hofmann, and published next summer by The Bodley Head. A memoir by Herzog will follow in 2023, reflecting on his life and the decades he has spent in the film industry, creating films including Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, and documentaries Grizzly Man and Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Continue reading...

Scottish finance secretary says notional deficit of £36.3bn for 2020-21 does not undermine case for leaving UKScotland‘s deficit more than doubled to £36.3bn, or 22.4% of GDP in 2020-21, the highest yearly figure since devolution, but it should not be an obstacle to making the case for independence, according to Scotland’s finance secretary.Increased spending and falling revenues as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, compounded by the continuing oil price slump, increased Scotland’s notional deficit for 2020-21 from 8.6% of GDP in 2019-20, to 22.4%. Continue reading...

The choreographer felt the urgent need to bring happiness and relentless fun to the weekender she has curated for the Southbank Centre’s Summer Reunion series‘With the year we’ve had, we just needed people to have insanely, intensely engrossing, almost relentless fun,” says choreographer Jade Hackett of the weekender she has curated for the Southbank Centre’s Summer Reunion series. Working with music producer DJ Walde under the umbrella of ZooNation dance company, Hackett is taking over the Thames riverside terrace for a free mini festival, three days celebrating UK hip-hop culture, and just celebrating full stop, having been starved of live shows and social occasions during the pandemic.“It’s the first stepping stone to reintegration, bringing people together in a really safe way,” she says. “We’ll kick it off with music by Afrika Bambaataa, Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder, that’s the vibe; awesome social dances, the electric slide, Soul Train lines, it’ll be super fun.” Audiences can watch dance battles and performances from the likes of female popping collective AIM and Afrobeats dancers HomeBros, but there’s an emphasis on participation, with a series of workshops covering dance from the 70s, 80s and 90s as well as newer styles such as Litefeet. There are daytime family activities and evenings dancing to DJ collective The Midnight Train playing garage, grime, house, R&B, hip-hop and soca – a little carnival fix for those feeling the gap left by the cancellation of Notting Hill carnival for the second consecutive year. Continue reading...

Long-anticipated federal trial over allegations that R&B singer sexually abused women and girls

Former federal attorney general seeks declaration that media outlets never publish ABC’s unredacted defence without judicial permissionChristian Porter has revived an element of his defamation proceedings, by seeking a declaration that three media outlets never publish the ABC’s unredacted defence without judicial permission.But Nine, its subsidiary, Fairfax, and News Corp say such relief isn’t possible as the former federal attorney general does not own the 37-page document. Continue reading...

The oil firms have fled and an Isis-affiliated insurgency has engulfed the region. As foreign troops begin to arrive, hundreds of thousands face desperate journeys to try to find safety

Huge tapestry initially toured Scotland but now it has permanent home in purpose-built Galashiels galleryBeginning at the glacial formation of mountains and glens more than 420m years ago, spanning from the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 to the reconvening of the Holyrood parliament in 1999, up to Andy Murray’s Wimbledon victory of 2013, the Great Tapestry of Scotland – an ambitious project to render the nation’s story from pre-history to modern times – can be viewed for the first time in its new and permanent home from next week.Comprising 160 panels – finely stitched, vividly colourful and animated with detail – it is thought to be one of the longest tapestries in the world, at 143 metres – 70 metres longer than the Bayeux Tapestry in Normandy. Now hung in a purpose-built gallery in Galashiels, in the Scottish Borders, the panel were created by 1,000 volunteer stitchers from across the country working with more than 300 miles of wool over two years. Continue reading...