1,190 alcohol-specific deaths in 2020 raise fears Covid has undermined progress with minimum pricing

Army says warships, anti-submarine aircraft and fighter planes sent to the south-west and south-east of islandChina has launched live-fire air and sea exercises near Taiwan in response to what it called “external interference and provocations by Taiwan independence forces”.According to a statement from Col Shi Yi, the spokesperson of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command, warships, anti-submarine aircraft and fighter planes were dispatched to the south-west and south-east of Taiwan on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Warsaw says it will shut down supreme court chamber that Brussels says is a breach of EU lawPoland has told the European Union it will shut down a chamber at its supreme court devoted to disciplining judges, an issue that has been at the heart of a dispute between Warsaw and Brussels.The Polish government said on Tuesday that it had sent a letter to the European Commission on Monday, the deadline for Warsaw to inform the EU’s executive branch of how it would proceed after the EU’s top court said the chamber undermined judicial independence and contravened EU law. Continue reading...

New Zealand will go into a national lockdown on Tuesday night after detecting one case of Covid-19, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced on Tuesday. ‘Delta has been called a gamechanger and it is,’ Ardern said, adding that her government had ‘planned for this eventuality’.

Jesse Vinaccia was jailed for more than eight years over the death of his girlfriend’s son in 2016A man found guilty of killing his girlfriend’s baby son will be allowed to appeal the conviction, after a Victorian court agreed to hear from forensic experts who he says contradict evidence given during his trial.Jesse Vinaccia was found guilty of child homicide and sentenced to eight and a half years’ jail in 2019, in part because of evidence about so-called “shaken baby syndrome”. Continue reading...

Understaffed and underpowered, a Brussels taskforce tries to fight a fake news tide that threatens to undermine the union itselfIn April 2020, near the start of the global pandemic, Felix Kartte was working 14-hour shifts as an EU policy officer, struggling to monitor a barrage of coronavirus-linked disinformation.Articles claiming that the pandemic was a hoax, that it was caused by 5G, that it could be cured by hydroxychloroquine or alternative medicine were going viral across the continent – part of a global phenomenon the World Health Organization warned was becoming an “infodemic.” Kartte and colleagues in StratCom, the EU diplomatic service’s strategic communications division, could detect what they say were patterns of Covid-denier and anti-vaxxer disinformation linked to Russia and to a lesser extent China, being disseminated in several languages across Europe. Continue reading...

Two women’s escape from the law takes on racial undertones in a thriller that veers boldly from humorous to harrowingSouth African masculinity does not come off at all well in this off-kilter drama, which pits an improbable number of gender, race and class tensions against each other but remains watchable throughout. Set in the striking, desolate landscape of the Karoo desert outside Cape Town, it’s a Thelma and Louise-like tale of two women on the run from predatory menfolk, although the cop pursuing them is another woman with her own man-related issues. Nobody’s hands are particularly clean.It’s clear from the opening wedding scene between poor, beautiful Natalie (Nicole Fortuin), who is Black, and awkward white cop Bakkies that this is not a match made in heaven. Things don’t improve on their wedding night, which ends in a rape and a killing, with Natalie fleeing the scene on horseback in her blood-stained wedding dress. She seeks sanctuary with her wayward white “sister” Poppie (Izel Bezuidenhout), who is eight months pregnant but still up for some outlaw high-jinks. They are not actually sisters: Natalie’s mother worked as a nanny for Poppie’s, so their relationship is strained from the outset. Continue reading...

The Broadway favourite, who died of complications from Covid last summer, is remembered by his wife and co-starWhen you’re on Broadway and suddenly find out that your show is closing, you feel this wave of sadness. As a cast member, there was nothing you could have done to save it. You didn’t write the script; you didn’t call the shots. You just had to show up, and smile, and dance, and perform, and give it your all every day. Your cast has become like your family, the theatre like your home, and your dressing room like your own personal bedroom in that house, your space filled with photos, cards, and memories. After your last show, you have to take that all down, pack everything into a box, and walk out of the theatre as it goes dark.Related: Nick Cordero: Broadway star dies aged 41 of coronavirus complications Continue reading...

Crescent-shaped landmass 50km south of Minami Ioto could disappear due to erosionThe 6,000-plus islands that make up the Japanese archipelago have a new addition, after scientists said an undersea volcanic eruption 1,200km (745 miles) south of Tokyo had created a new landmass.The island was formed in the Pacific Ocean about 50km south of Minami Ioto, the southernmost island of the Ogasawara group. Continue reading...

Following the Taliban’s military takeover of the country, westerners continue to leave. Afghans hoping to escape Taliban rule have gathered in Kabul, with many making desperate attempts to flee. There was chaos at the airport, where troops used guns and helicopters to clear the runways, and several people died in frantic last-minute attempts to escape by clinging to departing planes

Ministers are expected to announce a ‘bespoke’ scheme similar to that put in place for Syrians in 2014

PM Jacinda Ardern warns this is ‘only chance’ to stop spread of suspected Delta variant

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says assisting employees to get jab may protect wellbeing but was ‘not without some risk’

More Britons than ever are flocking to wild places – but you need more than a mobile phone to avoid dangerLast month, I spent five days walking across the Peak District during that wonderful week of searing heat. Along the way, I ran into one tired-looking older gentleman who had no map and a scrounged bottle of water, a group of “lads” with an insufficient tourist map and no plan, and a lady unable to read her map.

A new photo book documents Marvel Harris’s gender reassignment surgery, as well as confronting his struggles with autism and depression Continue reading...

Five years after Willie Kimani’s death, his father is still waiting for a resolution. But as killings continue, cases like his pile up within a crippled justice systemPaul Kinuthia will never forget the moment he saw his son’s body lying on the bank of the river he played in as a child. He threw his hands up in despair and begged God to intervene.It has been five years since Kinuthia’s son, Willie Kimani, a lawyer, was murdered along with his client, Josephat Mwenda and driver, Joseph Muiruri, in Nairobi in June 2016. At the time, Kimani was representing Mwenda in court, after Mwenda had been shot and injured by police. Continue reading...

Despite the risks, Anchana Heemmina wants justice for victims of the Malay Muslims’ decades-old insurgency – and for herselfMuch of Anchana Heemmina’s work involves listening to stories of immeasurable pain, all part of her campaign to stop the cycle of violence that has long haunted Thailand’s troubled southern provinces.Her work striving for human rights and to prevent torture by state authorities has put Heemmina’s life in danger. Continue reading...

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on the security council to 'use all tools at its disposal to suppress the global terrorist threat in Afghanistan' and guarantee that basic human rights will be respected. Ashraf Ghani left Afghanistan on Sunday as the Taliban took over the country 20 years after they were ousted by a US-led invasion. 'We are receiving chilling reports of severe restrictions on human rights throughout the country,' said Guterres. 'I am particularly concerned by accounts of mounting human rights violations against the women and girls of Afghanistan'.

The task facing the new head of state will be more challenging than 1996. But who is in the running for a governing role?Last time the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan – in 1996 – there was never any question of what form of government they would install and who would rule the country. They were filling a vacuum, and Mullah Mohammed Omar, the reclusive cleric who had led the movement since its beginnings two years earlier, took charge.Then, Kabul was a shattered husk, with a tiny hungry, scared population, almost no economic activity, no telephones and public transport provided by ancient Russian-made cars or 1970s buses once driven from Germany. The Taliban could impose whatever they wanted. Continue reading...

Analysis: Difficult to predict how China will deal with its volatile neighbour, but Uyghur issue could prove contentiousThe US’s hasty departure from Afghanistan has provided much material for China’s propaganda agencies to discredit Washington’s foreign policy. But Beijing is also treading a careful line in navigating an increasingly uncertain security situation in one of its most volatile neighbours.On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, said that while Beijing will “continue developing good-neighbourly, friendly and cooperative relations with Afghanistan”, it also urges the Taliban to “ensure that all kinds of terrorism and crimes can be curbed so that the Afghan people can stay away from war and rebuild their homeland”. Continue reading...

The puzzle enthusiast and publisher is credited with turning the grid-based maths problem into a worldwide phenomenonMaki Kaji, a Japanese publisher who popularised the numbers puzzle sudoku played daily by millions around the world, has died from cancer aged 69.A university dropout who worked in a printing company before founding Japan’s first puzzle magazine, Kaji took hints from an existing number puzzle to create what he later named “sudoku” – a contraction of the Japanese for “every number must be single” – sometime in the mid-80s. Continue reading...

New Zealand police are looking for the baby’s mother, saying they are worried she needs ‘urgent medical attention’The body of a baby has been discovered at a recycling facility in south Auckland, New Zealand police have said.The baby, believed to be a newborn, was discovered at the plant in the suburb of Onehunga on Monday evening, detective inspector Scott Beard said in a statement. Continue reading...

Rich guests – including a spaced-out Jennifer Coolidge – rub shoulders with downtrodden workers on a holiday from hell, in Mike White’s superb satire about inequalityThe White Lotus is Big Little Lies with another two and a half turns of the screw – an equally sumptuously set miniseries with a mystery fatality at its heart. But this time, its subject is the monstrousness of affluence rather than mere snobbery.We open with newlywed Shane (Jake Lacy) batting away questions from a friendly couple in an airport departure lounge about where his wife is, as he gazes down at cargo labelled “Human remains” that is being loaded on to their flight. Then we flash back a week to his arrival (with his starry-eyed wife Rachel – Alexandra Daddario) at the exclusive White Lotus spa in Hawaii, as part of a similarly Waspy group of guests. Continue reading...

A lawsuit, filed Friday, alleges the Nobel laureate plied a girl with drugs and alcohol and abused her over six weeks in 1965A new lawsuit alleges that Bob Dylan, the Nobel-winning folk singer-songwriter, plied a 12-year-old girl with drugs and alcohol before sexually abusing her in 1965.The lawsuit alleges that the Times They Are A-Changin’ singer “befriended and established an emotional connection with the plaintiff”, identified in Manhattan supreme court papers, obtained by the Guardian, only as “JC” and groomed her over the course of six weeks in April and May 1965. Continue reading...

Tuesday: Chaos at Kabul international airport as residents attempt to flee. Plus: could we avoid the climate crisis by sleeping for a year?Good morning. Desperate scenes continue in Afghanistan as civilians die attempting to flee the country after the Taliban’s seizure of Kabul. Meanwhile, Australia’s Covid crisis continues to worsen, with more areas in lockdown and fears NSW case numbers could skyrocket.US and other allied troops struggled to reopen Kabul airport after seven people were killed in chaotic scenes as desperate civilians converged on the only route out of the Afghan capital. Videos widely shared on social media showed desperate Afghans trying to cling to a US military plane as it departed Kabul and then falling to their deaths. US president Joe Biden is speaking on the situation in Afghanistan at the White House this morning after bipartisan criticism over his lack of any formal comments on what has been dubbed “the biggest crisis of his presidency”. In the UK, Boris Johnson is under pressure from his own MPs to urgently set up a new resettlement scheme for Afghan refugees while French president Emmanuel Macron said the European Union would be setting up an initiative to thwart the expected arrivals of refugees as divisions over immigration in Europe reopen. Continue reading...

Britain will use all the means at its disposal, including sanctions and diplomacy, to hold the Taliban to account in Afghanistan, foreign secretary Dominic Raab said.In his first public appearance since the crisis began, Raab said that 'everyone was caught by surprise by the pace and the scale of the Taliban takeover', in which Kabul fell to the Islamist group over the weekend. Britain, which had initially committed 600 members of the armed forces to evacuate British nationals and former British staff, will shortly have 900 troops in Kabul.

Case has raised questions about freedom to research Poland’s wartime pastA Polish appeals court has overturned a ruling against two leading Holocaust historians accused of defamation, in a closely watched case that raised questions about the freedom to research Poland’s second world war past.The civil case was brought against Prof Barbara Engelking and Prof Jan Grabowski for a book they co-edited about the complicity of Catholic Poles in the genocide of Jews during Nazi Germany’s occupation of Poland. Continue reading...

Singer earlier denied accusation made by teenager that he had sexually assaulted her while she was drunkThe Chinese-Canadian pop star Kris Wu has been arrested on suspicion of rape in a high-profile case that followed an accusation that the singer had sexually assaulted a 17-year-old while she was drunk and lured young women into sexual relationships.The prosecutor’s office of the Beijing district of Chaoyang said in a one-sentence statement that Wu’s arrest was formally approved but gave no details of the charges. Continue reading...

Police looking into placards seen at demonstrations against Covid health passFrench prosecutors have launched hate speech and incitement of violence investigations into antisemitic banners seen at demonstrations against the country’s coronavirus health pass, which is now required for many daily activities.At recent anti-health-pass demonstrations, protesters have brandished placards featuring syringes forming swastikas, wearing yellow stars or carrying banners bearing the word “Qui?” (who?), which has emerged as the latest antisemitic slogan of the far right and conspiracy theorists. Continue reading...

Aysha Khanom claims discrimination after Leeds Beckett accused her of using ‘racist language’ in tweetsAn academic is suing Leeds Beckett University after she was dropped from her advisory role over tweets calling a mixed-race man a “house negro”, alleging the decision was discriminatory because of her belief in critical race theory and Black radicalism.The university ended its association with the academic adviser Aysha Khanom after accusing her of “racist language” in relation to tweets using the terms “house negro” and “coconut” – the former in a question. Continue reading...

A debut feature written and directed by an Irish peer creates the wintry atmosphere of the best ghost storiesWho knows what this says about industry accessibility, but here’s a rare chance to see a genre movie directed by an actual peer of the realm. Randal Plunkett – 21st baron of Dunsany, interviewed in the Guardian this month – has taken leave from rewilding his estate to turn out a literary chiller about the relationship between a boozy blocked writer and the itinerant waif she takes in after a drunken car shunt. It’s the kind of potential folly that’s meant to have critics sharpening their knives. In fact, while it’s not devoid of first-feature fumbles and stumbles, and carries over the movies’ traditionally wobbly estimation of How Writing Gets Done, The Green Sea’s stronger stretches invoke a wintry atmosphere that suggests Plunkett has spent his leisure time in the library with many of the right ghost stories.The smartest choice was made in the casting, with the deployment of Katharine Isabelle, Canadian star of the Ginger Snaps trilogy. Lending heart and spirit to Plunkett’s troubled scribe Simone, a snarly recluse in death-metal T-shirts that scream “keep your distance”, Isabelle also fosters a credible sisterly bond with newcomer Hazel Doupe; her response to news that her houseguest turned home help is a boyband aficionado proves winningly tart. Continue reading...

Thousands of Afghans and foreign nationals have surged on to the tarmac at Kabul airport trying to get a place on a flight out of the country, amid chaotic scenes that unfolded as the Taliban took control of the city. Fearful that the Taliban may reimpose the brutal rule they enforced before 2001, Afghans are seeking ways out of the country, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings

Israel says its forces came under fire while trying to arrest a suspect, and none of its troops were injuredIsraeli troops have clashed with Palestinian gunmen during a late-night arrest raid in the occupied West Bank, killing four Palestinians in one of the deadliest battles in the area in years, Palestinian health officials said.The incident occurred in Jenin, a city in the northern West Bank where tensions have been high since a man was killed in fighting with Israel earlier this month. Continue reading...

Upending arthouse tropes with musical numbers and lashings of sex, this witty debut about a Peruvian domestic worker refuses to see its heroine as a victimWriter-director María Paz González’s first feature takes a well-worn miserabilist trope out of the arthouse drawer – a domestic worker struggles with homesickness and faces economic inequality – and upcycles it with warmth and wit to make something quite original. It’s even funny and upbeat in its final lap. It’s something of a shock, since so many films about hard-up migrant women who go in search of better lives abroad end up with their protagonists grieving, dead or punished in some other way.It’s hard to imagine Lina (Magaly Solier) would ever let anything like poverty or despair cramp her natural style. Plucky, hard-working and sexy AF, she’s sometimes down but never out. Originally from Peru, where she has left a fast growing-up son with her mother and ex-husband, Lina lives in Santiago, Chile, where she works for a wealthy family, mostly looking after teenage Clara while Clara’s dad is away, as he always is, on business. The two of them have a giggly, conspiratorial bond, more like cousins than employer and employee. When she’s not with Clara, lonely Lina enjoys quick and dirty hook-ups with an assortment of men, as well as daydreaming that she is the star of movie-musical sequences. González films these with aplomb, spoofing Esther Williams one minute, dressing up Lina as a chorus line Virgin Mary the next. Solier, meanwhile, busts out a lovely, expressive singing voice. Continue reading...

The narrative on the cause of Covid transmission has also shifted – from essential workers and families to non-compliant lawbreakers

Australia sends 250 troops for rescue mission but ex-defence force chief says ‘we’ve just left it far too late’The Australian government has been accused of waiting far too long to organise a military evacuation mission to Afghanistan, as it sends 250 defence force personnel to the region in a last-ditch bid to help people flee the Taliban.Amid shock at the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, the Australian government promised to “continue to work with key partners in the days ahead” to seek the safe passage of more than 130 Australians in the country, along with Afghan nationals who worked alongside its troops and diplomats, and humanitarian visa holders. Continue reading...

The UK defence secretary has admitted 'some people will not get back' as Britain tries to evacuate Afghan allies from Kabul, along with its own citizens, with British forces aiming to repatriate more than 1,000 people a day. Ben Wallace appeared to hold back tears as he spoke to LBC radio about the effort to repatriate Britons and process visas for Afghan interpreters and other staff following the Taliban takeover

ACT records 19 new Covid cases; snap lockdown for Greater Darwin and Katherine; NSW reports 478 new cases and seven deaths; Victoria records 22 cases, Queensland zero; Operation Stay Home begins across NSW. Follow all the day’s news

As Melbourne continues to record new Covid cases, Victoria has announced an extension of the lockdown. Is there a travel radius limit? Is mask-wearing compulsory? Is there a curfew? Here are the rules

Before they were superstars, Joan Rivers kissed and tried to kill a young Barbra Streisand on stage – or so she claimed. Now her tall tale has inspired drama The Funny GirlsIn the late 1950s, a 25-year-old struggling actor named Joan Molinsky – later to become better known as the acerbic comedian Joan Rivers – landed a small part as a lesbian stalker in an off-off-Broadway play called Seaweed. “The primary qualification for being cast,” her biographer Leslie Bennetts later wrote, seemed to be “that she had lots of relatives who would come see her in a play”. The significance of Seaweed from a historical point of view is that she was starring opposite another superstar-in-waiting, whom she described in her memoir Enter Talking as “a skinny high school girl with a large nose and a pin that said, ‘Go Erasmus!’”.This was 17-year-old Barbra Streisand, who played her unlucky victim. Rivers recalled “a big love scene in which I told Barbra I loved her very much and she rejected me and I had a knife in my hand and tried to kill her and then myself”. It’s delicious to imagine these two future divas in a clinch in some airless New York attic in front of an audience “sitting there in overcoats … coughing, like a tubercular ward”, as Rivers put it. Continue reading...

Police asked to review firearm application processes, as minute’s silence to be held in PlymouthApplicants for permission to own a firearm or shotgun will be subject to social media checks after the Plymouth mass shooting, ministers have said.Questions have been asked about how the Keyham gunman Jake Davison, 22, obtained a firearms licence and carried out his attack, in which he killed five people before turning the gun on himself. Continue reading...

Darwin, Palmerston, rural Darwin area and Katherine in Northern Territory enter lockdown on midday Monday until midday Thursday after a new case of Covid-19 was recorded overnight. ACT extends Covid-19 lockdown to 2 September as cases and exposure sites continue to grow

A dance-based ‘soul journey’ – in the middle of Clapham Common? While I stream with sweat and onlookers laugh, I can’t stop worrying about what I’m having for dinnerI’m shaking my pelvis with brio, when a goldendoodle ambles up. Don’t you poo, I think. Then again, doing what comes naturally is the point of today. My friend Beth has invited me to try 5Rhythms: a silent disco movement meditation class on Clapham Common. I didn’t understand any of those words, but said yes­, because this column has turned my life into a second-tier Jim Carrey film­. Now I’m in deep with the hippies. To my left, a man in socks and a bandana is romancing a tree. A nearby game of touch rugby has paused so its players can laugh at us. This is my nightmare.5Rhythms was developed in the 1970s by Gabrielle Roth, a New York theatre artist, but moved mainstream in the last 15 years, adopted by the wellness crowd. The practice involves dancing to five distinct moods of music, in a specific sequence known as the wave, which corresponds to different aspects of the self. The resulting “soul journey” is designed to unlock unlimited creativity and wholeness in the psyche of the dancer. Assuming they buy into the new-age framework, that is. My own personal five rhythms are lazy, dissatisfied, hungry, laughing and a freeform malaise I refer to as Kenneth. Continue reading...

Former UK prime minister calls on western leaders to convene summit to address Africa’s vaccine deficit

Crowds have packed the tarmac at Kabul airport in a bid to flee the Afghan capital as Taliban insurgents began taking over the city. Insurgents took control of the presidential palace. Al Jazeera showed footage of what it said were Taliban commanders in the palace with dozens of armed fighters. President Ashraf Ghani left Afghanistan. Many Afghans attempted the flee via road or via the airport. Continue reading...

Return to power of movement’s co-founder embodies Afghanistan’s inability to escape history of conflict

Documents likely to reveal Australia’s strategy for bartering on Timor Sea maritime boundary prior to the bugging operation revealed by Witness K and Bernard CollaeryThe government will be forced to defend its decision to withhold long-secret cabinet documents about negotiations with Timor-Leste in the years prior to the controversial bugging operation revealed by Witness K and Bernard Collaery.Independent senator Rex Patrick has launched proceedings in the administrative appeals tribunal to overturn a government decision not to release archived cabinet documents setting out Australia’s strategy for bartering with its impoverished ally on the Timor Sea maritime boundary. Continue reading...

Aerial footage shows the extent of destruction in Haiti following a 7.2-magnitude earthquake. The quake struck the south-western part of the country on Saturday, almost razing some towns and triggering landslides that hampered rescue efforts in two of the hardest-hit communities. The death toll has climbed sharply, with at least 724 dead and 2,800 injured, according to the latest figures from Haiti’s office of civil protection. People in the Caribbean nation rushed into the streets to seek safety and to help rescue those trapped in the rubble of collapsed homes, hotels and other buildings

Afghans who fled their homeland to settle in the UK express their fears for family and friends left behind