9.59pm BSTMy quiet Sunday covering Brazil v Argentina went out the window about two hours ago. Oh well, it was fun (in a way). Thanks for joining me for this unique experience. I am sure the full facts will be ascertained in due course but we can all accept that today’s events were a complete and utter farce. A full report straight from Brazil is coming your way very soon.9.54pm BST“Couldn’t they just bring out Messi and Neymar and settle this with a keepy-uppy challenge?” asks Peter Oh.

Businessman and philanthropist Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz awarded CBE by Prince Charles in 2016The son of one of Saudi Arabia’s richest men, Dr Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz, has hardly any information listed about him on his charity’s website, but has the honour of a wood, a fountain, a garden and a building named after him among some of Britain’s oldest and most prestigious buildings.The 51-year-old businessman and philanthropist has donated generously to Oxbridge colleges, as well as royal mansions Dumfries House and the Castle of Mey. The website for the Mahfouz Foundation, which he founded in 2012, shows simply a photo of Mahfouz, alongside his full name and list of honorifics. Continue reading...

Michael Fawcett, who was CEO of Prince’s Foundation, faces claims about honour for a Saudi businessman

The ex-CEO’s resignation from the Prince’s Foundation is his third since he began working with the prince

Guardian Australia news editor Shelley Hepworth speaks to renowned author Salman Rushdie about his plans to release his newest novella – The Seventh Wave – on popular newsletter website Substack. He also shares how Covid-19 has impacted his creative process and the potential social media offers for writers wanting to experiment with new media Continue reading...

For some Afghans, the trauma of watching their homeland descend into civil war has been compounded by the fact they might have to go backEven as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan, overrunning cities and ultimately seizing the capital, the Australian government was telling some Afghan asylum seekers they should leave Australia and return to a country plunging back into civil war.As late as 28 July this year, with the Taliban brutally ascendant across Afghanistan and days from capturing the capital Kabul, Afghan nationals were told by the Department of Home Affairs they were “expected to depart Australia”. Continue reading...

Zuma, who was ousted in 2017, served less than two months of a 15-month sentence for contempt of courtJacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa, has been released from prison on grounds of ill health after serving less than two months of a 15-month prison sentence for contempt of court.Zuma, who was ousted in 2017, was jailed in July for refusing to comply with an order of South Africa’s highest court to appear before a judicial inquiry probing allegations of extensive corruption during his nine years in power. Continue reading...

Spokesman says men ‘mistreated the women and a reporter’ but tells Afghans it is ‘not a time for protest’The Taliban have arrested four men who hit protesters and held journalists at gunpoint to break up a women’s rights’ demonstration in Kabul on Saturday, the spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.The demonstration came amid fierce fighting in Panjshir valley, the last holdout of anti-Taliban forces from the fallen government, and as Afghanistan waits for the country’s new rulers to reveal how they plan to govern. Continue reading...

‘Nothing of obvious significance’ found at gravel pits near York as part of inquiry into disappearance of chefPolice have said “nothing of obvious significance” was found during a search of a lake as part of the investigation into the disappearance of university chef Claudia Lawrence.Teams of police experts, search dogs, divers and forensic archaeologists spent two weeks scouring the lake and nearby woods as the murder probe continues. Continue reading...

Group who meet weekly to refresh wall of hearts in London want specialist lacquer applied to memorialFew memorials require restoration before they are complete, but that is the reality facing the bereaved who care for the national Covid memorial wall opposite the Houses of Parliament in London.Armed with pots of crimson masonry paint, they have started refreshing the wall of more than 150,000 hearts, many of which are already fading in the sun and rain. They also have the sad task of adding 5,000 more, to catch up with the still-rising death toll. Like the pandemic, there is no end in sight. But soon, sections could be preserved using a specialist lacquer that has previously been deployed to protect street art by Banksy to create a memorial that could stand for years to come. Continue reading...

What makes a pub special? From the perfect place to flog atomic secrets to the official strictly protected viewpoint for St Paul’s, a new book tells the amazing stories behind the city’s greatest barsWhen you stumble out of the medieval warren of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub on Fleet Street, it’s easy to think you’ve had one too many. As you gaze east towards the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, the skyscrapers of the Square Mile appear to lean back in a woozy limbo, as if lurching to get out of the way.

Clashes during inauguration of Balkan state’s new church leader at historic monastery of CetinjePolice in Montenegro have fired teargas at protesters as the new head of the Serbian Orthodox church in the country arrived by helicopter for his inauguration.The decision to anoint Bishop Joanikije as the new metropolitan of Montenegro at the historic monastery of Cetinje has aggravated ethnic tension in the tiny Balkan state. Continue reading...

His rural voters see the embattled president as a ‘messenger from God’. And this week they will march in the cities to support himJair Bolsonaro supporters aren’t hard to find in Sinop, an agricultural boomtown in the Brazilian Amazon where nearly 80% of voters backed the country’s ultra-conservative leader in the 2018 election.“He’s a president of the people,” said Marcos Watanabe, the head of the city’s conservative association, sporting a T-shirt stamped with Bolsonaro’s name. Continue reading...

Britain urgently needs to repair its relations with its neighbours but Boris Johnson’s government is singularly ill-equipped to do soAfter the rout, the recriminations. British fingers furiously jab at the Americans for a shaming scuttle from Kabul that will embolden the west’s adversaries. Sir John Major yesterday called the withdrawal of western forces a “strategically very stupid” decision. Tony Blair, the prime minister who sent British forces into Afghanistan 20 years ago, goes so far as to call the precipitous exit “imbecilic”. Number 10 has been forced to deny that Boris Johnson refers to the US president as “Sleepy Joe”, the insult minted by Donald Trump. Supporters of Joe Biden counter-accuse the British and other European countries of expecting the US to continue to expend its blood and treasure in Afghanistan when most Nato members had wound down their commitments long ago.In Whitehall, an ugly three-way blame game rages between the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office about why the government didn’t anticipate the swiftness of the fall of Kabul or make timely preparations to help vulnerable people to whom Britain owes obligations. We’d be in a better place if they’d devoted as much energy to planning for the evacuation as they are expending on excoriating each other. There will be more finger pointing when the Commons returns tomorrow. Yet it is not buck-passing between politicians desperate to save their careers that this country needs if anything useful is to be learned from this debacle. What is required is a cool reassessment of where this leaves Britain in a perilous and unpredictable world. Continue reading...

Sarah, Bob and Pete talk about recording their mesmeric new album via Zoom, the reality of the 90s and the oddness of pop parenthoodIn the concrete balcony bar of the BFI Southbank on a late summer’s afternoon, three old friends are sitting on mid-century seats, talking about the passing of time. Thirty years ago this month, Saint Etienne – Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell – released their debut album, Foxbase Alpha, which stitched together samples from Dusty Springfield, the Four Tops and James Brown records, clips from old films and electronic beats that had their heart and soul in the clubs.Renowned music journalist Jon Savage wrote the sleevenotes, laying out how their approach to music-making could be a blueprint for a new kind of British pop culture. It might come from somewhere like London’s grimy Camden Town, home to “a myriad of sounds, looks and smells from all over the world, each with its own memory and possibility”. In Saint Etienne’s London, Savage wrote, you could immerse yourself in dub, reggae, old psychedelia and Northern soul, combining these sounds with contemporary ideas. Continue reading...

Gladys Berejiklian says October will bring ‘relief’; New Zealand confirms 20 new cases. This blog is now closed.

Charities and unions slam move as an attack on fundamental rightsBoris Johnson’s government is today accused of trying to rig future elections by stifling opposition and deterring participation, as a storm of protest erupts over its controversial elections bill, which is to be debated in parliament this week.In an open letter, charities including Save the Children, independent campaign groups such as Greenpeace, and the trades union movement, condemn the legislation as “an attack on the UK’s proud democratic tradition and some of our most fundamental rights”. Continue reading...

Maybe you’re desperate to go back – or clinging to the kitchen table. Either way, the workplace beckons. Our writers are on hand to dispense orientation, sympathy and new lanyardsFor anyone in charge of a school-age child, this is “school supplies” season: queueing in the only shop that sells your scratchy uniform, picking a pencil case, the narky crush in Clarks. (If you think that’s stressful, try living in Belgium, where school supplies demands are as esoteric and difficult to parse as the Voynich manuscript). All that preparation – the sharpening of crayons, ironing of name tags and ticking of lists – gives a welcome focus for the galloping anxiety the new academic year often awakens. Because September is the real high-stakes “new year, new you” and this time round, it’s not just for kids. Many companies are taking advantage of the new school year to encourage – or a more muscular verb – workers back in-person, not on-screen. Those of us who worked remotely are the lucky ones, but from doctors to delivery riders, a huge swathe of the workforce did not have the luxury of elastic waistbands and a safe, cosy home office. Now we’re anxious. We haven’t seen our colleagues unpixellated for 18 months and these were not, if I can generalise, our finest months. We grieved, feared and vegetated; we got addicted to Bourbons, or videos of cats sneezing. Our working routines became, hmm, idiosyncratic – the third breakfast, the 2pm nap, the 4am primal scream – and we forgot what “business casual” means, or whether it’s a good thing. As with school, getting back to the office going back might mean boredom, bullies and the grey, alienating drag of doing what you’re told all day. But like school, it might also be a chance for reinvention: who are we now? Perhaps we’re actually wiser, kinder, better. Failing that, there’s the consolation prize of a functioning printer. So write your adult supplies list – blister plasters, emergency biscuit, stain remover, paper bag to breathe into if it gets too much – and look out your lanyard: the office is back. Emma Beddington Continue reading...

Venice has played host to the premiere of Harry Wootliff’s oddly bog-standard story of a Ramsgate benefits officer wooed by a love-ratHarry Wootliff is the talented director who made the excellent, Glasgow-set Only You a few years ago. Ruth Wilson is a reliably fine actor; Tom Burke was a revelation in Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir. On paper, therefore, True Things –their account of a toxic relationship in the less glamorous bits of Kent – has everything going for it. I’m still scratching my head over what went wrong with this one.Related: 'I'm an expressionist nihilist at heart': the dark allure of Tom Burke Continue reading...

Despite the dazzling dialogue and familiar delights, Rooney’s story of a young prize-winning writer is her most demanding book to dateEven in these accelerated times it seems bewildering: was it really only four years ago that Sally Rooney made her debut? The ecstatic welcome given to Conversations With Friends, a deadpan comedy of arty Dublin millennials, was a mere curtain-raiser to the escape velocity achieved a year later by her cross-class teen love story, Normal People. Amid the strenuously cerebral to-and-fro of the online Sallyology industry, arguing over how far the books reflected or betrayed the author’s avowed Marxism, it could be forgotten (though never, perversely, by her detractors) how purely and straightforwardly enjoyable Rooney is to read, which isn’t to say, as Will Self has, that Normal People represents “very simple stuff with no literary ambition”.

Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post used freedom of information to produce the definitive US version of the warIn the summer of 2009, the latest in a long line of US military commanders in Afghanistan commissioned the latest in a long line of strategic reviews, in the perennial hope it would make enough of a difference to allow the Americans to go home.Related: ‘The intensity has not changed’: Jason Kander on the fall of Afghanistan – and trying to get friends out Continue reading...

The actor, writer and creator of I May Destroy You, has written a manifesto, Misfits, in praise of being an outlier. Here she answers questions from famous fans and Observer readersMichaela Coel has one enormous eye, looming at me like a cyclops. She’s deliberately pushing different parts of her face at her laptop camera – “Boom!” – trying to make me laugh (it works). The award-winning Coel has been laying low since the genre-shattering TV series I May Destroy You came out during lockdown last year. Having admitted that she wanted to run away when it came out – “I struggle with that bit… I tend to go somewhere to hide” – she’s come off social media, stopped giving interviews for a little while. But in person, laying low is not Coel’s style.She’s a communicator. She talks in long, descriptive sentences and even when she’s not messing with the camera, her face is always moving, her thoughts and emotions flooding her features. At formal events, she can present a serious front – face and body held still and dignified – but today she’s upbeat. Her laugh is big. Sometimes, she stops in the middle of an answer and asks herself questions, wondering out loud about whether she’s being honest enough: “Do I feel that?” she says. “Do I really feel that?” Continue reading...

Paramedics rushed to Emerald Beach but were unable to save the man, who had critical injuries to his arm and back

Gladys Berejiklian warns hospitalisations still have a fortnight to rise but says she’s confident in health system

Resolution Foundation says mismatch between skillsets of those losing jobs in UK and those needed will continue unless government steps inBritain’s shortage of lorry drivers and care staff is unlikely to be solved by furloughed workers being made redundant when the job protection scheme ends at the end of the month, according to a study by a leading thinktank.A mismatch between the types of jobs that are no longer needed and the vacancies in industries facing a significant lack of skilled staff will persist into next year without government intervention, the Resolution Foundation said. Continue reading...

Something or someone stole the steering wheel of your life, you need to get it back, says Philippa PerryThe question I have reached a point in my life where I am having to make the major commitments expected, like marriage, homeownership and children. Decisions that shape your life. I recently chose to end a relationship and step away from buying a house, though, because I felt unable to commit wholeheartedly. In some ways, it only felt I reached those significant events because it was forced upon me rather than getting excited and choosing for myself. It’s not that I don’t take a plunge – sometimes I have to, after all I have to live somewhere. But it always seems to be someone else doing the deciding. I just don’t have any eagerness or desire for anything.The more I think about it, the more I feel that I have this across my whole life and for all my life. I have a very short-term outlook where I can look forward to small things, like a holiday or starting a new job. But I can’t look forward to anything that has future implications. I never stay with an employer for a long time, or even commit to a savings plan. Continue reading...

The country has now recorded 801 infections in the outbreak, with one death and 38 people in hospitalNew Zealand has reported 20 new cases of coronavirus in the community, bringing the total number in the outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant to 801. It is the fifth day in a row cases numbers have remained low, and an encouraging sign that the strict lockdown measures are working.Since recording 83 cases a week ago, daily case numbers have been 53, 49, 75, 49, 28 and now 20, two days in a row. All of the 20 cases reported on Sunday were in Auckland. Continue reading...

The attack comes days after a drone strike on an airport in Saudi Arabia’s south left eight people woundedSaudi Arabia has intercepted three ballistic missiles fired from neighbouring Yemen targeting the oil-rich Eastern province, as well as the cities of Najran and Jazan in the south, defence officials claimed.Shrapnel from one of the missiles scattered over the city of Dammam, injuring two Saudi children and damaging 14 houses, according to the defence ministry. Continue reading...

Jacinda Ardern says ‘every legal avenue’ was used to detain Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen until his refugee status was resolvedNew Zealand had tried for years to deport the terrorist who stabbed shoppers in an Auckland supermarket on Friday before being shot dead by the police officers tasked with watching him, the country’s prime minister has said.Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, a 32-year-old Sri Lankan man, was fighting to keep his refugee status in New Zealand when he carried out the attack, which Jacinda Ardern said was inspired by the Islamic State. Continue reading...

Latest reported UK deaths take total to more than 130,000; fears that German hospitals won’t be able to cope without rise in vaccinations

Wood-fire cooking isn’t just for sausages and marshmallows, Harry Fisher says, and lockdown is no excuse for not upping your campfire-cuisine gameUsually, plenty of Australians would be starting to make plans for summer camping trips about now. Others would already be on them, having escaped the southern states for long soirees north where winter is little more than a horror story told to scare kids at night.A significant proportion of those people, though – and maybe you, reading this – are stuck at home dreaming of the warmth and crying into their beer while watching Netflix, thanks to ongoing lockdowns and border closures. Continue reading...

The South African novelist on making a pilgrimage to Cormac McCarthy’s home, his youth in apartheid-era Pretoria and being shortlisted twice for the Booker prizeNovelist and playwright Damon Galgut, 57, grew up in Pretoria, South Africa, at the height of the apartheid era. He wrote his first novel aged 17 and has twice been shortlisted for the Booker prize. His latest, The Promise, spans four tumultuous decades as it traces the afterlife of a white matriarch’s dying wish to bequeath property to her black servant. The novel is heavily tipped to land him a place on this year’s shortlist when it’s announced on 14 September. He lives in Cape Town.How did The Promise originate?

A savvy electoral campaign against two lacklustre opponents has put the SPD leader ahead in the polls to succeed Angela MerkelOf all the political posters and billboards that line the streets of German towns and cities this late summer, the ones most likely to stop commuters in their tracks are those bathed in traffic-light red.Using a stark colour scheme usually exclusive to the Marxist-Leninist parties on the fringe of the German left, the posters are surprising in more ways than one: in the centre of the picture sits a bald, suited man who looks less like a leftwing rabble-rouser promising you radical change than a middle manager at a regional building society scrutinising your loan application. Continue reading...

Border staff left dealing with backlog of travellers as reports emerge of people fainting in three-hour queuesDelays at Heathrow airport have been described as “unacceptable” by the Home Office, af reports of passengers fainting in queues of up to three hours.Border staff were left dealing with a huge backlog of travellers, with witnesses saying they had seen people – including a pregnant woman – passing out while queueing. Continue reading...

Ten years after village doc Le Quattro Volte, Michelangelo Frammartino returns with an observational piece centring on a deep-cave system in CalabriaIn 2011 Italian artist Michelangelo Frammartino scored a small indie hit with a film called Le Quattro Volte, a metaphysical study of a mountain village that featured bleating goats and ringing bells, charcoal burners and Roman centurions. Le Quattro Volte was odd and gentle and by and large people loved it. I’m not sure how much money one earns from a small indie hit. Probably enough to pay for a weekend break in Tropea. Now Frammartino is back – 10 years later, not wanting to rush things – with the lovely Il Buco, another film that is content to saunter on the wild side, gazing at woods and sky, rocks and trees and identifying a serene, quiet heaven in everything that it sees. It’s not quite a documentary, yet nor is it exactly a narrative feature. It lives alone; the cinematic equivalent of a hermit on a mountaintop.Frammartino’s last film was inspired by Pythagoras. This one takes its prompt from a 1961 potholing expedition in Calabria, mapping out a labyrinthine cave system which was confirmed at the time as the third deepest in the world. The film shows the cavers descending its slick twists and turns and uncovering an old photo and a damp magazine with JFK on the cover. Whatever item slips into the crevasse instantly becomes history, or a lost memory; a teasing remnant of the people who once walked above. Continue reading...

As number of victims updated from six to seven, police say ‘every legal avenue’ was explored to try to contain threat of attackSeven people were injured in the Islamic State-inspired terror attack in New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern has said, updating initial reports that only six people had been hurt.Speaking at a media conference in Wellington on Saturday, New Zealand’s prime minister said that of the seven injured, five were in hospital, and three of them were in a critical condition. Continue reading...

Rebels say they are holding on despite celebratory gunfire in Kabul amid reports that hardliners have wiped out last pocket of resistanceMilitia forces say they are enduring “heavy assaults” as they battle the Taliban in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley, the final holdout against hardline Islamist control.The Taliban face the enormous challenge of shifting gears from insurgent group to governing power, days after the US fully withdrew its troops and ended two decades of war. Continue reading...

Afghan resistance fighters clashed with the Taliban in the Panjshir valley, the final province holding out against hardline Islamist control. Celebratory gunfire rang out across Kabul late on Friday as rumours spread that the valley had fallen. The Taliban made no official claim to victory and the former Afghan vice-president Amrullah Saleh, among other opposition leaders, said his side had not given up

Helicopter and lifeboats take part in search after men fail to return from exploring HMS Scylla on FridayA major search is under way for two divers presumed dead after they disappeared while exploring a shipwreck off the coast of Cornwall.The men failed to return after they had been exploring the wreck of HMS Scylla, which was sunk in 2004. Continue reading...

Minister says government will not ‘sweep away’ NI Brexit protocol, but renews demands for major changesThe UK will not “sweep away” the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol, despite renewed calls for its abolition by the Democratic Unionist party, the Brexit minister has said.However, David Frost renewed his demands for fundamental changes on its implementation, warning the row could have a long-term chilling effect on wider EU-UK relations unless it was resolved. Continue reading...

Having blazed a trail with raucous gigs, the Melbourne punk band’s singer deepens her oft-caricatured image on their new albumThere is a moment at the end of Amyl and the Sniffers’ music video for Guided by Angels that sees frontwoman Amy Taylor quiet and alone, for once. After ripping down freeways and tunnels in the back of a Mitsubishi Lancer, her tiny body hanging halfway out of the back window, diving into the sea and dancing between the stationary Sniffers – drummer Bryce Wilson, guitarist Dec Martens and bassist Gus Romer – Taylor walks down a dark footpath, sits in the car’s front seat, laughs briefly and is suddenly still.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...

Moderna vaccine gets green light for over-12s; more than 1,000 families asked to isolate after Queensland girl tests positive. This blog is now closed

The actor opens up about why her divorce from Brad Pitt is a human rights issue, escaping Harvey Weinstein and what young activists have taught her• ‘People try to stop us speaking up’ – Jolie meets inspirational young campaignersAngelina Jolie sits at a desk, back straight as a rule and rather regal. Her features are cartoonishly beautiful – straight black hair, vertiginous cheekbones, huge blue eyes and lips like a plumped red sofa. She is talking on Zoom to four young activists. It is a horribly apt day to be discussing human rights – the Taliban has just captured Ghazni city on its approach to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.If this were a movie, you might suspect Jolie was playing a divine leader addressing the fortunate few. Yet it soon becomes apparent that things aren’t quite as they seem. The actor and film director is the one in awe, not the activists. The young people talk about the work they have done raising awareness of the carnage in Syria, the environmental crisis, trans rights and food poverty. Jolie hangs on their every word. She tells them they have inspired her children who follow their work, warns them against burnout, apologises for the failings of her generation and says how honoured she is to meet them. Continue reading...

From new novels by Sally Rooney and Colson Whitehead to Michel Barnier’s take on Brexit, Bernardine Evaristo’s manifesto and diaries from David Sedaris – all the releases to look out for Continue reading...

A new series relives the affair between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and here, those involved remember and reflect on a national scandalBob Shrum had known Bill Clinton since their student days at Georgetown University in Washington. Working as a political consultant, he was at the White House to advise on the US president’s State of the Union address when it was rocked by one of the scandals of the century.“I was walking up the driveway and camera crews were trying to chase me to get me to comment on it,” Shrum recalls of the first reports that Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a 22-year-old intern. “The president, when we all assembled in the cabinet room, was very down and just said, well, we’ll reconvene tomorrow. Continue reading...

As Ada Ferrer writes, ‘Cuba – its sugar, its slavery, its slave trade – is part of the history of American capitalism’In July, the eruption of unexpected protests in Cuba, sparked by food shortages and growing frustration with the government, unsurprisingly met with a corresponding flood of commentary from its opinionated neighbour.Related: Forget the Alamo review: dark truths of the US south and its ‘secular Mecca’ Continue reading...

Mired in debt, the mother of three left to work as part of the Gulf’s kafala labour system. She was last heard from in 2015 and her family want answersEdelyn Eborda Astudillo wanted a better life for her three children. The 36-year-old from Mariveles in the Philippines, and her husband, Crisanto, had been unemployed for six years and things were getting desperate. So, in early 2015, Edelyn made the decision to travel to the Middle East to get a job as a domestic worker.After applying to a Philippine recruitment agency, Manumoti Manpower, Edelyn was soon on a flight abroad. She was placed in a house to work for a couple in Taif, in the west of Saudi Arabia. Continue reading...

Cam, 26, consultant, meets Ash, 29, police analystWhat were you hoping for?