Unicef says country wants to send its UN-backed allotment of 3m Sinovac shots to other nations, with some experts believing it may want other vaccinesNorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered officials to wage a tougher epidemic prevention campaign in “our style” after he turned down some foreign Covid-19 vaccines offered via the UN-backed immunisation program.During a Politburo meeting on Thursday, Kim said officials must “bear in mind that tightening epidemic prevention is the task of paramount importance which must not be loosened even a moment”, the official Korean Central News Agency reported on Friday. Continue reading...
Alexanda Amon Kotey, one of a gang of four IS militants, admits to hostage taking and conspiracy to murder in US courtA British terrorist accused of beheading western hostages for Islamic State has pleaded guilty to multiple charges in a US federal court.Alexanda Amon Kotey, 37, was one of the gang of four IS militants nicknamed “the Beatles” by their captives due to their British accents. Continue reading...
Social media delights in the gaffe of a Movie Max employee at Timaru as a tonic during Covid lockdownAn expletive-ridden voicemail recording, accidentally uploaded by a New Zealand cinema, is giving the nation a dose of cheer as it races to stamp out an outbreak of coronavirus.An employee of Movie Max Cinemas in the South Island port city of Timaru attempted to record a temporary closure voicemail while the region is in a level-3 lockdown, the country’s second-highest setting. Continue reading...
Man’s mother said she had called police on her son when he left home in Auckland after receiving his positive test resultA man who tested positive for Covid-19 before absconding from a quarantine facility in Auckland on Thursday had attempted to escape three times before he was successful, health officials report.New Zealand police arrested the man at a south Auckland address on Thursday afternoon, roughly 10km from the Novotel Ibis hotel in Ellerslie, where he was quarantining. He had been in the community for at least 12 hours at the time of his arrest. Continue reading...
by Charlie Moloney (now), Tom Ambrose (earlier) and R on (#5P2D3)
Bulgaria currently least vaccinated EU country; Taiwan receives delivery organised by tech giants and a charity; likelihood of long Covid in double-jabbed adults who get coronavirus almost half
by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#5P3QM)
Possession could be criminalised as home secretary vows to ‘take tough action’ on use of laughing gasPossession of nitrous oxide, one of the most popular drugs among 16- to 24-year-olds, could be criminalised after the home secretary ordered experts to review its effects.Priti Patel said she was ready to “take tough action” on the widespread use of laughing gas, which is taken mostly through balloons filled from small metal cylinders often seen littering areas around nightclubs and music festivals. Continue reading...
Chair of commission scrutinising post-Brexit trade deals says ministers must act now to get shelves stocked for ChristmasThe government is being urged to “get a handle” on the supply chain crisis, as the chair of a cross-party commission created to scrutinise the UK’s post-Brexit trade deals said ministers need to act now to avoid empty shelves in the run-up to Christmas.“Red tape and labour shortages from Brexit have exacerbated problems that are being acutely felt across production, processing, manufacturing, retail and of course logistics,” said Aodhán Connolly, who chaired an extraordinary session of the UK Trade and Business Commission, a group of cross-party MPs and business representatives set up as an independent adviser to government in April. Continue reading...
It was an evening when, yet again, England had more than mere footballing problems thrown at them. It started with a hail of plastic cups, first for Raheem Sterling and then Luke Shaw, from the diehard Hungary supporters behind one of the goals, and it escalated to a firework – which was hurled in the wake of Harry Maguire’s header for 3-0.England’s players were celebrating as a group and it was a mighty relief that it missed its target, fizzing for a while before burning out. And then in the closing stages came the low point that everybody had dreaded. Continue reading...
Oscar Isaac is a blank-eyed poker player with a past in Schrader’s latest gathering of lost, tormented soulsPaul Schrader makes films about lost souls in torment and unachievable goals, the sort of bleak existential purgatories that speak to our own uglier moments. Ahead of the Venice press screening of his latest production, an impromptu security cordon makes more than 100 guests late, after which they are only allowed into the cinema in small dribs and drabs - a tense, shuffling progress that extends throughout the film’s opening half-hour. The critics are in uproar; the ushers get lairy. Wherever he is, I imagine that Schrader himself would approve of the show.On screen, The Card Counter provides another stylish, slow-burning account of Schrader’s lonesome samurai, a figure who can crop up in all walks of life: as a taxi driver, an escort, a drug dealer, a priest. On this occasion he’s embodied by a blank-eyed Oscar Isaac, who wears his scuffed leather jacket like a bulletproof vest. William Tell (formerly Tillich) is a veteran of Abu Ghraib and served eight years for his crimes. He now earns a living at the card tables and roulette wheels of middle America. The film has him driving the strip malls at night or prowling the stygian bowels of interchangeable casinos, with their patterned carpets and heavy black drapes. These joints have lights blazing everywhere and yet always appear cloaked in shadow. The gamblers, one worries, bring the darkness in with them. Continue reading...
Musician will be best remembered for scoring the film Zorba the Greek and defiance during military ruleThe renowned Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, who scored the 1964 classic film Zorba the Greek and was an icon of resistance to the former military junta, has died in Athens, aged 96.A prolific talent and political maverick, Theodorakis was revered in his home country for his inspirational music and defiance during the junta that ruled from 1967 to 1974. Continue reading...
Swedish hitmakers to release album of brand new material in November, and digital avatars will appear in London concert residency in 2022One of the most anticipated comebacks in pop culture has finally come to pass: the return of Abba.Forty years after the bitter songs written in the wake of two band divorces for their last album, 1981’s The Visitors, the Swedish pop quartet have reunited for Voyage, an album of brand new songs that will be released on 5 November – including, they say, a Christmas song. Two tracks from it, the stately and epic ballad I Still Have Faith in You and the shimmying Don’t Shut Me Down, are out now. Continue reading...
Five-year-old dies and six-year-old brother critically ill after undergoing liver transplant near WarsawDoctors at Poland’s main children’s hospital have said a five-year-old Afghan boy, recently evacuated from Kabul, has died and his six-year-old brother, who has undergone a liver transplant, remains in life-threatening condition after they ate poisonous mushrooms.The boys and their older sister fell ill last week after their family picked and ate death cap mushrooms in the forest around the refugee centre where they were staying in Podkowa Leśna, near Warsaw. Continue reading...
Foreign secretary says UK must engage with Taliban in Afghanistan after meeting with Qatari officialsEvacuations may be able to resume from Kabul airport “in the near future”, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said as he expressed a need for direct engagement with the Taliban.Speaking after talks in Qatar on Thursday, Raab raised hopes that the Britons and Afghans left behind may be able to leave on flights from Afghanistan’s capital. Continue reading...
From Sleaford Mods in London to Mogwai in France, bands and performers talk about the strange and wonderful experience of returning to the stage after 16 months of deprivationThere were those few weeks of strange, haunted gigs in autumn 2020, but for most people live music disappeared at the start of March last year and didn’t return until this summer. It was a peculiar enough experience being in the crowds, but what was it like for the artists walking on stage after 18 months without the hum of amps, the dimming of house lights and the roar of an audience? From festival headline sets to low-key club shows, this is how the return to playing live felt for the musicians who came back. Continue reading...
Colleagues of Dr Marta Krawiec, who was killed while riding to work, say urgent safety work is neededA leading hospital has called for immediate safety works at a notoriously dangerous junction in central London where one of its doctors was killed last month while cycling to work, saying it was unacceptable for more lives to be put at risk.In a highly unusual intervention, the chair and chief executive of Guy’s and St Thomas’ trust, and the heads of the children’s allergy service where Dr Marta Krawiec worked, have written to the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, saying the moment had come “for action rather than words”. Continue reading...
The actor on studying with the Sex Pistols, being in a Bowie tribute act, the appeal of Roxy Music, the help of teachers and the power of surrealism Continue reading...
Lester Holloway of Britain’s only black national newspaper points to a ‘regression’ in recognising inequalityThe new editor of Britain’s only black national newspaper has warned the UK is going backwards in recognising institutional racism in the media and wider society.Lester Holloway, who was announced on Thursday as editor of the Voice, said the original statement by the Society of Editors that the UK media was not racist or bigoted, and which strongly disputed claims the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s negative coverage was motivated by racism, was part of a wider “regression” in recognising and tackling racial inequality. Continue reading...
Those on board the cramped military plane weren’t granted a last glimpse of their homeland before the difficult journey ahead, while all knew thousands still waited desperately belowThe American marine shouted “push!”. And hundreds of people did, shoving inside the Boeing C-17 military aircraft; tumbling over, then pulling their bodies into tight huddles on the floor to let as many others in as possible.As the rear door closed and the deafening engines started, lifting the heavy plane off the runway at Kabul’s international airport, people broke down wailing; crying. Now refugees. Continue reading...
At least 828 people were removed on charter flights last year, more than double the number removed in 2019The Home Office spent almost £9m on deportation charter flights last year, the Guardian has learned, including more than £500,000 for planes that never left the tarmac.At least 828 people were removed by air, more than double the 410 removed on similar charters in 2019. The department spent £8.2m on 47 charters to 24 countries in 2020, with 18 of those countries in Europe. Continue reading...
Court voted 5-4 to deny emergency appeal against law that bans abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activityA deeply divided supreme court has allowed a Texas law that bans most abortions to remain in force, stripping most women of the right to an abortion in the nation’s second-largest state.The court voted 5-4 early on Thursday to deny an emergency appeal from abortion providers and others that sought to block enforcement of the law that went into effect Wednesday. Continue reading...
Five Star Movement’s Virginia Raggi accuses Lazio regional government of failing to tackle problemRome’s mayor has opened a criminal lawsuit against the surrounding Lazio regional government over “the massive and uncontrolled presence of wild boar in Italy’s capital”.In recent years, Roman citizens and farmers have protested about wild boar wreaking havoc on their land and causing fatal road accidents, and the animal is believed to be responsible for an average of 10,000 road accidents a year in the country. Continue reading...
Three died at the scene on 23 August and a fourth later died of her injuries, Essex police saidA fourth person has died after a serious collision involving a lorry, a minibus and a car on the M25 in Essex.Three people died at the scene, between junctions 27 and 26 of the anticlockwise carriageway, on 23 August and a fourth person later died of her injuries, Essex police said. Continue reading...
Official says ceremony is being prepared at presidential palace in Kabul – two weeks after Islamist militia seized controlThe Taliban are expected to announce a new government in Afghanistan within hours as chaos and confusion deepened and the country teetered on the brink of economic collapse more than two weeks after the Islamist militia seized control.Sources told Agence-France Presse the cabinet could be presented after morning prayers on Friday, while Ahmadullah Muttaqi, a Taliban official, said on social media a ceremony was being prepared at the presidential palace in Kabul. Continue reading...
The Vieux Pays of Goussainville should have disappeared during the construction of the Charles de Gaulle airport in the 70s, however some inhabitants resisted the takeover of their houses and continue to live there despite the noise and isolation Continue reading...
Fourteen questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes every Thursday – how will you fare?Once again it is time to brave the Thursday quiz challenge. Dare you enter the arena and take on 14 questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, wrestle with anagrams, spot the hidden Doctor Who reference and brave the siren call of the saintly Kate Bush? Look, it is just a silly quiz – there are no prizes. But do let us know how you got on in the comments.The Thursday quiz, No 19 Continue reading...
Illustrated Luzzatto High Holiday Mahzor is one of fewer than 20 such prayer books believed to be in existenceA 700-year-old illustrated and annotated Hebrew prayer book that provides a window into the lives and rituals of Jewish communities in medieval Europe is expected to fetch up to $6m when it is sold at auction next month.The Luzzatto High Holiday Mahzor, created in southern Germany in late 13th or early 14th century, is one of fewer than 20 such prayer books believed to be in existence. According to Sotheby’s, it is the most important medieval illustrated prayer book to be offered for sale in a century. Continue reading...
The proposed laws come after federal police called for a ban on extremist insignia and propagandaVictoria will become the first Australian state or territory to ban the public display of Nazi symbols.The proposed laws, expected to be introduced to state parliament in the first half of 2022 with bipartisan support, will prohibit the display of swastikas and other hate symbols in public spaces. Continue reading...
Cathy Brady’s disquieting film about a mysterious return has an extra layer of melancholy, because it features the last performance by the late Nika McGuiganTwo fiercely committed performances are the bedrock of this drama from writer-director Cathy Brady. Nora-Jane Noone plays Lauren, who lives near the Northern Irish border with her partner, and works in a vast Amazon-style fulfilment centre; and Nika McGuigan (from RTÉ’s TV comedy Can’t Cope Won’t Cope) plays her troubled sister Kelly, returning home after a mysterious yearlong absence. This tense reunion revives painful memories of their mother, who took her own life when they were both children. Yet Kelly’s homecoming also appears to relight the wildfire in the hearts of both women, as they challenge the menfolk thereabouts who are still in hock to the macho cult of terrorist violence.This sombre film has an extra shadow of sadness because it marks the final performance of McGuigan, who died of cancer in 2019 at the age of 33. There are powerful moments and surreally disquieting images in Wildfire, which incidentally reminded me in some ways of Pat Murphy’s classic Northern Ireland drama Maeve from 1981, also about a young woman returning home to make a reckoning with the past. I especially liked the strange tableau of Lauren and Kelly in the pub dancing wildly to Van Morrison’s Gloria on the jukebox and then finally stopping exhausted, as if emerging from a dream, to see a bunch of faintly sinister middle-aged guys glowering at them resentfully from the bar. Continue reading...
Pop star’s housekeeper had made allegation after dispute involving a mobile phone, now dismissed due to a lack of evidenceBritney Spears will not face charges over an allegation of battery against her housekeeper.In August, Spears was alleged to have slapped a mobile phone out of her housekeeper’s hand. Police officers attended Spears’s home following the battery complaint. Continue reading...
Sir Nicholas Kay says he feels shame over collapse to Taliban as he calls for lessons learned inquiryThe former UK ambassador to Afghanistan Sir Nicholas Kay has said the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is playing catch-up with other countries as the Taliban assume power there, as he also became the first senior diplomat to call for a lessons learned inquiry into the collapse of the country into the hands of the militants.Kay predicted that the UK government would have to pay countries to help transit refugees from Afghanistan to the UK. Continue reading...
In a new documentary, the defining funk artist’s ups and many downs are examined with a clear eye and a lack of sugar-coatingIn the jarring new music documentary, Bitchin: The Sound and Fury of Rick James, we see a star torn in half. On the one hand, there’s the Rick James who created some of the most popular, distinct and outrageous funk music of the late 70s and early 80s. On the other, there’s a man so lost to his desire for sex, drugs and recognition that his life became an obstacle course laced with landmines. “Rick set up a situation where it would be tough not to have a bad outcome,” said the film’s director, Sacha Jenkins. “It could not have been easy to be Rick James.”Related: ‘Like a horror film’: revisiting the Fyre-esque disaster of Woodstock 99 Continue reading...
This film about Misha Defonseca, author of a ‘memoir’ about escaping the Nazis and sheltering with wolves as a child, is propulsively watchable“Sometimes a story is so astonishing it’s unbelievable.” So said a Massachusetts radio presenter in the 90s, introducing Misha Defonseca, a local Jewish woman originally from Belgium. As a child in the war, Defonseca walked hundreds of miles across Nazi-occupied Germany to find her parents. She was one of Belgium’s “hidden children”, taken in by a Catholic family, her identity erased. In her internationally bestselling memoir she described how, cold and hungry, she was sheltered by a pack of wolves. Disney wanted to turn it into a film. Oprah Winfrey’s book club was interested.The thing is: Defonseca was a fake. Never mind a pack of wolves, her whole memoir was a pack of lies; a hoax Holocaust narrative. This documentary assembles the story like a thriller, interviewing the key players, keeping the audience guessing about certain important details until the end. It’s propulsively watchable if a tad light on reflection. And you may feel hoodwinked by one late reveal. Continue reading...
Written 75 years ago but deemed ‘too intimate’ to publish in her lifetime, this exclusive extract from a lost novel by the author of The Second Sex, translated by Lauren Elkin, is based on the ‘passionate and tragic’ friendship she had as a girl with Elisabeth ‘Zaza’ LacoinWhen I was nine years old I was a good little girl, though this hadn’t always been the case. As a small child the adults’ tyranny caused me to throw such tantrums that one of my aunts declared, quite seriously: “Sylvie is possessed by a demon.” War and religion tamed me. Right away I demonstrated perfect patriotism by stomping all over my doll because she was made in Germany, though I didn’t really care for her to begin with. I was taught that God would only protect France if I were obedient and pious: there was no escaping it. The other girls and I would walk through the basilica of Sacré-Cœur, waving banners and singing. I began to pray frequently, and I developed a real taste for it. Abbé Dominique, the chaplain at the Collège Adelaïde where we went to school, encouraged my ardour. Dressed all in tulle, with a bonnet made of Irish lace, I made my First Communion, and from that day forward, I set a perfect example for my little sisters. Heaven heard my prayers, and my father was appointed to a desk job at the Ministry of War because of his heart trouble.Related: Lauren Elkin: ‘I felt like I was in De Beauvoir’s body’ Continue reading...
Black children have access to just 1 cent for every dollar enjoyed by their white counterparts, new research shows, and Hispanic kids fare little betterAfrican American children are suffering long-term disadvantages as a result of vast and growing disparities in the wealth of US families, with Black families with kids having access to barely 1 cent for every dollar enjoyed by their white counterparts.The shocking racial wealth gap between families, and its impact on Black and Hispanic kids, is revealed in groundbreaking new research by scholars on US inequality. It shows that the basic wealth levels of families from different racial and ethnic backgrounds have diverged to such a stark degree in the past three decades that the future prospects of children from lower-wealth groups are likely to be grossly compromised. Continue reading...
In the poverty-stricken kingdom, an older generation rely on growing marijuana to feed children orphaned by Aids epidemicIn Nhlangano, in the south of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), the illegal farming of the mountainous kingdom’s famous “Swazi gold” is a risk many grandmothers are ready to take.In what is known locally as the “gardens of Eden”, a generation of grandparents are growing cannabis, many of them sole carers for some of the many children orphaned by the HIV/Aids epidemic that gripped southern Africa. Continue reading...
Foreign materials including stainless steel identified in batches of Covid-19 vaccine though no safety or efficacy issues have been reportedThe Moderna coronavirus vaccine programme in Japan has been hit by a series of contamination incidents, prompting it to recall 1.63m doses found to contain metal fragments.Other potential contaminants have been identified in separate batches over the past week but so far no injuries as a result of those vaccines have been reported. Continue reading...
A rare encounter was caught on video at Puerto Madryn, Argentina when a southern rIght whale seemingly plays with a woman on a paddleboard and pushes the board gently forward, observing its movement as it swims directly beneath it."They are rare moments, it is something that is prohibited," said Oscar Comes, a local water-sports tourism operator. "It isn't like you can go in a kayak, standup board, a boat, or whatever, to look for the animal." Continue reading...
The kung fu goddess talks about her most eye-popping stunts, her yearning to do another Crazy Rich Asians, and her outrageously enjoyable new Marvel movie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten RingsTen minutes into my conversation with Michelle Yeoh, there is a misunderstanding. We are discussing her character in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, an outrageously enjoyable new Marvel adventure about a San Francisco parking valet trying to ignore his destiny as a martial arts warrior. Yeoh plays Ying Nan, a beneficent gatekeeper who lives on the far side of an enchanted bamboo forest. Another character, played by Awkwafina, refers to Ying as “an awesome magical kung fu goddess”. When I mention this, Yeoh thinks Awkwafina made the remark about her. “Oh, that’s so sweet!” she says. “Of course, I already knew Awkwafina because we were both in Crazy Rich Asians.”There’s no need to point out the error, because it is perfectly true: Yeoh really is an awesome magical kung fu goddess. No one would argue with that. Not the millions who gasped as she skipped nimbly up walls and across rooftops in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Nor the ones who flocked to her early Hong Kong action movies with the likes of Jackie Chan and Cynthia Rothrock. Not the ones who were first introduced to her in the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies. And certainly not Oliver Stone, who called her “a woman of elegance and magnificent grace – the young grande dame of Hong Kong cinema”. Nor Quentin Tarantino, who rushed to her bedside when she was in a body cast for a dislocated neck and cracked rib sustained after falling 18ft on to her head while filming The Stunt Woman in 1996. “He insisted on seeing me and sat on two pillows at my feet and recounted my movies frame by frame,” she later said. Continue reading...