At a stable in rural New York, traumatized soldiers and horses teach each other to leave the past behindSierra doesn’t trust humans. She is quick to jump back in fear at loud noises or sudden movements. A bright sorrel color – much like the red rocks of the desert canyons in her home state of Nevada – Sierra grew up as one of the tens of thousands of wild horses that roam 10 western states in the US.Captured from Nevada and shipped to the opposite side of the country by the Bureau of Land Management, she has never experienced human contact. Her mane is matted down, as no one has been able to groom her since she first arrived here in rural Monroe County, New York, 10 months ago. Continue reading...
Neary Adeline Hay’s film follows her father back to Cambodia and the sites of appalling abuse in a painful struggle to come to terms with atrocious memoriesThe collective trauma inflicted by the Khmer Rouge regime is so momentous that it seems to exceed whatever medium that tries to retell its stories. At the centre of the horrors is an incomprehensible level of evil that neither words nor visual arts can effectively grasp. And yet, Neary Adeline Hay’s sublime Angkar, which begins in darkness and gently, achingly feels its way around the weight of this historical chapter, manages to arrive at a place of stability, and perhaps even emotional resolution.The film follows the return of Hay’s father, Khonsaly Hay, to Cambodia after fleeing for France 40 years ago, and captures his confrontations with his former torturers in detention camps. Its concerns, however, move beyond these strangely low-key encounters and instead revolve around the fragility of memory and the act of remembering itself. Considering that almost all of Khonsaly’s family were executed under the Khmer Rouge, it is shocking how some of his tormenters think of their victims’ experiences as better than their own. Continue reading...
by Josh Taylor (now) and Amy Remeikis (earlier) on (#5N3DF)
Sixty-four of NSW cases were infectious in community; Victoria reports 11 new infections while regional areas to come out of lockdown tonight and state expands access to AstraZeneca; Business Council of Australia says vaccinations should be highly targeted. Follow all the day’s news
Eve Aston, 20, had experienced depression and PTSD after 2017 attack at Ariana Grande concertAn Ariana Grande fan who attended the Manchester Arena concert in 2017 has been found dead in her bedroom after experiencing depression and PTSD following the bombing.The parents of Eve Aston, 20, are fundraising for her funeral after her father found her dead in her bedroom in Finchfield, Wolverhampton, last month. Although the cause of her death remains unknown, the family said she had struggled with loud noises and sleeping since the concert. Continue reading...
Be it face-eating spiders, punctured eyeballs or a deadly snail attack, Fulci staked his claim as Godfather of Gore with dreamy languor and plenty of bloodThere is more than one candidate for the title Godfather of Gore, but Italian film-maker Lucio Fulci can lay greater claim to it than most. This is a director who seems pathologically incapable of filming someone falling off a cliff without inserting closeups of their face scraping against the rocks on their way down. This is a director who seemingly can’t film an eye without getting the urge to squish, skewer or enucleate it. Welcome to Fulci World.It was a film called Zombie Flesh Eaters that brought Fulci to international attention. At least, that was its UK title; its Italian studio called it Zombi 2 to cash in on the success of George A Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, which had been released in Italy as Zombi. In early 1980s Britain, Zombie Flesh Eaters ended up on the director of public prosecutions’ list of video nasties, mostly due to closeups of an eye punctured by a giant splinter. Other slightly more family-friendly highlights include an underwater tussle between a zombie and a shark, and an astonishing vision of zombies shambling across New York’s Brooklyn Bridge. (Don’t look too closely or you’ll see cars going in both directions in the background; the budget wasn’t big enough to stop the traffic.) Continue reading...
One of the few neurosurgeons in the country, Mukasa declined lucrative opportunities to work overseas, dedicating himself to training a new generation and going the ‘extra mile’ for patientsKennedy Owuor first fell over in his hotel room in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, before headaches followed. He initially brushed the symptoms off as a minor problem, but soon he started having difficulties speaking and moving.A trip in August 2020 to northern Uganda, as part of his duties working for the UN’s food agency, had to be interrupted. He was instead driven for 12 hours to UMC Victoria hospital in Kampala. Continue reading...
In this adapted extract from his new book, Minarets in the Mountains, Tharik Hussain discovers a historic centre of Islamic learning in the country’s scenic southern hillsThe silhouette of Gjirokastër began to emerge in the distance. This city is in the country’s mountainous south, overlooked by its ancient fort, with 17th- and 18th-century stone Ottoman houses cascading down the slopes like a medieval mirage.We turned off the highway on to a road dominated by an eight-storey concrete building with pink balconies, beneath which locals sat in the sun sipping coffee on lime-coloured patio furniture. Continue reading...
Inspired by a YouTube video and high on a dose of Olympic spirit, this week the activity is gymnastic. But will the results be fantastic?I once saw an inspirational video of a man teaching himself to backflip in a park, with a mattress behind to break his fall. He got closer and closer, but kept landing on his knees. The breakthrough moment came when he realised the 20cm mattress was taking up space. The cushion that kept him safe was also keeping him from his dream. He removed it and completed the flip. I wept. It’s not about jumping, OK? It’s profoundly existential.The jumping did suggest an urgent question, though: could I do a backflip? Do you have to be Superman, or one of seven lords-a-leaping? I never dared to learn. The optics of dragging a mattress into a park – especially when some people are already confused about how you earn a living – are not good. Yet, with Olympic spirit still hanging in the air, the timing is right. Continue reading...
The veteran journalist, who moved to Moscow in 1988, charted the collapse of a superpower. But, he tells his successor, the Gorbachev revolution has been poisonedWhen Jonathan Steele moved to Moscow for the Guardian in 1988, the story of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms was getting “hotter and hotter”. But with all the restrictions on foreign journalists in the Soviet Union, the question was how to report it. The sources were mainly local journalists authorised to speak to foreigners or dissidents. The phones were likely to have been bugged. You could not travel more than 25 miles out of Moscow without permission and travel plans needed to be sent to the foreign ministry in advance by Telex.“It was very annoying because you wanted to go to someplace because there was a story, but because there was a story they didn’t want to give you permission,” Steele recalled. Continue reading...
Fourteen wild Asian elephants have been guided across the Yuanjiang river in Yunnan, and a path leading back to their nature reserve is being madeAfter an epic 17-month journey that made international headlines, China’s famous herd of wandering elephants appears to finally be heading home.The 14 Asian elephants of various sizes and ages were guided across the Yuanjiang river in Yunnan on Sunday night and a path was being made for them to return to the nature reserve in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, the Associated Press reported. Continue reading...
Alexander Lukashenko leading ‘vicious operation to eviscerate critical voices’ and civil society, rights groups warnAleysa Ivanova wakes up each morning wondering when the knock on her door will come.“You understand you can be next. Every day I wake up, I think ‘maybe it’ll be tomorrow, maybe today. Maybe they’ll come for me this evening’,” said Ivanova (not her real name). Continue reading...
Her career has taken her from pop success to Strictly and the stage. She discusses the pain of racist comments, the joy of duetting with Beyoncé – and the enduring influence of her late mother
Hindu boy faces possible death penalty after being accused of intentionally urinating in a madrassa libraryAn eight-year-old Hindu boy is being held in protective police custody in east Pakistan after becoming the youngest person ever to be charged with blasphemy in the country.The boy’s family is in hiding and many of the Hindu community in the conservative district of Rahim Yar Khan, in Punjab, have fled their homes after a Muslim crowd attacked a Hindu temple after the boy’s release on bail last week. Troops were deployed to the area to quell any further unrest. Continue reading...
Chinese e-commerce company says it is cooperating with the investigationChinese e-commerce company Alibaba has announced that it is cooperating with a police investigation into sexual assault allegations aired by a company employee.A statement on Sunday by the company said it had also had suspended “relevant parties suspected of violating our policies and values,” asserting that it had a “zero-tolerance policy against sexual misconduct.” Continue reading...
Water sports remain the country’s forte, with rowing its most successful Olympic sportNew Zealand is basking in the glow of its greatest ever Olympic medal haul, departing Tokyo with 20 medals – seven gold, six silver and seven bronze, and a new champion, Lisa Carrington, who has become the country’s most decorated Olympic athlete.The tally surpassed the previous record of 18 at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro games, with medals won across 11 sports and women winning more than half of those. The country placed 13th overall on the medal table. Continue reading...
Covid restrictions extended for greater Sydney, with 8 LGAs in hard lockdown, including stricter mask rules and a 5km radius travel limit. Some restrictions have been eased with some construction to resume and a singles bubble introduced. Here’s the full list of what you can and can’t do in NSW
James Ramsbotham, CEO of North East England Chamber of Commerce, says letter sent to Boris Johnson remains unansweredA letter to Boris Johnson sent a fortnight ago by James Ramsbotham called on the prime minister to save the north-east from the “damage being done to our economy” by Brexit and urged him to give it his “most urgent and personal attention”. Two weeks later, it remains unanswered.Ramsbotham is the chief executive of the North East England Chamber of Commerce and speaks for thousands of businesses caught by the red tape and extra costs of complying with EU rules. In a recent survey, 38% of members said sales to Europe had fallen since January. Continue reading...
by Nadeem Badshah (now), Nicola Slawson (earlier) on (#5N2ZP)
This blog is now closed. You can find all of our coverage of the pandemic here.11.47pm BSTThis blog is closing now but thanks very much for reading. We’ll be back in a few hours with more rolling coverage of the pandemic from all around the world.In the meantime you can catch up with all our coverage of the pandemic here.11.03pm BSTTunisia launched a Covid-19 vaccination drive for the over-40s, after receiving more than six million doses from abroad to combat surging infections.The health ministry said 551,008 people had been given jabs in more than 300 centres across the country, in what was billed as an “open day” for vaccinations, AFP reports. Continue reading...
Each bag matches birth weight and features baby’s face, so new arrival can be hugged in pandemicParents in Japan are sending bags of rice that weigh the same as their newborn babies to relatives who are unable to visit them due to the pandemic.The bags come in a wide range of designs, with some shaped like a baby wrapped in a blanket so that relatives can feel as though they are hugging the new arrival while looking at a picture of their face, which is attached to the front. Continue reading...
by Akhtar Mohammad Makoii in Herat and Luke Harding on (#5N36N)
Insurgent group seizes important political and military hub as pro-government forces retreatThe Taliban have claimed a huge symbolic victory after their fighters seized a large city for the first time in northern Afghanistan as part of a seemingly unstoppable offensive in which they have captured five provincial capitals in just three days.Armed men swept into Kunduz on Sunday, a strategic city close to the border with Tajikistan and an important political and military hub. By mid-morning they controlled the city centre while pro-government forces retreated to the nearby airport. Residents fled as smoke from the city’s burning market engulfed the sky. Continue reading...
Since Cyclone Pam devastated Vanuatu, locals are returning to the saeklon haos, made from vines, palm fronds and grassesWhen Cyclone Pam devastated Vanuatu and concrete buildings collapsed, their iron roofing blown away, there was no loss of life in the traditionally built structures known as saeklon haos (cyclone house).Though they normally sleep six, during the 2015 storm up to 30 villagers were able to squeeze in together, physically supporting the house posts from the inside if needed. Continue reading...
by Jon Henley, Bethan McKernan, and Helena Smith in A on (#5N390)
Firefighters tackle blazes on two fronts on Evia as heatwave-driven devastation across southern Europe continuesThousands of people have fled wildfires that are destroying vast swathes of pine forest and razing homes on Greece’s second-largest island, Evia, as devastating summer blazes rage from southern Europe to Siberia.“We have ahead of us another difficult evening, another difficult night,” Greece’s deputy civil protection minister, Nikos Hardalias, said on Sunday, adding that nearly a week after the blazes started, strong winds were driving two major fire fronts in the north and south of the island. Continue reading...
The federal government has resisted a push for mandatory standards even as industry, vets and the RSPCA urge changePash and Pebbles went off their food on the last Sunday in June.The retired greyhounds had been on a fresh meat diet since their racing days – Pash, whose black coat has turned silver in his old age, prefers his meat raw, while Pebbles ate hers cooked. Owner Sue Graham had been feeding them the same food, delivered from the same supplier, for years. Continue reading...
The sky over the island of Evia turned red and orange as people boarded an evacuation ferry after days of fires in the area.Dozens of wildfires have burned in Greece after the longest heatwave in 30 years, which sent temperatures soaring to 45C.The Greek coastguard said three patrol boats, four navy vessels, one ferry and various tourist, fishing and private boats were on standby to carry out more potential evacuations from villages on the island's northern tip.
Chris Philp, the immigration compliance minister, outlines the work of the Home Office in safeguarding interpreters, while Barry Young says joined-up thinking is needed and Peter Simm highlights the danger to asylum seekers being told to relocate to KabulInterpreters who assisted British forces in Afghanistan have played a fundamental role, standing side by side with those on the frontline of combat. For that we owe a debt of gratitude – one that we are paying, contrary to the claims of Clive Lewis MP (I saw Afghan interpreters translate so much more than words – now they live in terror, 6 August).There are hundreds of officials working without pause across the country and in Afghanistan to safely and quickly relocate current and former locally employed staff who often risked their lives on our behalf. They are arriving here with their families on a near-daily basis to build a new life. So far, we have enabled over 2,800 people to relocate to Britain, with 1,400 arriving over the last few weeks alone. As we continue to significantly accelerate the pace of relocations due to the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, hundreds more will follow. Continue reading...
Two-week order on coast between Cape Trafalgar and Barbate is second time authorities have taken actionSpain has ordered small boats to steer clear of a stretch of the country’s southern coast after reports of more than 50 encounters with boisterous orcas, including as many as 25 incidents in which boats had to be towed to shore.A two-week prohibition bars most vessels of 15 metres or less from sailing near the coast between Cape Trafalgar and the small town of Barbate. It is the second time in 13 months that Spain’s ministry of transport has taken action to address a spate of extraordinary orca encounters that have baffled scientists. Continue reading...
Campaigners say figures for last two years underestimate the true situation at barracks and hotelsThe Home Office has recorded 70 racist incidents by far-right supporters against asylum seekers in barracks and hotel accommodation, according to a freedom of information response obtained by the Guardian.However, campaigners supporting asylum seekers in such accommodation say the figure is a significant underestimation of the true picture. Continue reading...
Mayor of Algar (pop 1,400) says the tradition is the ‘opposite of social media’ and good for mental healthIt’s a nightly summer ritual across much of Spain: as the sweltering heat of the day eases off, chairs are hauled out to the street for an alfresco chat. Now an enterprising village in southern Spain is seeking to have the tradition recognised by the United Nations as a cultural treasure.The aim is to protect the centuries-old custom from the encroaching threat of social media and television, said José Carlos Sánchez, the mayor of Algar, a town of about 1,400 people. “It’s the opposite of social media,” he told the Guardian. “This is about face-to-face conversations.” Continue reading...
Death of Memory Machaya, 14, who gave birth at church shrine, prompts outrage among citizens and activistsThe United Nations has condemned the practice of child marriage in Zimbabwe following the death of a 14-year-old girl after she gave birth at a church shrine, an incident that caused outrage among citizens and rights activists.The case has brought to the fore the practice of child marriage within Zimbabwe’s apostolic churches, which also allow polygamy. Continue reading...
Ministers say new crime will carry tougher sentences following rise in dognapping as pet ownership soared in lockdownA new offence of “pet abduction” is being drawn up to tackle a rise in dognapping since the start of the first lockdown last year. This is the primary recommendation from the government’s pet theft task force, which was launched following soaring cases of stolen pets.As demand for pets grew with people forced to spend more time at home during the pandemic, the cost of dogs and cats rose sharply, and soon organised crime groups were coordinating pet thefts to exploit the inflated prices. Continue reading...
Unions say Teleperformance also asked some staff based overseas to give biometric and medical dataA multinational call centre used by dozens of leading UK companies has been criticised for what unions have called the intrusive monitoring of home-working staff and their families, as well as asking workers to hand over biometric and medical data..Unions say Teleperformance, which also answers calls for a series of UK government departments, is “pushing workers’ boundaries” over long-term home working amid coronavirus, and accuse the company of having unfairly targeted several staff who objected. Continue reading...
by Angela Giuffrida in Perdasdefogu, Sardinia on (#5N31P)
Books, clean air and socialising thought to have helped the latest five mark their 100th birthdays in Perdasdefogu this yearIf there’s one thing the remote mountain village of Perdasdefogu needs to ensure it always has a steady supply of, it’s birthday candles. Already this year, 500 have been needed to decorate the birthday cakes of five residents who turned 100.Each milestone usually means a celebration involving the entire town. The mayor, Mariano Carta, presents a medal to the centenarian, who more often than not can recall details of their life over the past century with remarkable lucidity. Continue reading...
The congresswoman’s protest on the Capitol steps may have been unconventional – but she didn’t come to Washington to play by the old rules.When Cori Bush decided to camp out on the steps of the US Capitol for four days to protest against the end of the eviction moratorium, people insinuated her behavior was unbecoming of a congresswoman.“Shameless and embarrassing,” was what Matt Walsh, the self-described “theocratic fascist” radio host called it. Ben Shapiro called the protest “stupid,” meanwhile, Bush’s local paper, the St Louis Post Dispatch, wrote that her “righteous-sounding aspirations” did not “seem to take into account political reality.” Continue reading...
With her debut book, The Right to Sex, a 36-year-old Oxford don is dazzling everyone from Vogue to Prospect magazine. She discusses porn, gender dysphoria – and why her students are no snowflakesIf All Souls is one of the most inordinately beautiful colleges in Oxford – its bone-white gothic, best peered at by mere mortals from nearby Radcliffe Square, is the work of the great Nicholas Hawksmoor – it’s also one of the oddest and most rarefied. Famously, it has no student body. Each year, however, a small number of recent graduates who would like to become so-called prize fellows may apply to take a famously difficult and inscrutable exam during which, as a tour guide I followed earlier put it, they must “write an essay on a single word, like coconut”. As my eavesdropping also revealed, TE Lawrence, AKA Lawrence of Arabia, passed this exam, but Harold Wilson failed it.In her lovely, wood-panelled room in All Souls – its current tenant wears Adidas sneakers and likes a good martini, but it still makes me think of patched corduroy and sherry – Amia Srinivasan laughs heartily. “Right,” she says. “Those guides. They always come up with things like: everyone here is a priest, or everyone is a man. Or they tell people: ‘Stephen Hawking is in there right now.’ At least the exam thing is sort of true.” Having taken it successfully herself in 2009 – she had to write around the word “reproduction” – Srinivasan was a prize fellow at the college until 2016, when she became a lecturer at UCL (the one-word riff component was abandoned the following year). Now, though, she’s back. Last January, she took her up her post as the Chichele professor of social and political theory at All Souls, a job once held by Isaiah Berlin. She is both the first woman, and the first person of colour, to hold it. At just 36, she is also its youngest ever incumbent. Continue reading...
Barry Joule, a close friend of the artist, says the gallery has not kept to a pledge to stage exhibitions of the worksWhen more than 1,200 sketches, photographs and documents from the studio of Francis Bacon were donated to the Tate in 2004, it was described as one of the most generous gifts the gallery had ever received, estimated to be worth £20m. Now the donor is threatening to cancel the gift, accusing the gallery of reneging on pledges to stage exhibitions of the material.Barry Joule, a longstanding friend of Bacon, had wanted the items to go to the Tate, as it had been the artist’s favourite gallery. Over the years, he kept expecting the Tate to do justice to it with an exhibition, as he says they had planned on accepting the gift. He wrote repeatedly to curatorial staff, asking when the show would happen. Continue reading...
Every year thousands of refugees from conflict, climate and instability in Africa board vessels in search of a new life in Europe. But hundreds never arrive – and even those who make it face hostility and a life of fearAt 6.30am on Friday 28 May, three fishermen at work four miles off the southern coast of Tobago spotted a large white boat adrift on the dawn waters of the Caribbean.As they drew closer, the trio saw the boat’s shape was far from local, and noticed a strong smell coming from inside it. The body the fishermen glimpsed at the bow was enough to confirm their suspicions. They called the coastguard who, unable to dispatch a vessel, asked them to tow the boat ashore at Belle Garden beach. Continue reading...
After 35 years, the Observer’s former correspondent is leaving as what was once a haven of liberty and peace is transformed into a police stateWhen I arrived in Hong Kong in 1987 as the Observer’s south-east Asia correspondent, the foreign editor said he saw it as being a base, not the kind of territory that would generate much news but it was a safe place to be, communications were good and I was unlikely to have any visa problems. I thought I might stay a couple of years and move on. Thirty-five years later, I have, with great sadness, moved on and no one in their right mind can possibly assert that Hong Kong is a safe place for journalists.The white terror – the term used to describe the ruthless elimination of the opposition in Taiwan following the imposition of Kuomintang rule and more recently taken up by the opposition in Hong Kong to describe similar events in the city – is relentless, swooping down not just on journalists, but on prominent opposition leaders, teachers, lawyers and, recently, speech therapists who had the temerity to write a children’s book about sheep that dared to answer back; they have been charged with subversion. Continue reading...
There was a degree of heat, but not much light cast on the future of a party still recovering from last year’s election thumpingThe National Party has just wrapped up the final day of its annual general meeting. There was a bit more drama than usual. Former speaker of the house David Carter resigned from the board before the close of the meeting after failing to win the presidency from Peter Goodfellow, who has held the role since 2009.Various changes were made to the party rules. A nod to the Treaty of Waitangi as the country’s founding document was inserted into the party constitution. There was heated debate on questions of party governance, with delegates opting to keep the board on a short leash following a disastrous election last year. Continue reading...
Australian health minister ‘expects’ 1m doses of Moderna in a month as Victorian premier also announces drive-though vaccination hubThe Moderna vaccine will be available in Australia from mid-September adding to the country’s use of AstraZeneca and Pfizer, the Morrison government says.The announcement on Sunday came as the Victorian government revealed it would make AstraZeneca available to people aged 18 to 39 at nine of its state-run clinics and stand up Australia’s first drive-through vaccination hub. Continue reading...
by Justine Landis-Hanley (now) and Christopher Knaus on (#5N2SX)
Northern Territory declares Cairns and Yarrabah hotspots ahead of snap lockdown; Victorian clinics to offer AstraZeneca to under 40s as state records 11 cases; NSW records 262 cases and one death; Queensland records nine new cases. Follow live