Submarine robot takes photos of vessel and cargo of amphorae dating back to second century BCAn ancient Roman vessel dating back to the second century BC has been discovered in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Palermo.The ship lies 92 metres (302ft) deep in the ocean, near Isola delle Femmine, and from the first images taken by a submarine robot it was carrying a copious cargo of wine amphorae. Continue reading...
Guardian newspaper rated highest by readers for accuracy, trustworthiness and depth of analysisThe Guardian continues to be the UK’s most widely used newspaper website and app for news, according to the communications watchdog, which shows it has increased its audience share over the past year.The research by Ofcom, based on audience surveys, found that 23% of consumers who used websites or apps for news turned to the Guardian for their updates, one percentage point higher than the Daily Mail’s online products, and a one-point increase on the previous year. Continue reading...
by Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor on (#5MNZ7)
Defence secretary says Britannia replacement would cost up to £250m at event to launch projectBritain’s new royal yacht could cost the taxpayer an initial £50m more than previously indicated at a total cost of £250m, the defence secretary said at an industry event to launch the project.The replacement for the long-scrapped Britannia, a brainchild of the prime minister, Boris Johnson, would be commissioned at “between £200m and £250m at a firm price”, Ben Wallace told a specially convened conference at Greenwich. Continue reading...
by Reporting by Kaamil Ahmed, Joe Dyke and Anas Baba on (#5MNVX)
First comes the warning call – then the race to evacuate. Residents of a Gaza apartment block recall the frantic minutes before their homes to were turned to rubble
Our photojournalist explores the famed outdoor venue in Cornwall as it welcomes back full houses“I knew of it from pictures I’d seen online and I thought it looked pretty, but when you arrive and see it yourself, it’s like, ‘Oh wow, this is insane,’” says actor Guido Garcia Lueches about the Minack Theatre. “It’s probably the best theatre I’ve ever performed in.”Carved largely by hand into a craggy, granite cliff-face, the dizzying outdoor venue on the south coast of Cornwall looks magnificent in the summer sunshine. Tiers of subtropical foliage splash colour throughout the landscape and weathered concrete seats bearing the titles of past shows rise abruptly from the stage. The ocean, 100ft below, looks an enticing shade of turquoise. Continue reading...
As the conflict intensifies amid the withdrawal of US-led forces, a new wave of families are being forced to flee via perilous routes to Iran and TurkeyA weary Zebah Gul and her eight children are gathered quietly in a small room at a transit centre in Herat, north-eastern Afghanistan. Their six-month attempt to escape the war and find safety has failed.They have just spent a week in Iranian police detention after being caught trying to cross the border into Turkey, and are beginning to make their way back to their besieged home province of Takhar, on the opposite side of the sprawling country. Continue reading...
Sitting in a small dinghy in darkness as it took on water was frightening enough in a sea survival exercise let alone for realAs I paddled through crashing waves in the darkness, stomach churning, I watched our small dinghy starting to fill up with water with a sinking feeling – it wouldn’t be long before we went overboard, and I was worried that at least one person in my boat was paddling in the wrong direction. But, then again, it might have been me: I was wielding an oar twice my size and it was impossible to tell in the frenzy.
Ineos has been accused of using sports to ‘greenwash’ its reputationNew Zealand Rugby’s decision to sign a six-year deal with global petrochemical company Ineos has been criticised by Greenpeace, who said it fundamentally goes against the country’s “clean, green” values.NZ Rugby announced the company will become the official performance partner for its seven teams from 2022. Ineos is a UK oil, gas and petrochemical conglomerate – the third largest company of its kind in the world. Its main shareholder is billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, and the company has lobbied to weaken green taxes and reduce restrictions on fracking. Continue reading...
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has announced new financial assistance measures after New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian extended greater Sydney's lockdown by four weeks. One of the measures includes an extra $200 payment for welfare recipients in NSW who have lost more than eight hours' work per week. Other disaster payments will be increased from $600 to $750 as a maximum and for people who have lost less than 20 hours' work, from $375 to $450 per week
Covid restrictions extended for greater Sydney, with a hard lockdown expanded to Parramatta, Georges River and Campbelltown LGAs. Some restrictions have been eased with some construction to resume and a singles bubble introduced, while lockdown lifts in Orange. Here’s the full list of what you can and can’t do in NSW
Six years after deadly Fundao dam rupture, lawsuit against Anglo-Australian mining giant proclaimed as ‘an opportunity for real justice’London’s court of appeal made a U-turn on Tuesday by agreeing to reopen a US$7bn lawsuit by 200,000 claimants against Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP, reviving a case over a dam rupture behind Brazil’s worst environmental disaster.Lawyers for one of the largest group claims in English legal history have been pushing to resurrect the £5bn ($6.9bn) lawsuit against BHP since a lower court struck out the lawsuit as an abuse of process last year – and a court of appeal judge upheld that decision in March. Continue reading...
Chankillo in Peru features 13 stone towers built in 250 to 200 BC that functioned as a calendar by marking the rising and setting arcs of the sunThe oldest solar observatory in the Americas has been awarded Unesco world heritage status and dubbed “a masterpiece of human creative genius”.The 2,300-year-old archaeological ruin Chankillo which lies in a desert valley in northern Peru was one of 13 new global sites added to the list of cultural monuments. Continue reading...
Supporters fear Yidiresi Aishan will be extradited and say arrest is politically drivenMoroccan authorities have arrested a Uyghur activist in exile because of a Chinese terrorism warrant distributed by Interpol, according to information from Moroccan police and a rights group that tracks people detained by China.Activists fear Yidiresi Aishan will be extradited to China and say the arrest is politically driven as part of a broader Chinese campaign to hunt down perceived dissidents outside its borders. Continue reading...
Lifeboat charity says it is its moral and legal duty to rescue people at risk of dying as they cross ChannelThe Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has hit out at accusations it is operating a “migrant taxi service” by rescuing people at risk of dying in the water as they cross the Channel in small boats, which the charity says is its moral and legal duty.Responding to accusations from Nigel Farage that it is facilitating illegal immigration, the volunteer lifeboat charity said it was “very proud” of its humanitarian work and it would continue to respond to coastguard callouts to rescue at-risk Channel migrants in line with its legal duty under international maritime law. Continue reading...
Experts say failures of latest benefit changes show need for major reforms to labyrinthine welfare system“It feels like a broken promise,” says Bella*, a thirtysomething Auckland mother of one for whom this month’s ostensible benefit increases have turned into something quite different – a $75 a week loss of income.On 1 July, New Zealand’s Labour government lifted weekly benefits by $20 per adult, the first instalment in a $32-55 increase in May’s budget that was the largest since the foundation of the modern welfare state in the 1930s. Continue reading...
PM’s attempt to grip agenda flounders amid criticism he has ignored evidence on stop-and-searchPolice chiefs have condemned Boris Johnson’s high-profile strategy to tackle crime as “weird and gimmicky”, while plans to increase stop-and-search were criticised for ignoring the evidence.The crime initiative was supposed to show the Johnson government gripping the agenda. But senior police officers, the rank and file, opposition politicians and even some in business rebuked it. Continue reading...
Air Force intelligence analyst gave military documents to journalist to ‘dispel the lie that our lives are worth more than theirs’A former air force intelligence analyst was sentenced to 45 months in prison on Tuesday for leaking top secret information about the US government’s drone strike program to a journalist.Daniel Hale of Nashville, Tennessee, has said he was motivated by guilt and a desire for transparency when he disclosed to an investigative reporter details of a military drone program that he believed was indiscriminately killing civilians in Afghanistan far from the battlefield. Continue reading...
Reece Kershaw will use National Press Club speech to focus on options for combatting transnational crime following Operation IronsideThe Australian federal police commissioner, Reece Kershaw, will use a speech on Wednesday to declare decriminalising drug use “will not stop organised crime” because the revenue stream from the trade will continue to fund criminal activities.Kershaw is expected to use an address to the National Press Club to toughen language around illicit drug use. Continue reading...
Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson are romancing riverboat adventurers in a ride-turned-film that quickly becomes blandThe Jungle Cruise theme-park ride is a riverboat trip that Disneyland visitors have been queuing up for since the 1950s: an old-timey craft travelling down an artificial jungle river, with a jolly captain pointing out animatronic animals lurching out of the artificial undergrowth. Now it’s been adapted into a blandly inoffensive piece of generic entertainment: screenwriters Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (who once gave us Bad Santa and I Love You Phillip Morris) have mashed up The African Queen with Raiders of the Lost Ark, and with what I admit is a surreal splash of Aguirre, Wrath of God.It’s lively enough for the first 20 minutes. The year is 1916, and Emily Blunt plays Lily Houghton, a haughty yet idealistic British scientist, much patronised by the male establishment in London. She imperiously hires a riverboat in Brazil to find the much-rumoured “Tree of Life” somewhere in the jungle. Its captain is a cynical-with-a-heart-of-gold rogue called Frank Wolff, man-mountainishly played by Dwayne Johnson. After the traditional meet-cute, their growing romance plays off the comedy turn provided by Jack Whitehall, playing the other passenger: Lily’s foppish, neurotic younger brother MacGregor. At one stage, Whitehall’s prissy, wussy Englishman explains to Dwayne Johnson that he is gay – or rather, he says something indirect about being not as other men, and the subject is never raised again, Edwardian reticence dovetailing nicely with Disney family values. It is a stereotype that Walt himself might have recognised, while also approving of the obvious heterosexuality of Frank with his muscles, boots and sailor’s cap. Continue reading...
by Associated Press in Canton, Georgia on (#5MMNS)
• Robert Aaron Long agrees plea deal but faces four more charges• Eight people, six women of Asian descent, died in shootingsA Georgia man charged in the shooting deaths of eight people at three Atlanta-area massage businesses was pleading guilty in Cherokee county on Tuesday, hoping for a sentence of life without parole to the first four cases.Related: Are police the biggest threat to massage parlor workers’ safety? Continue reading...
by Patrick Butler Social policy editor on (#5MMGC)
Inquiry into child sexual abuse says abuse occurred over several decades on a scale ‘hard to comprehend’Hundreds of vulnerable children in the care of Lambeth council in south London were subjected to horrendous cruelty and sexual abuse over several decades on a scale that was “hard to comprehend”, an independent inquiry report has found.The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) found more than 700 allegations of sexual abuse against hundreds of staff and individuals connected with just three homes in the borough. The true scale of abuse was likely to be far higher, it said. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington on (#5MMBJ)
Four Democrats in Congress tell Biden administration that such firms ‘should be sanctioned, and if necessary, shut down’Democratic lawmakers in Washington have called on the Biden administration to consider placing NSO Group on an export blacklist and said recent revelations of misuse reinforced their conviction that the “hacking-for-hire industry must be brought under control”.The statement by four members of Congress followed reports by the Pegasus project, a collaboration of 17 media organisations including the Guardian, which investigated NSO, the Israeli company that sells its powerful surveillance software to government clients around the world. Continue reading...
by Vincent Ni China affairs correspondent on (#5MMNV)
Washington keen to partner with other powers in the Indo-Pacific region to ensure stability, Lloyd Austin saysThe US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, has said that Washington does not seek conflict with Beijing but is eager to partner with other powers in the Indo-Pacific region to ensure the stability of it, amid a diplomatic standoff between the US and China.“We will not flinch when our interests are threatened. Yet we do not seek confrontation,” Austin said in speech in Singapore. Continue reading...
Tory who was a health minister in early days of infection controversy says it ‘hardly came across my desk’Ken Clarke said he was not responsible for blood products during the early days of the infected blood scandal despite being a health minister at the time, an inquiry has heard.Lord Clarke, who was a Conservative health minister from 1982 to 1985, said the emerging controversy surrounding the blood products was something that “hardly ever came across my desk” as he was dealing with policies such as closing “old Victorian asylums” or getting rid of “old geriatric hospitals”. Continue reading...
An explosion at an industrial park for chemical companies shook the German city of Leverkusen on Tuesday, sending a large black cloud into the air. Germany's federal office for civil protection and disaster assistance classified the explosion as 'an extreme threat' and asked residents to stay inside and keep windows and doors closed. The cause of the explosion was unclear
At least 57 died near Khoms, taking the total to 987 so far this year as European authorities decrease patrolsAt least 57 people have died after a boat carrying dozens of migrants capsized off the Libyan coast, with nearly 1,000 asylum seekers having perished so far in 2021 in the central Mediterranean, four times as many as in the same period last year, charities and the UN migration agency said.Flavio Di Giacomo, Italy’s spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said the shipwreck raised the death toll to 987. “Last year there were 272. We must no longer hesitate, and do everything to strengthen the system of patrols at sea,” he said. Continue reading...
One dead, four missing after blast at waste facility in Leverkusen sends large black cloud into airAn explosion at an industrial park for chemical companies in Germany has killed at least one person, with 16 injured and four missing.Fire officials who tested the air said there did not appear to be a danger to nearby residents after authorities initially urged people to shelter inside. Continue reading...
Police and city authorities agree that ‘pioneering’ model has reduced street dealing and consumptionBarcelona’s 200 cannabis clubs face closure after the supreme court shut a legal loophole that has seen the city become Spain’s marijuana capital.It is the latest in a series of setbacks for the asociaciónes, as they are popularly known. In 2017, the court overruled a law passed by the Catalan parliament which said “private consumption of cannabis by adults … is part of the exercise of the fundamental right to free personal development and freedom of conscience”. Continue reading...
Reporters from international outlets have suffered worsening intimidation while covering Henan floodsPress groups have expressed alarm at the worsening intimidation of foreign media in China, often driven by government officials and organisations.As recovery and rescue efforts continue in Henan province after last week’s deadly floods, groups including Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) have condemned recent harassment and threats towards journalists covering the disaster. Continue reading...
Covid restrictions for greater Sydney, including residents in the Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown, Liverpool, Cumberland and Blacktown LGAs, the Central Coast, Blue Mountains and Wollongong to be extended, with lockdown set to lift for Orange, Blayney and Cabonne local government areas in the state’s central west. Here’s the full list of what you can and can’t do in NSW
The recent discovery of unmarked graves at residential schools is the latest incident in decades of trauma for Indigenous Canadians, who are using lyricism to process itAfter the recent discovery of hundreds of Indigenous children’s unmarked graves at former Canadian residential schools, Drezus – an rapper of Cree and Ojibwe heritage from the Muskowekwan First Nation in Saskatchewan province – grew unsure about his longstanding plans to release a new music video, Bless. He starts the song by calling the atrocities his people have faced “an act of war”, then follows that with bar after bar of Indigenous empowerment. Unsure if that would be appropriate while his people grieved, he turned to his mother, who had attended one of those schools. Her advice? “Release it, son. We need it now.”This government-funded, Christian church-administered boarding school system was established in Canada in the late 1800s. Its founders’ intent: to forcibly remove Indigenous children from their “savage” parents and impose English and Christianity. Some 150,000 Indigenous children attended these schools before the last one closed in 1997. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report detailed nearly 38,000 sexual and physical abuse claims from former residential school students, along with 3,200 documented deaths. The mortality rate for those children was estimated to be up to five times higher than their white counterparts, due to factors including suicide, neglect and disease. Continue reading...
by Helen Davidson in Taipei and agencies on (#5MM4N)
Tong Ying-kit case seen as a departure from common law traditions, with accused denied bail and a jury trialThe first person charged and tried under Hong Kong’s draconian national security law has been found guilty of terrorism and inciting secession, in a landmark ruling that sets a precedent for future cases brought under the law.Tong Ying-kit, 24, a former waiter, had pleaded not guilty to the charges, which also included dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm. He faces possible prison terms ranging from several years to life, and his lawyers are expected to argue for a lighter punishment at his sentencing hearing on Thursday. Continue reading...
by Naaman Zhou (now) and Matilda Boseley (earlier) on (#5MM1H)
SA to exit lockdown at midnight; NSW records 172 local Covid-19 cases overnight; Victoria lockdown to ease from midnight after state records 10 cases; Queensland records no new cases overnight. Follow all the day’s news
by John Bartlett in Santiago, Natalie Alcoba in Bueno on (#5MMEJ)
From Canada to Colombia, protests erupt against legacies of violence, exploitation and cultural erasureAs statues of queens and conquistadors are tumbled amid protests across North and South America, Indigenous people are pushing for a region-wide reckoning with colonialism’s bitter legacy of massacre and cultural erasure.From the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego, Indigenous Americans have taken aim at the Catholic Church, national governments and other powerful institutions. Continue reading...
Exhibition details how Francisco Javier de Balmis used children to keep smallpox vaccine fresh on journey to Spain’s colonies in 1803When Francisco Javier de Balmis set off from Spain in 1803 to vaccinate the people in Spain’s colonies against smallpox he had no means of keeping the vaccine fresh, so he used children as his refrigerators.An exhibition of documents relating to Balmis’s voyage has opened at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville and will be on display until 15 September. Continue reading...
In France, a new law could seriously restrict women’s rights to wear headscarves in public, and there are fears that it will entrench IslamophobiaLast October, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, laid out the vision behind a new, deeply controversial bill. The government claimed a minority of France’s estimated 6 million Muslims were at risk of forming a “counter-society” and the bill was designed to tackle the dangers of this “Islamist separatism”.It is meant to safeguard republican values, but critics, including Amnesty International, have raised serious concerns that it may inhibit freedom of association and expression, and increase discrimination. The new law, say critics, will severely affect the construction of mosques, and give more discretion to local authorities to close local associations deemed in conflict with “Republican principles”, a term often wielded against Muslims specifically. But one of the most controversial points is extending the ban on women wearing headscarves in public sector roles, to private organisations that provide a public service. Further amendments were tabled prohibiting full-length swimsuits (“burkinis”), girls under 18 from wearing the hijab in public, and mothers from wearing hijabs on their children’s school trips. These were subsequently overturned, but the stigma they legitimise lives on. Continue reading...
A high-schooler is abducted in a series that is as provocative as it is soapy. Could this be the next Euphoria?“Sometimes I would be like: where are we? What’s happening? What’s going on? I’m confused. Someone talk to me!” Chiara Aurelia is describing her first major TV role. If it sounds stressful, that’s probably because it was: in Amazon’s new psychological thriller Cruel Summer, the 18-year-old newcomer navigates life – first as a chronically awkward teenager, then as the latest addition to the “popular set” – before being dubbed “the most hated girl in America.”Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...
Over a thousand girls in rural Isiolo county, many of them young mothers, are catching up in the classroom. But entrenched cultural barriers remain a challenge for educatorsFor much of her girlhood, Lucy Koriang* would spend her days taking the family’s goat herd out, walking for several kilometres a day, looking for the best grazing spots.Being a goat herder was not a job she enjoyed or chose, especially in the unbearably high temperatures of Isiolo county, northern Kenya, where she lives. Her father, like most parents in Ngaremara village, saw little point in taking his children to school. Moving from the shelter of one thorny acacia tree to another, the 13-year-old would get lost in her thoughts, dreaming of a different life. Continue reading...
Despite ‘promise to learn lessons’, Priti Patel’s department set up process that is too complex for victims, with inadequate capacityThe Windrush generation is being failed by the Home Office “all over again” because of fundamental problems in the compensation scheme for UK citizens misclassified as illegal immigrants, parliament’s spending watchdog has concluded.Despite a “promise to learn lessons”, Priti Patel’s department has set up a process that is too complex and difficult for victims to engage with, and with inadequate capacity since it was launched two years ago, the public accounts committee said in a report published on Tuesday. Continue reading...
by Phillipe Lopez/Agence France Presse on (#5MMBM)
The Cordouan beacon is the last to be inhabited in France and only the second, after the Tower of Hercules at La Coruña in Spain, to be added to Unesco’s World Heritage list. Cordouan was built at the end of the 16th century and overlooks the Atlantic Ocean from the mouth of the Gironde estuary in south-western France
In an Errol Morris-produced documentary, the strange story of a ‘hacktivist’ whose life gets turned upside down is brought to life with more questions than answers remaining“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” Oscar Wilde’s arch observation raises the curtain on Sonia Kennebeck’s new documentary film Enemies of the State, exec-produced by Errol Morris. Winston Churchill’s summary of Russia – “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” – would be no less apt.Viewers are invited to join Kennebeck’s investigation into the bizarre case of Matt DeHart, a former member of the US air national guard who worked on the drone programme. He played online games, joined the “hactivist” group Anonymous and was an alleged courier for the whistleblower site WikiLeaks. Continue reading...
Pedro Castillo saw off an ugly, Trump-style revolt against his victory and must now try to unite the countryAfter nearly two months of waiting, amid baseless claims of fraud and even rumblings of a military coup, Pedro Castillo will on Wednesday become Peru’s president. The son of illiterate peasant farmers, Castillo’s rise to the top on Peru’s 200th anniversary of independence is hugely symbolic, but he will face huge challenges to unite the country.Castillo’s razor-thin win has split the country between those who back his pledge to overhaul politics and the economic system to tackle poverty and inequality, and others who fear his presidency will upturn Peru’s market-friendly economy and even threaten its democracy. Continue reading...
Watching an Afghan refugee in the Olympics is a source of inspiration to many women in a country where riding a bike is seen as a political statement and the Taliban are gaining groundWhen Masomah Ali Zada makes her Olympic debut at the women’s cycling time trial this week, speeding her way around the 22km route with Mount Fuji in the background, it won’t just be her teammates in Japan cheering her on. In Kabul, where the 25-year-old joined the national squad as a teenager, a small but gutsy group of female cyclists will be glued to the television, willing her to do the best she can.“I’m really, really proud of her and so are all of the team members, and we are really looking forward to watching her race and seeing her do great,” says Zahla Sarmat, assistant development director of the Afghan cycling federation’s women’s division. For her and her fellow riders, Ali Zada is a source of huge inspiration, even if her sporting success eventually led her to leave Afghanistan and claim asylum in France. She is competing in Tokyo as part of the Refugee Olympic Team. Continue reading...
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