Prosecutors granted more time to prepare cases against those arrested under sweeping national security lawProsecutors have been granted another months-long delay to the trial of 47 pro-democracy politicians, activists, and campaigners in Hong Kong who held pre-election primaries declared illegal under its sweeping national security law.A court on Thursday was originally expected to hear an application to transfer the case to a higher court with powers to order longer jail sentences, but prosecutors instead requested an 11-week adjournment, saying they needed more time to prepare, local media reported. Continue reading...
Fans share jokes and clips including a stadium rendition of Whole Again and mocking Boris Johnson’s shirtAs sure as night follows day, social media memes follow a big sporting event, and so England fans on Wednesday night enjoyed sharing jokes and clips of events around the Euro 2020 semi-final win almost as much as the victory itself.Mason Mount was showered with praise after this video clip of him giving his shirt to a young girl in the Wembley crowd took off on social media. Her emotional reaction summed up how many England fans must have felt after such a long wait to reach a major tournament final again. Continue reading...
by Vincent Ni China affairs correspondent and Helen D on (#5KZQ8)
Dozens of WeChat accounts have been blocked and deleted without warningAn online clampdown of social media accounts associated with China’s campus LGBTQ movement has sparked outrage, solidarity and backlash against the authorities’ treatment of the country’s sexual and gender minorities.Dozens of WeChat accounts run by LGBTQ university students were blocked and then deleted on Tuesday, without warning. Some of the accounts – a mix of registered student clubs and unofficial grassroots groups – had operated for years as safe spaces for China’s LGBTQ youth, with tens of thousands of followers. Continue reading...
After our GCSEs, my first girlfriend and I took our tent to Reading festival and found levity in a very difficult yearThere is a peculiar romance to British summer music festivals. Some kind of consequence-free hedonism emerges when you combine bouts of torrential rain with the rancid stench of overflowing chemical toilets, the stomach-fizz of morning beers, and the itch of last night’s glitter pressed into your unwashed skin. It makes for the perfect conditions to distract the head and, for once, indulge the heart.It was the summer of 2010 when I camped out at Reading festival, the August blow-out that 16-year-olds from the UK’s south-east use as a putrid marker of their transition from secondary school to college; from adolescence to something approaching young adulthood. Continue reading...
After playing psychopaths and priests, the actor is starring in an almost unbearably tragic role. He discusses bullies, broodiness and blockbustersJames Norton’s latest film, Nowhere Special, has a premise so tragic it should be completely unfilmable. He plays John, a 35-year-old single father who is given a few months to live, and has to find a new family for his three-year-old son. Even before you factor in the incredible performance by Daniel Lamont, who was only four when the film was shot, it sounds too obviously a tear-jerker, especially from Uberto Pasolini, a director known for Still Life, a very finely drawn, understated film in 2013, which comes at death from a much more oblique angle.In fact, the film slips deftly past any obvious poignance to create something much more complicated, with arresting performances from Norton and his tiny co-star. “Credit must be given to the director,” Norton insists, on Zoom from his home in London. “He said: ‘I don’t want this to be brutally sad, I want this to be about life as much as it is about death.’” This you might characterise as a standard actorly response, generous and modest. Then there’s more: “My taste is aligned to that kind of performance. But the subject is so charged and universal, you feel the responsibility sometimes as an actor to show that you recognise how operatic and sad this is. Every time, I would give him a performance that was big, and schmaltzy and gooey, and he was like: ‘Yeah, I know you really liked that, but I’m not going to use it.’” Continue reading...
Dozens have died seeking reforms to African kingdom where many are dubious about authorities’ offer of talksAuthorities in Eswatini have promised a “national dialogue” in an attempt to avert further unrest after dozens died and hundreds of businesses were burned down in weeks of protest in Africa’s only remaining absolute monarchy.The move has been greeted with scepticism by opposition leaders and analysts, with fears of further violence in the landlocked country of 1.3 million if there are no significant reforms to the autocratic political system. Continue reading...
by Australian Associated Press and Calla Wahlquist on (#5KZRF)
Gladys Berejiklian urges people to restrict movement and not visit family members unnecessarily during Sydney lockdown, as Queensland records two coronavirus cases
by Lizzy Davies and Simon Speakman Cordall on (#5KZVG)
Families spread across rich and poor countries are acutely aware of relatives’ lack of access to vaccineFor months she had been dreaming of it and finally Susheela Moonsamy was able to do it: get together with her relatives and give them a big hug. Throughout the pandemic she had only seen her siblings, nieces and nephews fully “masked up” at socially distanced gatherings. But a few weeks ago, as their home state of California pressed on with its efficient vaccination rollout, they could have a proper reunion.“It was such an emotional experience, we all hugged each other; and with tears in our eyes, we thanked God for being with us and giving us the opportunity to see each other close up again and actually touch each other,” she says. “We never valued a hug from our family members that much before.” Continue reading...
This Italian adaptation of London’s 1909 novel follows the ascent of a proletarian novelist to popular success which proves a bitter disappointmentThe terrible loneliness of success is the subject of this absorbing movie, equal in some strange way to the loneliness of failure; it’s also about the secret and shameful feeling that failure is the one truthful state of being, which the successful person has had to renounce. Martin Eden is also about capitalism and enterprise and the great 20th-century promise that hard work and an audacious gamble on a certain career path at the start of one’s life can carry anyone, however lowly born, on to riches. And more importantly, it is about the dizzying promise that the mass communication made possible by commerce will make art itself lucrative: that actually writing novels, capturing the imagination of millions, could exalt you to heroic celebrity.Martin Eden is a free adaptation of the 1909 novel by Jack London, author of The Call of the Wild and himself one of the first authors to make a fortune from writing. Director and co-writer Pietro Marcello has transplanted the action from California to Naples, but kept the English name of his hero. The action is interspersed with archive footage, some evidently colourised, some shot by Marcello himself; although set before the first world war, these dreamlike archive moments are taken from any time in the century, evidently up to the 1960s and 70s, as if Martin’s story has been a premonition of popular history. Marcello used this newsreel-collagist technique in his recent documentary For Lucio, about singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla. Continue reading...
A container ship anchored at Dubai’s Jebel Ali port caught fire, causing a huge explosion that sent tremors across the United Arab Emirates’ commercial hub. The explosion was seen kilometres away and unleashed a shock wave through the city
David Beckham, Adele and Dua Lipa salute team’s achievement as fans party in the wake of Euro 2020 semi final victory over DenmarkEngland fans are 90 minutes away from seeing the men’s national team win a major tournament for the first time in more than half a century after Harry Kane sent the Three Lions to the Euro 2020 final.After the captain scored the winning goal on the rebound after his extra-time penalty had been saved,60,000 fans in Wembley were sent into delirium along with millions of fans around the country. Continue reading...
I quit my job for a transatlantic romance and spent June and July getting drunk with my English girlfriend as her friends got hitchedMost transatlantic romances are, out of necessity, brief: a chance meeting, an expensive visit apiece, followed by an eventual admission of defeat. But this one, begun in the winter of 1990 while I was living in New York, wasn’t quite over with. After that second expensive visit, I booked another flight to London for early June. It seemed unlikely that the magazine where I worked would give me the whole summer off for the sake of love, so I quit.I had just turned 27, and I thought it might be the last opportunity to do something grossly irresponsible, to ignore consequences, to take an extended romantic holiday – featuring plenty of travel, sex and alcohol – before going home to start paying for my choices. I fully expected the relationship to spring a leak at some point; my new English girlfriend had made it pretty clear that a strong part of my appeal was my sell-by date. Continue reading...
In 2003, the destruction of one particular statue in Baghdad made worldwide headlines and came to be a symbol of western victory in Iraq. But there was so much more to it – or rather, so much lessThe abiding image of the Iraq war in 2003 was the toppling of a statue of the country’s dictator, Saddam Hussein. It was an image relayed across the world as a symbol of victory for the American-led coalition, and liberation for the Iraqi people. But was that the truth? Putting up a statue is an attempt to create a story about history. During the invasion of Iraq, the pulling down of a statue was also an attempt to create a story about history. The story of Saddam’s statue shows both the possibilities, and the limits, of making a myth.Operation Iraqi Freedom, as it was called by those running it, began on 20 March 2003. It was led by the US at the head of a “coalition of the willing”, including troops from Australia, Poland and the UK. President George W Bush claimed that the aims of the operation were clear: “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people”. He continued: “The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder … It is a fight for the security of our nation and the peace of the world, and we will accept no outcome but victory.” This justification for war was hotly disputed at the time, and has been ever since. Continue reading...
With its spires, castle and monuments, the Scottish capital’s glorious panorama is world famous. Now a looming new addition has appeared – and is causing outrage
The 1921 attack was one of the worst episodes of racist violence in US history, with as many as 300 Black people killed. Now Phoebe Stubblefield, a descendent of survivors, is helping to recover the bodiesPhoebe Stubblefield’s parents were born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She spent summers there as a child. Yet she did not hear about the Tulsa race massacre until she was nearly 30. The event in 1921, which was shrouded in secrecy for decades, was one of the worst episodes of racist violence in US history; hundreds of people were killed in the racially motivated attack on a peaceful, prosperous Black community.Neither the Black community who bore the brunt of it nor their white neighbours who perpetrated it spoke publicly of the massacre. Indeed, for the next 75 years, there was no official recognition that it had even occurred. Like many of those connected to the incident, Stubblefield’s family barely mentioned it. She remembers her mother’s response when she first brought it up: “She said: ‘Oh yeah, your Aunt Anna lost her house.’ That was the complete family history regarding the Tulsa race massacre. And I was like: ‘Who’s Aunt Anna?’” Continue reading...
by Peter Beaumont, Tom Phillips, Julian Borger and ag on (#5KZNF)
Police say another two attackers have been detained and that assailants will be ‘killed or captured’Haiti’s security forces have killed four members of a group of “mercenaries” who assassinated President Jovenel Moïse in his home, police chief Leon Charles has said.“The police is still in combat with the assailants,” Charles said in a televised briefing late on Wednesday, “We blocked them en route as they left the scene of the crime. Since then, we have been battling with them.” Two of the attackers had been detained. Of the rest he said: “They will be killed or captured”. Continue reading...
Verdict on Bob Loughman’s parliamentary boycott is uncharted political territory for the Pacific island nationNext week Vanuatu’s court of appeal will sit to decide the political fate of the prime minister, Bob Loughman, and 18 other MPs. The supreme court ruled in June that they had vacated their seats after a three-day boycott of parliament by the government side.Even in a country accustomed to political intrigue and surprise, it is a precarious moment. So how did we get here, who are the key players and what might happen next? Continue reading...
Fiery blast on container ship was powerful enough to be seen from space by satelliteA container ship anchored at Dubai’s port caught fire late on Wednesday, causing a huge explosion that sent tremors across the United Arab Emirates’ commercial hub.The blaze sent up giant orange flames on a vessel at the crucial Jebel Ali port, the busiest in the Middle East, and unleashed a shock wave through the skyscraper-studded city, causing walls and windows to shake in neighbourhoods as far as 25 kilometres (15 miles) away. Continue reading...
Footballers now have to match the ‘immortals of 1966’ after reaching their first final for 55 yearsThe joy of England’s footballers reaching a major final for the first time in 55 years is given due justice on the front pages of the papers – along with a sense of relief that the team finally managed to do the job.The Mirror’s headline is simply “Finally” noting that Harry Kane’s winning goal means that “after 55 years of hurt Harry and his heroes beat the Danes … now to match the heroes of 1966”. Continue reading...
You can’t move frictionlessly from being in a relationship to being close friends, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Something needs to changeI’m living with my ex-partner after mutually deciding to break up a few weeks ago. We rent a two-bed house and have a cat. The issue is my ex wants to stay in this living situation for the next few months and has no urgency to find alternative accommodation. I feel the urgency but don’t know what to do and whether to move back with my parents or stick it out.I feel this is very unhealthy and the ritualistic habits developed over time are still happening … dinner, sleeping in the same bed, cleaning duties, shopping. Am I unrealistic in thinking that we should have some physical distance between us, or is this normal? I’m not sure what to do. It may sound selfish but I don’t want to be the one with all the upheaval, especially as I have worked so hard to make this house a home.
by Peter Beaumont, Tom Phillips and Julian Borger on (#5KYWY)
Arrests made after prime minister says attackers posed as members of the US Drug Enforcement AgencyThe president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, has been assassinated in his home by a group of armed men who also seriously injured his wife, according to a statement and comments made by the country’s interim prime minister.Speaking on a local radio station, Claude Joseph confirmed that Moïse, 53, had been killed, saying the attack was carried out by an “armed commando group” that included foreigners. Continue reading...
Foreign affairs committee calls for import ban on products from Xinjiang, where it says there is ‘industrial-scale forced labour’Britain must act to stop China’s atrocities against Uyghur Muslims by banning the import of Chinese cotton and solar panels from Xinjiang province, as well as by announcing that no government officials will attend the Winter Olympics in Beijing, a report by MPs says.The chair of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Tom Tugendhat, said that without action the UK would be allowing China “to nest the dragon deeper and deeper into British life”. Continue reading...
Case involving Mila, who was sent more than 100,000 abusive messages, has fuelled debate about free speech.A French court has convicted 11 people for harassing a teenager online over her anti-Islam videos in a case that has led to a fierce debate about free speech and the right to insult religions.The prosecutions were part of a judicial fightback against trolling and online abuse after the girl, known as Mila, had to change schools and accept police protection because of death threats. Continue reading...
Hubert Caouissin killed his brother-in-law and wife and their two children in 2017 believing they had a hoard of treasureA French man who murdered four members of his family and dismembered their bodies because he thought they were hoarding gold hidden from the Nazis has been jailed for 30 years.Hubert Caouissin had admitted killing his brother-in-law, Pascal Troadec, 49, Troadec’s wife, Brigitte, 49, and the couple’s two children, Sébastien, 21, and Charlotte, 18, in February 2017. Continue reading...
Sometimes, your luck is just in, you catch a break when you most need it and, after so much major tournament semi-final heartache, England finally got something to go their way and, in the process, one of these suffocatingly high tension encounters to follow suit.The 90 minutes had been nerve-shredding, England forced to find a response to Mikkel Damsgaard’s stunning 25 yard free-kick on the half-hour, which they did when Bukayo Saka’s cross, intended for Raheem Sterling, was bundled over his own line by the Denmark captain, Simon Kjær. Continue reading...
Thursday: Renewed focus on vaccine rollout as NSW outbreak continues to grow. Plus: Haitian president assassinated in his homeGood morning. Covid concerns spread to western Sydney, Haiti is thrown into political crisis and Roger Federer’s dream of a ninth Wimbledon title appears over. Those stories and more this Thursday, in Guardian Australia’s morning mail.Residents in Sydney’s south-west are being urged to isolate amid the city’s extended lockdown, with three local government areas – Liverpool, Fairfield and Bankstown-Canterbury – placed on high alert after 27 new cases. The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has told families: “Do not leave the house,” adding that “the next nine or 10 days will determine how we live” until the end of the year. The state’s chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, said the admission to hospital of eight people under 35 was “a bit of a wake-up call to young people” but, as Josephine Tovey writes, younger Australian don’t need a wake-up call, they need a functioning vaccine rollout that incorporates their age group. Continue reading...
Rights advocate says proposed partnership with Emirates raises ‘profound concern’ and Cambridge documents note ‘values gap’The University of Cambridge has been accused of entering “a Faustian pact” over plans for a £400m collaboration with the United Arab Emirates in what would be the biggest deal of its kind in the university’s history.According to internal documents seen by the Guardian, the 10-year collaboration would help Cambridge, one of the wealthiest higher education institutions in the UK, “weather the challenges faced by universities as a result of Covid, Brexit and a constrained funding environment”. Continue reading...
Lucara diamond firm shows off 1,174-carat diamond to Gaborone cabinet after find of 1,098-carat gemstoneAn exceptionally large and white 1,174-carat diamond stone has been unearthed in Botswana, trumping another huge precious stone that was found in the African country in June.The latest find, which fills the palm of a large hand, was also discovered in June, on the 12th. It was found by the Canadian Diamond firm Lucara and presented to the country’s cabinet in Gaborone on Wednesday. Continue reading...
André Dussollier and Sophie Marceau are outstanding as a father and daughter whose tricky relationship is upended when he asks for her help to dieFrançois Ozon has brought a tremendous understated confidence and artistry to this very affecting film about euthanasia and assisted dying. There is a robust unsentimentality here, encapsulated by the throwaway gesture in the title itself, leaving is to decide what it exactly it is in the end which has gone “well”. And the final shot of a dead person, the supremely difficult moment to bring off, is haunting in its lack of emotional affect.André Dussollier, the veteran French character actor, plays André, a wealthy and socially well-connected retired industrialist (late in the film, he will ask his daughter if she has remembered to bring his Legion of Honour ribbon). In his late 80s, André suffers a stroke and the vigorous, handsome but cruelly sharp-tongued man that we see in flashback is reduced to a sad state in hospital: his face and right eye sagging. He is regularly visited by his daughter Emmanuelle, or Manue, played by Sophie Marceau (and based on the author of the original autobiographical novel, Emmanuelle Bernheim). She is patently his favourite, despite her agonised memories of his cruelty towards her when she was a girl. He certainly seems much closer to Manue than to his other daughter Pascale (Géraldine Pailhas) and indeed his ex-wife (played by Charlotte Rampling) who is herself consumed with her own ill-health and utterly unmoved by her ex-husband’s woes. Continue reading...
Campaigners say ‘shoddy’ and ‘outdated’ law has led to bystanders being wrongfully convictedA Labour government would reform the law of joint enterprise that has led to hundreds of mostly young men unjustly serving life sentences for murder, David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, has told a protest rally at Westminster.Organised by the campaign group Joint Enterprise Not Guilty By Association (JENGbA), which is threatening a legal challenge against the justice secretary, Robert Buckland, the rally was attended by about 200 family members and supporters of young people serving long sentences after joint enterprise convictions. Continue reading...
At 21.16 metres in height, it is more than 3 metres taller than the previous holder, says Guinness World RecordsThe world’s tallest sandcastle has been completed in Denmark, towering more than 20 metres high and comprising nearly 5,000 tonnes of sand, according to its designers.Standing 21.16 metres in height (69.4 feet), the castle is more than 3 metres taller than one built in Germany in 2019, which previously held the title, according to Guinness World Records. Continue reading...
by Tom Phillips Latin America correspondent on (#5KZB3)
Assassination of President Jovenel Moïse leaves impoverished Caribbean nation on brink of chaosThe assassination of Haiti’s president early on Wednesday marks the explosive climax of a spiralling political and security crisis – and threatens to open a violent new chapter in the Caribbean nation’s volatile history.Jovenel Moïse was gunned down at his home in the capital, Port-au-Prince, with witnesses and government officials suggesting the attack was perpetrated by black-clad “mercenaries” posing as DEA agents. His wife, the first lady, Martine Moïse, was also reported to have been wounded in the attack. Continue reading...
Nadav Lapid’s film begins with some distinctively original sequences about his movie-directing hero, but sinks into anguished monologuingHere is a fierce, jagged shard of autofictional rage from the Israeli director Nadav Lapid, the winner of the Berlin Golden Bear in 2019 for his previous movie Synonyms. There is some really distinctive film-making language here, with the looming, uncontrolled closeups, whip-pans between characters for dialogue scenes, the throbbing sound design and some really sensational musical set pieces.But the mystery and the unprocessed anger that make this film interesting all come at the beginning. As it begins to explain more and more about what drives its leading character, the film becomes less and less interesting and the stridently melodramatic finale, as well as being highly unlikely in ordinary plot terms, feels a little bit self-exculpatory. Continue reading...
The duo’s shows boast catchy songs but pose problems for directors. As South Pacific and Carousel return this summer, our writer looks back on enchanted evenings with the odd couple’s musicalsSouth Pacific opens at Chichester Festival theatre this month and Carousel comes to the Open Air theatre in Regent’s Park in August. The musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein are always with us but what does their ubiquity tell us? Should they be seen as comforting box-office bankers or is there some pathfinding element in their work we have lost sight of?The smart thing to say is that Rodgers was at his best in his earlier collaboration with the lyricist Lorenz Hart, writing shows such as The Boys from Syracuse and Pal Joey that are defiant, sexy and urban. It is a view fiercely articulated by David Hajdu in a 2002 article in the New York Review of Books: “Anyone tempted to dismiss Richard Rodgers’ work as theme-park Americana, children’s music or camp is likely thinking of the work of Rodgers and Hammerstein.” Continue reading...
Former Children of God member says simple question put to her by Walter Schwarz was life-changingIt was a simple question to a child, one routinely asked by adults: what do you want to be when you grow up? But for 11-year-old Bexy Cameron, who had never known anything but the strict religious cult she was born into, it was life-changing.Her brief encounter with the Guardian journalist Walter Schwarz in the 1990s led to her escaping the Children of God cult at the age of 15, leaving behind her parents and siblings. Now she has written a memoir, Cult Following, about growing up in a movement founded by a controlling sexual predator. The last line of her acknowledgments reads: “Eternal gratitude to Walter Schwarz (RIP). Who knows what would have happened without that ‘one simple question’?” Continue reading...
Pledge marks first time items will be returned to Congolese ownership without waiting for requestsBelgium has promised to return artworks plundered from its former Congolese colony, as it seeks to confront its brutal colonial past.Belgium’s Africa Museum – a former totem to empire that has undergone a €75m (£64m) revamp and “decolonisation” process – has said up to 2,000 works, including statues, musical instruments and weapons, were acquired illegally during colonial rule of a swathe of central Africa, mostly the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. Continue reading...
The young stars trust just one man with their fades, tapers and curls. He discusses Raheem Sterling’s lucky cut, Jadon Sancho’s sideburns and Phil Foden’s viral blond transformationThe south London barber Sheldon Edwards knows footballers who feel as if they haven’t prepared for a game if they haven’t had a haircut. “[It’s] like they left their boots at home; that’s how important the haircut is.” A good cut, he says, can lift a player’s confidence, on and off the pitch.Take Raheem Sterling. “There was a time [a few months ago] when he changed his haircut,” says Edwards. He was “growing it a bit and he was having a bit of a sticky time at Manchester City”. When Edwards “gave him a new-wave look, a bit of a different fade”, the goals started to roll in, like Samson in reverse. Edwards says his inbox was full of people pleading with him to “please keep this lucky haircut” and while he concedes that Sterling creates his own luck, he likes to “think the haircut is just like an enhancer”. Continue reading...
Social Democrat leader says he will resign again if he cannot find majority support for a budget by autumnSweden’s parliament has backed the return of Stefan Löfven as prime minister, weeks after he became the first Swedish leader to lose a no-confidence vote.But Löfven, a former union boss who guided the Social Democrats to power in 2014 and then moved the party to the right after inconclusive 2018 elections, has yet to find majority support for a budget and said he would resign again this autumn if he could not do so by then. Continue reading...
Giant cargo ship that caused week-long blockage sails for MediterraneanThe container ship that blocked the Suez Canal earlier this year has departed Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake to fanfare and a signing ceremony for a compensation agreement between its owners and the Suez Canal Authority.The 220,000-ton Ever Given was freed after three months at anchor, bound for an inspection in the northern city of Port Said and then to Rotterdam, where it will unload the 18,300 containers onboard long after they were due. Continue reading...
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