World news | The Guardian

Hospitals in Jakarta unable to cope with demand as Delta variant accounts for more than 60% of cases

For a while Australia seemed to be on top of Covid-19, but we have lost our way – and an ideology is to blameHas Australia lost the plot? It’s the question many of us are asking. Our pandemic response, for so long admired as world-leading, is rapidly unravelling before our eyes. And as a nation, it feels like we are unravelling too.Our tempers are frayed, our patience thin. We all want someone to blame. We’ve become a nation divided: by politics, by state, by age, even by vaccine. Continue reading...

Christos Pappas has been on the run since he was sentenced to more than 13 years in jail in October 2020Police in Greece have arrested the fugitive deputy leader of neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn, who had been on the run since he was sentenced to more than 13 years in jail in October.Related: Greece puts faith in judges to heal wounds inflicted by Golden Dawn Continue reading...

European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans condemns Janez Janša’s claims of judicial biasThe opening of Slovenia’s presidency of the EU has descended into farce as the European Commission’s vice-president refused to be photographed with the country’s rightwing prime minister, Janez Janša, after a bitter behind-the-scenes row at a launch event.During an opening meeting in the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, with the 27 members of the commission, Janša had shown them a group photograph of a Slovenian judge with a Socialist and Democrat MEP and other members of the country’s Social Democrats party. Continue reading...

Government is reducing its contribution to the scheme, with employers having to pay a share

Red Cross says time is running out to repatriate women and children from ‘appalling conditions’ of al-Roj camp, where 60 Australians remainThe Australian government is facing fresh calls to repatriate women and children from camps in north-east Syria, with top Red Cross officials warning time is running out “to prevent further distress and suffering”.Fabrizio Carboni, a regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), described the situation as “one of the most complex child protection crises today”. Continue reading...

Rob Taylor will work with police to fight crimes ranging from the sabotage of an osprey nest to fly-tippingHis patch takes in mountain ranges, farmland, rivers, estuaries and almost 1,000 miles of coastline. His in-tray includes getting to the bottom of a dreadful act of sabotage on the nest of a spectacular bird of prey and making sure the arrival of tourists in the summer holidays does not lead to a spike in dog attacks on sheep and cattle.The Welsh government on Thursday unveiled its wildlife and rural crime coordinator, the first role of its kind in the UK. Continue reading...

British sprinter and her partner were stopped by police in July 2020 while driving with three-month-old sonPolice officers involved in the stopping, searching and handcuffing of the British sprinter Bianca Williams and her partner are now under investigation for gross misconduct over alleged racism and dishonesty, the Guardian has learned.Williams and Ricardo dos Santos were stopped on 4 July last year in north-west London by officers from the Metropolitan police’s Territorial Support Group. Continue reading...

Femke Halsema says city’s past is ‘indivisible from the persistent racism that still festers’The mayor of Amsterdam has apologised for former governors’ extensive involvement in the global slave trade, saying the moment had come for the city to confront its grim history.Debate about the city’s role in the slave trade has been going on for years but has gained more attention amid the global reckoning with racial injustice that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Home Office receives fivefold daily rise in applications as people tell of fear and angerThere was a fivefold increase in applications by EU citizens for UK settled status on Wednesday, with more than 50,000 people scrambling to beat the midnight deadline, it has emerged.Such was the last-minute rush that the Home Office extended the time applications would be accepted to 9am on Thursday. Continue reading...

Bronze artwork depicts princess flanked by children to represent ‘generational impact of her work’The sons of Diana, Princess of Wales have unveiled her long-awaited statue in Kensington palace. In the shadow of their mother’s likeness cast in bronze, the Duke of Cambridge and the Duke of Sussex put on a united front.With Diana’s siblings watching, William and Harry pulled away a cloth covering the monument that will remind visitors to her former home of Kensington Palace about its most famous resident. Continue reading...

Allen Weisselberg prepares to face charges in tax-related investigation at pivotal moment for ex-presidentThe Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, has surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney’s office as he and the Trump family business prepare to face criminal charges in a tax-related investigation.Weisselberg, who has worked for the Trump family for nearly 50 years, entered a building housing Manhattan’s criminal court, where he and a Trump Organization representative are expected to appear later in the day. His lawyers said he would plead not guilty and would fight the charges. Continue reading...

Tens of thousands to demand Bolsonaro’s removal from office after incendiary reports on allegedly corrupt deals to acquire vaccinesJair Bolsonaro has been plunged into arguably the most treacherous moment of his presidency, as the Brazilian leader faces a snowballing scandal over allegedly corrupt Covid vaccine deals and mounting public rage over his handling of an epidemic that has killed more than half a million people.Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to return to the streets on Saturday to demand Bolsonaro’s removal from office – the third such mass demonstration in just over a month. On Wednesday a curious coalition of left- and rightwing opponents submitted a fresh petition for Bolsonaro’s impeachment after the Brazilian media published incendiary claims about supposedly dodgy dealings to acquire coronavirus vaccines. Continue reading...

With his new film, The Birthday Cake, out next week, we take a look at the best roles of the Scottish actor – and no, Phantom Menace is not on itLip-syncing in Dennis Potter’s 1993 musical drama Lipstick on Your Collar was all very well. Crooning for real opposite Nicole Kidman, McGregor looks and sounds strained to say the least. But then his entire floundering performance represents a mere fender bump in Baz Luhrmann’s car crash of a musical. “His idea of conveying high emotion is to let his mouth hang wide open,” noted the critic Anthony Quinn. Continue reading...

Exposure to unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud reduces confidence in elections and factchecks have little effect – studyHappy Thursday,Republicans across the country have embraced a similar refrain as they push for new restrictions on voting. A significant chunk of the American electorate doesn’t have confidence in the results of the 2020 election, they argue, so new laws to restore “integrity” to elections are needed. Continue reading...

Regions speed up plans to vaccinate under-30s as more than 1,000 cases traced to Mallorca school trip

Violence is spiralling with militants seizing at least 50 of county’s nearly 400 districts since MayHaji Ghoulam Farouq Siawshani watched the Taliban rampage across northern Afghanistan this month, weighing up the threat from militants on his doorstep. Then, 10 days ago, the former oil trader turned militia commander issued a call to arms.“Where the Taliban go, they bring destruction, and they are one kilometre away from my village,” he told the Guardian. “We decided to respond.” Continue reading...

Satellite footage shows ‘alarming development’ that signals possible expansion of nuclear capabilitiesChina is building more than 100 missile silos in the desert, according to an analysis of satellite photos, which researchers say signals a possible expansion of the country’s nuclear capabilities.Analysts warned the expansion signified an “alarming development” but also urged caution against “worst-case thinking”, noting tension between major nuclear powers over disarmament. Continue reading...

Scheme requires tourists to stay on island for 14 days if they wish to travel elsewhere in Thailand

Prince William and Prince Harry will be at unveiling on Thursday, which would have been her 60th birthdayThe statue of Diana, Princess of Wales, to be unveiled by Prince William and Prince Harry on Thursday, will stand in a garden redesigned to offer a “calmer, more reflective setting” at Kensington Palace.Her sons are to put aside differences in their troubled relationship to focus on their mother on what would have been her 60th birthday in a small ceremony in the Sunken Garden, one of her favourite spots, where the statue will stand. It will be the first time the brothers have appeared together since the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral. Continue reading...

Jamie Spears said he’s had no power over his daughter’s affairs for nearly two years after pop star called court arrangement ‘abusive’Britney Spears’s father has asked the court overseeing his daughter’s conservatorship to investigate her statements to a judge last week on the court’s control of her medical treatment and personal life, which she called overly restrictive and abusive.James Spears, who goes by Jamie, said in a pair of documents filed late on Tuesday night that he has had no power over his daughter’s personal affairs for nearly two years. Continue reading...

Tehran’s insistence signals that issue is still a serious obstacle after three months of talks in ViennaA US guarantee that it will never unilaterally leave the Iran nuclear deal again is vital to a successful conclusion of talks in Vienna on the terms of Washington’s return to the agreement, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, has said.His comments are the clearest official signal yet that disagreements between the US and Iran on how such a guarantee might be constructed remain a serious obstacle. Donald Trump took the US out of the nuclear deal in 2018, only three years afterhis predecessor, Barack Obama, had signed it. Continue reading...

Warning comes less than 48 hours after unilateral ceasefire declared by Addis AbabaEthiopian military and diplomatic officials have threatened to send troops back into Tigray less than 48 hours after announcing that Addis Ababa had declared a unilateral ceasefire in the devastated northern province.The announcement on Wednesday that Ethiopian federal forces would withdraw from Tigray caught many observers by surprise, and signals a major shift in strategy. However, the new threat underlines the fragility of any current calm. Continue reading...

An obsession with sovereignty at all costs is not the right starting point for a post-Brexit economic modelThe purpose of Brexit is summarised by its advocates in a word – sovereignty. In practice, that means the power to enact laws that European Union membership would forbid. With the exception of border control, the leave campaign avoided spelling out what those legal departures might be.The picture is coming into focus. On Wednesday, the government described the outline for a system of industrial subsidy. These rules will replace the state aid regime by which Brussels enforces a level economic playing field between member states. The theory is that a nimble, proactive state can make strategic interventions to support up-and-coming sectors, enhancing British competitiveness. Continue reading...

The discovery of hundreds of graves of Indigenous children is forcing a deeper reckoning with the country’s pastIt is hard to fathom the full horror of what happened in Canada’s church-run residential schools for over a century: systematic abuse and mistreatment, on an industrial scale, with an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children ripped from their homes. The last school closed in 1996. Thousands have since testified to widespread sexual and physical abuse, forced labour on starvation rations, the eradication of their language and culture, and diseases allowed to run rampant. Some witnesses even spoke of killings. The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report called it cultural genocide.But it has taken the discovery of hundreds of children’s bodies to fully awaken Canada. Last week, 751 unmarked graves were found at a former school in Saskatchewan province, weeks after 215 were located in Kamloops, British Columbia. Murray Sinclair, who led the TRC, suggests as many as 15,000 died: one in 10 of the students. Since the state funded over 130 schools, and many more were run by churches, others believe the toll could be much higher. Continue reading...

Steve Bouquet, 54 convicted of killing nine cats, injuring seven and possessing a knifeA shopping centre security guard has been found guilty of carrying out a series of cat killings in Brighton, closing a case that had puzzled police for months.On Wednesday a jury at Chichester crown court found Steve Bouquet, 54, guilty of 16 offences of criminal damage, related to the nine cats he killed and seven he injured, and possession of a knife. He will be sentenced at a later date. Continue reading...

Former soldier told court he was aware he had classified commonwealth material but ‘didn’t think it was a criminal offence’The Australian federal police has refused to confirm whether it is investigating admissions made by Ben Roberts-Smith in court during his defamation trial that he held classified and secret material – including footage of a raid on an Afghanistan compound during which he is accused of murdering a man with a prosthetic leg – in an apparent breach of national security laws.Under cross-examination last week during his defamation trial, Roberts-Smith conceded he knowingly kept classified and secret material on a series of USBs at his Queensland home without authorisation. Continue reading...

Federal Labor wants wider ‘sports rorts-style’ inquiry into the government’s $660m car park programThe Victorian government says it is “completely false” for the federal assistant treasurer, Michael Sukkar, to blame the state for the commonwealth failing to build one of its controversial commuter car parks.The proposed Mitcham station car park in Sukkar’s electorate of Deakin was junked in May. It was one of two projects the Australian National Audit Office found had been selected for federal funding with no authorisation evident beyond a Coalition press release. Continue reading...

Turkey, Ecuador and South Africa will be among hardest hit as pandemic-related losses reach $2.4tn, says UN report

President endorses domestic vaccine campaign but distances himself from tough measure

Fans complain of confusion over sale of tickets for Saturday’s Euro 2020 match against UkraineThe Football Association has said tickets for England’s Euro 2020 quarter-final against Ukraine in Rome on Saturday will soon be made available, as Italian officials warned fans travelling from the UK to respect quarantine rules.The FA said on Wednesday that if fans were not subject to travel restrictions and wanted to buy a ticket for the match at Rome’s Olympic Stadium, general access tickets would be sold via Uefa’s ticket portal. Continue reading...

Generation Equality Forum in Paris announces plans to radically speed up progress on women’s rightsBillions of pounds will be pledged to support efforts to tackle gender inequality this week at the largest international conference on women’s rights in more than 25 years.The Generation Equality Forum, hosted in Paris by UN Women and the governments of France and Mexico, will launch plans to radically speed up progress over the next five years. Continue reading...

Brazil suspended contract on Tuesday for Covid vaccine deal from Bharat Biotech after allegations of undue pressure within ministryBrazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has fired a health ministry official who reportedly asked for a bribe in a vaccine deal, the latest graft accusation to rock the government amid investigations of its pandemic response.With over half a million Covid-19 deaths and more new cases daily than any other country, anger is mounting in Brazil over missed opportunities to buy coronavirus vaccines. Accusations of corruption undercutting efforts have poured fuel on the fire, triggering new calls for Bolsonaro’s impeachment. Continue reading...

Scottish data shows almost 2,000 cases among people who attended Euro 2020 football eventsNearly 1,300 Scotland fans who travelled to London to watch their team play England on 18 June later tested positive for coronavirus, with a total of almost 2,000 football-related cases emerging from Test and Protect data on Wednesday, as Scotland continued to break its record for daily case numbers.Public Health Scotland (PHS) analysis published on Wednesday revealed that 1,991 people who later tested positive had attended one or more Euro 2020 events during their infection period, a time when they “may have unknowingly transmitted their infection to others”. Continue reading...

Critics of regime among those released from Yangon jail, but ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi seen in court this weekMyanmar authorities have released more than 2,000 anti-coup protesters from prisons across the country, including local journalists jailed after reporting critically on the junta’s crackdown.Myanmar has been rocked by massive protests and brutal military action since the February coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi and her government. Continue reading...

Stunning visual details, from blooming flowers to morning dew, illustrate our troubled hero’s growth in this bittersweet sequelThe first film completed by Kyoto Animation after the arson attack in 2019, this carries a lot of emotional weight both on and off-screen. Starting out as a “light novel”, Violet Evergarden was later adapted into an anime series; a side story, Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll, was also made into film, all by Kyoto Animation. The return of Violet Evergarden and a message of overcoming trauma is not only an act of closure for the character but also a moving return for one of Japan’s most beloved animation studios.A sequel to the anime series, the film quickly recaps Violet Evergarden’s painful origin story. The story takes place in Leidenschaftlich, an imaginary country with old-school western European influences, as evident in the romantic, Victorian flavour of the architecture and costumes. Thrown into battle as a child soldier, Violet loses both of her hands as well as her mentor Major Gilbert, who leaves her with the three words before disappearing: “I love you.” Traumatised, Violet finds solace as a Doll, a ghostwriter who helps people express their feelings to others via letters. After encountering Yurith, a terminally ill boy who shuns his family but beckons her service, Violet is forced to confront her suppressed memories and her love for Gilbert. Continue reading...

‘I went there to take pictures of kids at the end of their school years. Katya is dressed as a woman – but she’s still a girl’Two things particularly have always drawn me in my work: teenagers and costumes. I am interested in the age, around 16 and 17, that is full of transition. During those years there is confusion everywhere: confusion about roles, confusion about gender. There are a lot of changes for people to deal with.In 2008, I travelled to Ukraine to take pictures of kids during the week of their prom that marks the end of their school years. They are very young but they are entering a stage in their lives where they are expected to act like adults. The prom is an example of this. They don’t always feel comfortable in the clothes they’re wearing. Continue reading...

Record-shattering temperatures linked to dozens of deaths, buckled roads, blackouts and wildfiresJoe Biden has joined scientists in blaming the climate crisis for a record-shattering heatwave in the western US and Canada that has been linked to dozens of deaths, buckled roads, blackouts and wildfires.Officials in Canada have been shocked by the rise in temperature, which on Tuesday hit 49.6C (121.1F) in the town of Lytton, British Columbia, smashing the national record for the third day in a row. Continue reading...

Inquests into deaths of Spinks, 23, and her alleged killer, Michael Sellers, who was found dead nearby, open at Chesterfield coroner’s courtA 23-year-old woman thought to have been killed by her alleged stalker died from a stab wound to the neck, an inquest heard.Gracie Spinks was found fatally injured in a field in Duckmanton, Derbyshire, where she had gone to care for her horse.

Aide to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya says limited measures will embolden Alexander Lukashenko’s regimeAn aide to the Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has called on the EU to “close loopholes” in its sanctions on Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.The EU approved sanctions last week targeting industries that bankroll the regime to punish the Belarusian president over the forced landing of a Ryanair flight to arrest a dissident, but promises to make it “run dry” have been called into question after it emerged that they apply only to about 15% of Belarusian potash exports to the bloc. Continue reading...

Ebrahim Raisi sat on a committee that approved the deaths of thousands of dissidentsEbrahim Raisi, winner of Iran’s presidential election, bears responsibility for the deaths of thousands of prisoners in Iranian jails in late 1988. He served as a prosecution member of a three-man “death committee” – as prisoners later termed it – which ordered executions of male and female members of an opposition group, and then of males who were atheists, communists or otherwise leftwing “apostates”. Women in this category were tortured until they recanted, or else died after continual whippings.Raisi, only 28 at the time, was Tehran’s deputy prosecutor and alternated on the committee with his chief. Last week, facing questions on the subject, he claimed: “All the actions I have taken have always been in defence of human rights against those who disrupted the rights of humans.” In a lecture in 2018, he is reported to have referred to the killings as “one of the proud achievements of the system”. Continue reading...

Regulating the sex industry via standard business laws will help make sex workers safer and reduce stigma, minister saysThe Victorian government will move to decriminalise sex work and regulate the sex industry “through standard business industry laws” following a review that heard the current system left many unprotected.The review was conducted by the Reason party leader, Fiona Patten, in 2020 and is currently before the state government. The government is expected to release the report and table proposed legislation by the end of the year. Continue reading...

MP to take over private member’s bill proposed by Sajid Javid to raise legal age to 18, after his promotion to health secretaryThe MP Pauline Latham will step in to adopt Sajid Javid’s private member’s bill to end child marriage after his promotion to health secretary.Javid presented a bill raising the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 in England and Wales to parliament earlier this month, but is not able to take it forward because he is no longer a backbencher. Continue reading...

Only the most hardcore action junkies will have the stamina for what is essentially one marathon sword-fighting sceneThe craziness is all in the idea of this singular Japanese action movie: essentially one marathon battle scene, filmed in a single take, in which a master swordsman takes down several hundred assailants. The execution, as it were, is a triumph of stuntwork, strategy and stamina, but in the watching it gets rather repetitive and wearying. Few but the most hardcore action junkies will really be up for it.The set-up is quickly dealt with: a clan rallies in the forest around its newly anointed leader, a small boy, in anticipation of an attack. Attack there swiftly comes, in the form of Musashi Miyamoto: real-life master swordsman, 17th-century folk hero, and fixture of Japanese pop culture (Toshiro Mifune played him four times; Kinnosuke Nakamura played him seven times). Here, the role is filled with focused athleticism by local action hero Tak Sakaguchi, although acting abilities play a distant second to sword-swinging skills. The battle progresses through woodlands then into an abandoned village, with Miyamoto dispatching most of his inept assailants with a few efficient strokes: a slash to the neck, a chop to the top of the head, slashes across the belly as they practically hurl themselves into the path of his blade. Continue reading...

After feeling sexualised even before her teens, the south London rapper wrested back her power. She explains how her disruptive club music creates a space where anything can happenShygirl’s tracks are, for want of a better word, filthy. The 28-year-old musician’s lyrics detail sexual exploits and disposable partners. “I like to glide, figure skate,” is not about ice dancing. This week she releases BDE, a collaboration with Northampton rapper Slowthai, and it’s less rapping on her part, more an intoxicating mix of cooed and snarled commands over ominous production. This is sex as chaotic workout, and if it ends up jarring the listener, the artist has achieved her goal. “I love it when art makes me uncomfortable, because I have to question where that’s from,” she says. “How can something affect my equilibrium like that? I want to affect other people’s equilibrium.”Her domineering musical persona is worlds away from the chatty, pleasant woman I meet in a bar outside Cambridge University’s Union, where she has just given a talk about her artistry and the accessibility of the creative industries. About a quarter of our time is spent laughing; sharp introspections on owning one’s narrative as a public figure come as easily as self-deprecating tales of recording angry voice notes about previous partners. And it’s easy to see why she’s increasingly considered a fashion force: following a recent Burberry campaign and soundtracking runways for Thierry Mugler, she stands out majestically via orange hair, wholesome babydoll dress and eye-catching Telfar Clemens boots, noticed by wide-eyed students in our vicinity. Continue reading...

State and territory leaders found out about expanded access for under-40s when they watched the prime minister’s press conference

David O’Byrne apologises to his family, saying he ‘genuinely believed the kiss and text exchanges to be consensual’Tasmania’s newly appointed Labor opposition leader has stood down pending the party’s investigation of allegations he sexually harassed a woman more than a decade ago.The ABC reports David O’Byrne is accused of kissing and sending unwanted text messages to a junior employee while he was head of the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union in 2007 and 2008. Continue reading...

Leader speaks of a grave incident and sacks officials for neglecting duties in fighting ‘global health crisis’

Indigenous groups say vulnerable rough sleepers are ‘completely neglected’ in the NT’s pandemic response

The International Seabed Authority has two years to finalise regulations governing the controversial industryDeep-sea mining has been given the go-ahead to commence in two years, after the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru notified the UN body governing the nascent industry of plans to start mining.Triggering the so-called “two-year rule”, which some have called the nuclear option, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) now has two years to finalise regulations governing the controversial industry. Continue reading...