World news | The Guardian

Four major cities in lockdown as experts question prime minister’s remarks on who can receive AstraZeneca jab

Consumer group Which? says fraudsters are operating on ‘industrial scale’Fake delivery scams have soared during the pandemic with more than 60% of Britons reporting receiving at least one such text in the past year, research from the consumer rights group Which? has revealed.The scams are so prevalent that even entirely new mobile numbers, which have not been shared, are receiving fraudulent texts within days of new accounts being created. Continue reading...

Gould’s mouse found on several small islands off coast of WA after population collapse on mainlandScientists have discovered that an extinct native mouse thought to have been wiped out more than 150 years ago is thriving on islands off Western Australia.Researchers compared DNA samples from eight extinct native rodents and 42 of their living relatives to study the decline of native species since the arrival of Europeans in Australia. Continue reading...

Government could determine code of conduct for journalists under plans criticised as ‘deeply disturbing’Media organisations in Nigeria have expressed alarm as the government prepares to follow its controversial ban on Twitter with wider regulations reining in the press and social media companies.A new amendment proposed by lawmakers in President Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressive Congress party would allow the government to determine a code of conduct for Nigerian media agencies and journalists, who could be liable to be fined and prosecuted for “fake news” and other breaches of the code. Continue reading...

Professional and amateur photographers worldwide were invited to enter the inaugural International Portrait Photographer of the Year competition for a chance to share in the prize pool of US$10,000 cash and make it into the top 101 images to be included in the awards book

Majority of country’s 168 million people will be confined to their homes by Thursday, with authorities readying military to enforce strict measuresBangladesh authorities are preparing to enforce a sweeping national lockdown to combat a deadly resurgence of Covid-19 infections, with public transport networks closing and soldiers ready to patrol the streets.Thousands of people were stranded in the capital, Dhaka, as authorities halted almost all public transport, leaving commuters to walk, sometimes for hours, in the sweltering summer heat. Continue reading...

Adults will be able to apply for permits to grow and consume cannabis after decision that moves country toward legalisationMexico’s supreme court has struck down laws prohibiting the use of recreational marijuana, moving the country toward cannabis legalisation even as the country’s congress drags its feet on a legalisation bill.In an 8-3 decision on Monday, the court ruled that sections of the country’s general health law prohibiting personal consumption and home cultivation of marijuana were unconstitutional. Continue reading...

Kylian Mbappé was France’s sure thing. That is why he was fifth in their list of penalty takers and is why, when he stepped up to keep them in Euro 2020, the thought he might miss felt like too heady a twist in the narrative. Things like that have simply not happened to Mbappé during a young career of rare accomplishment, but here came the kind of horror that exposes even the preternaturally gifted as flesh-and-blood mortals: Yann Sommer, Switzerland’s exceptional goalkeeper, smelled weakness and read his intentions correctly, diving right and clawing the spot-kick away. France were out; their delirious opponents had made their own slice of history and a tournament of unstinting drama took its least plausible turn yet.Related: ‘He is very affected by it’: Deschamps defends Mbappé as France crash out Continue reading...

Exclusive: Animal rights activists say laws stopping them filming in slaughterhouses breach their right to freedom of political communicationAnimal rights activists have launched a landmark high court bid to overturn laws suppressing secretly recorded vision of cruelty and abuse in slaughterhouses, arguing that they breach Australia’s implied right to freedom of political communication.The case will champion openness and transparency in the agriculture sector and push back against so-called “ag-gag laws” stopping activists using hidden cameras to highlight mistreatment. Continue reading...

Hong Kong to ban flights from the UK from Thursday; small study suggests third Oxford/AstraZeneca dose after six months could act as booster; British travellers to Portugal face 14-day quarantine

Spokesperson for Tigray People’s Liberation Front says Mekelle is ‘under our control’The interim government of Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region has fled as rebel fighters advanced into the region’s capital and the national government announced a “unilateral ceasefire”.Witnesses said federal soldiers and police were also abandoning Mekelle late on Monday, and fireworks and celebratory gunfire could be heard as Tigrayan fighters took the city’s airport and other key positions. Continue reading...

Eight months before fire, blogpost said: ‘Only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude of our landlord’The chief executive of Grenfell Tower’s landlord body told colleagues to ignore a resident who warned eight months before the fire that “only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord”.Robert Black, who led the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, told a colleague with responsibility for fire safety “we should do nothing” after Ed Daffarn, a 16th-floor resident, posted on a blog in November 2016 a prediction that: “Only an incident that results in serious loss of life ... will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of this non-functioning organisation.” Continue reading...

A record-low turnout was bad news for Marine Le Pen, but should also be a cause for wider concernThe morning after the final round of France’s regional elections, the two most likely contenders for the Élysée in next year’s presidential elections were left licking their wounds. Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN) had the worst night, failing to win any of five regions it had targeted – some of them with high hopes of victory. President Emmanuel Macron’s party, La République En Marche, also failed to win anywhere and remains a phantasmagorical presence in the country at large. For a grassroots movement set up five years ago to renew politics, polling at around 7% is not a good look. The big winner of the night was the centre-right Republican, Xavier Bertrand, whose presidential ambitions have been considerably boosted by an impressive victory in the northern region of Hauts-de-France. A Macron-Le Pen run off next spring is not the foregone conclusion it once seemed.Perhaps the most eye-catching statistic of all, however, was the turnout figure. The overwhelming, runaway winner of these polls was the unofficial stay-at-home party. Less than 35% of those eligible to vote opted to do so – a record low and only a fraction above last week’s first-round vote (also a record). Among 18- to 24-year-olds, close to 90% may have ignored the elections, while a huge majority of under-35s also found something better to do. Continue reading...

One person taken to hospital and hundreds evacuated after fire and explosion near tube stationHundreds of residents were evacuated and one person was taken to hospital after a large blaze in south London, which sent a fireball and black smoke billowing into the air.Fifteen fire engines and about 100 firefighters were called to the incident, which began at a car repair garage below Elephant and Castle station shortly before 1.45pm on Monday. Continue reading...

France was only EU country that continued to allow ‘barbaric’ practiceFrance’s highest appeals court has ruled that the hunting of songbirds with glue traps is illegal, saying an exemption that had permitted the practice was in breach of European legislation.For generations, hunters mainly in the south of France have caught songbirds by coating branches of trees with glue, often using the singing of other caged birds to lure birds to land. Birds are caught for sport or food. Continue reading...

Talks progressing on recognition of status certificates, while German calls for caution failing to win support

Authorities consider giving other jabs to medics after 10 fully vaccinated doctors die in June

Löfven urges Sweden’s parliament to try to form new government instead of holding early general electionSweden’s prime minister Stefan Löfven has stepped down a week after losing a no confidence vote, deciding to ask the speaker of the country’s deadlocked parliament to find a new government rather than call a snap election.“I have requested the speaker to relieve me as prime minister,” Löfven said on Monday. “It is the most difficult political decision I have ever taken.” He added that he would stay on in a caretaker capacity because a snap election in mid-pandemic was “not what is best for Sweden”. Continue reading...

Officials say investigators ruled out foul play but were still trying to determine what happenedAuthorities in Turks and Caicos are investigating after a boat was found drifting about a mile off Grand Turk island with 20 dead people on board, including two children.Officials said investigators had ruled out foul play but were still trying to determine what happened. The identities and origin of the dead were also under investigation. Continue reading...

Evaristo Marinho jailed for killing Bruno Candé in case that has put racism in spotlightA Portuguese court has sentenced a white man who shot dead a black actor in a busy street last year to more than two decades in jail, in a case that has put racism and the country’s colonial past in the spotlight.Bruno Candé, 39, of Guinean origin, was shot several times by a white Portuguese man, Evaristo Marinho, 77, at Avenida de Moscavide, about six miles from Lisbon’s city centre, in July 2020. Continue reading...

US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, says detention of former fighters in camps is untenableThe continued detention of former Islamic State fighters in Iraqi and Syrian camps is untenable, and more of them must be repatriated to their home countries, the US secretary of state said at a summit of the international coalition against Isis, held in Rome.In remarks aimed primarily at France and the UK, Antony Blinken said: “This situation is simply untenable. It just can’t persist indefinitely. Continue reading...

Coronavirus outbreaks renew questions about stuttering vaccine rollout and limited quarantine facilities

With Perth and the Peel region going into a four-day lockdown, here are the current coronavirus hotspots and Covid-19 public exposure sites in Western Australia and what to do if you’ve visited them

Benjamin Monk previously found to have committed gross misconduct but kept job and was given stun gunThe police officer convicted of the manslaughter of Dalian Atkinson had been previously found by a police disciplinary hearing to have committed gross misconduct but was allowed to remain an officer and given a stun gun, it has been revealed. Continue reading...

Analysis: Could Marco Gobbetti be followed out of British luxury brand by creative director Riccardo Tisci?The departure of Marco Gobbetti as chief executive of Burberry raises the key question of whether Riccardo Tisci, whom Gobbetti appointed creative director soon after he joined, will remain at the luxury fashion brand.A desire to be closer to his family in Italy was given as the reason behind Gobbetti’s decision to quit Burberry, and Tisci too is thought to have found it difficult to be away from family in Italy for prolonged periods during the pandemic. The designer was a fashion student in London in his teens and has a deep affection for British culture and subculture, but the pull of his homeland remains strong. Italy has many deep-pocketed luxury brands and a shortage of exciting design talent, so opportunities are likely to present themselves. Continue reading...

Scott Morrison announces major changes to Australia’s vaccine rollout after emergency national cabinet meetingUnder-40s will finally be allowed to get the AstraZeneca vaccine if they want it, while aged care workers will have to get at least one vaccine dose by mid-September, as Australia moves to “war game” its bungled vaccine program.Scott Morrison, who spent more than two hours with the nation’s premiers and chief ministers in an ‘emergency’ national cabinet meeting on Monday evening, emerged to announce long called-for changes to the commonwealth’s vaccine rollout. Continue reading...

Zephaniah McLeod appears in court over attacks in 2020 which killed university worker Jacob BillingtonA man has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of a university worker in a series of knife attacks in Birmingham last year which left seven other people injured.Zephaniah McLeod, 28, of Selly Oak, Birmingham, also admitted four counts of attempted murder and three charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Continue reading...

Rules announced two days before the islands are due to move on to UK’s green list

How did a lorry carrying 273 dead bodies end up stranded on the outskirts of Guadalajara? By Matthew Bremner Continue reading...

Dozens of Nobel laureates sign open letter condemning treatment of economist Andreu Mas-ColellThreats of massive fines against the economist and former Catalan finance minister Andreu Mas-Colell for his alleged role in Catalonia’s failed independence bid in 2017 have prompted international condemnation.Mas-Colell, 76, who served as finance minister from 2010-16, is among 40 officials, including the former Catalan presidents Artur Mas and Carles Puigdemont, accused by a tribunal of illegally using €4.8m of public money between 2011 and 2017 to further the cause of independence. Continue reading...

Report launched in aftermath of George Floyd murder cites example of 2018 death of Kevin Clarke in UKA UN report that analysed racial justice in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd has called on member states including the UK to end the “impunity” enjoyed by police officers who violate the human rights of black people.The UN human rights office analysis of 190 deaths across the world led to the report’s damning conclusion that law enforcement officers are rarely held accountable for killing black people due in part to deficient investigations and an unwillingness to acknowledge the impact of structural racism. Continue reading...

That 10% fee buys a novelist like me more than the chance of a big book deal – from a hand with the DIY to a shoulder to cry on after yet another knockbackA few weeks after the sudden death of my agent, Deborah Rogers, in 2014 the colleague deputed to take me on phoned. “I’ve found something in Deborah’s desk.”“Yes?” Continue reading...

A loner photographer looks down on white settlers without realising he’s part of the problem in a striking, ambiguous historical dramaColonisation does not come off well in this sparse and striking drama, set in snowbound 19th-century Tierra del Fuego. It’s a sombre study of the corrupted values and decayed morals that enabled a genocide; it centres on a photographer who considers himself superior to the coarse white settlers around him, but is really part of the same system. This is Pedro (Alfredo Castro), a middle-aged loner who has been brought to this end-of-the-world location to take the wedding portrait of Mr Porter, the big landowner. But when he arrives, Mr Porter is nowhere to be found; only his bride, Sara, who looks little older than a teenager. In an early, uncomfortable scene, Pedro blithely “arranges” Sara into what he considers an attractive pose, pulling her wedding dress off her shoulders, ostensibly for the groom’s benefit: “He’ll like it better this way.” The scene is to be reprised even more excruciatingly later on, after Pedro takes a shine to Sara and sets up a more “artistic” photoshoot.Pedro doesn’t find much else to appreciate here. In Mr Porter’s absence, he is consigned to an extended stay among the (overwhelmingly male) settlers, whose exploits he dignifies with his camera but whose company he shuns – initially, at least. These Europeans are making their first inroads into this landscape: erecting houses, putting up fences, and killing and kidnapping the indigenous population. They are paid according to the number of human ears they bring back. “Think of it as humanitarian work,” one of them tells Pedro. Continue reading...

Defence secretary and heads of Royal Navy and RAF all isolating after Gen Sir Nick Carter’s positive Covid test

Police called as crowds gather in field in breach of Covid guidelinesThousands of people gathered at an illegal rave on farmland in West Sussex overnight, breaching Covid guidelines.Sussex police said the unlicensed rave had taken place in a remote field forcing multiple road closures in the rural town of Steyning. At least 23 people have been arrested on suspicion of offences including drink and drug-driving, possession of drugs and theft, and have been taken into custody, the force said. Continue reading...

Working horses not only outperform tractors on tricky terrain but provide a natural way to improve health of soil and cropsIt’s early morning and the air vibrates with the sound of birds and frogs at the L’Affût wine estate in Sologne, north-central France. Draught horses Urbanie and Bambi are slowly working their way between rows of vines. Carefully guided by their owner, Jean-Pierre Dupont, and his son, they each pull a cultivator that drags up grass growing between the grapevines.Several times a year, Urbanie and Bambi can be seen working at L’Affût, often to the surprise of passersby: working horses can be deemed obsolete, relics of a time before the mid-20th century’s mechanisation of farming. Continue reading...

Twenty-five years after Sapphire’s novel Push was published, Tayari Jones salutes its groundbreaking heroine, PreciousIn the Reagan years, I was a teenager, more reader than writer, when I discovered the work of Sapphire. As a college student, I hung out with a cluster of intense, arty types, sharing battered copies of chapbooks, zines and small-press volumes. My good friend Angela passed me a sheaf of xeroxed pages by an author who called herself Sapphire. What I remember most clearly was a poem from the point of view of Celestine Tate Harrington, the quadriplegic boardwalk singer who fought the city for custody of her child. The poem was defiant as the speaker focused less on the joys of motherhood and more on ownership of her sexuality. Angela speculated that Sapphire would likely never receive her due in the world of letters, because she had chosen as her subject the people whose bodies are stigmatised, whose families are pathologised, and whose very lives are held up as everything America rejects. “She is a hero,” Angela declared, and I nodded in solemn agreement.Some critics were appalled by the very idea of this story being held up as an important work of literature Continue reading...

Pentagon says air strikes were in response to drone attacks against US personnel in IraqThe US has carried out airstrikes against Iran-backed militia in Iraq and Syria, in response to drone attacks against US personnel and facilities in Iraq.The strikes on Sunday targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq, the Pentagon said. Continue reading...

The pandemic has hit tourism but retraining and a range of initiatives have enabled staff to stay and even hit the slopesMasiane Nthina made her way nervously from the kit room to the slopes. Shuffling with skis on her feet for the first time is not easy.Nthina, an intern at the Lesotho Tourism Development Corporation, lives close to Afriski Mountain Resort, but had never visited it. She had always viewed the resort as the preserve of the elite and thought that on her meagre wages she could not afford to go. Continue reading...

Exclusive: ‘They are not collateral damage’ – bereaved families appeal for meeting to learn of UK’s role in killingsRelatives of people killed in drone strikes in Yemen have written to the defence secretary to ask about UK involvement in the killings and request that he meet them.The family members said they have suffered “immense loss” of loved ones – including children – at the hands of US targeted drone strikes and are demanding to know what part the UK has played. Continue reading...

Homosexuality remains illegal in the country, where a conviction carries a jail term of up to 14 yearsFor a few hours over the weekend the streets of Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, were covered in rainbows, as about 50 members of the country’s persecuted LBGTQ+ community took part in the country’s first Pride parade.The risks to those who took part are high. Homosexuality remains illegal in Malawi, and those who identify as anything other than heterosexual face arrest and imprisonment. Continue reading...

As the country suffers from hyperinflation and shortages of fuel and medical supplies, pressure is growing at home and abroad to address its governance quagmireThe lights dimmed further in Lebanon last month when two giant barges that had boosted its electricity grid were switched off. The result was six hours less power a day for most homes, or more need for generator fuel for those who could afford it.However, fuel is also in short supply in the crisis-hit nation. Giant queues clog roads near filling stations and top-ups are limited to 20 litres, making most journeys precarious. Continue reading...

British Columbian village sets new record, with most of western Canada subject to heat warningCanada has set its highest temperature on record after a village in British Columbia reached 46.1C (115F) on Sunday.The temperature in Lytton, in the south of Canada’s western-most province, surpassed the previous national high of 45C (113F), set in Saskatchewan in 1937. Continue reading...

Fung Wai-kong is seventh senior figure from publication to be arrested in two weeksA senior journalist of the now-defunct Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily was arrested at the airport while attempting to leave the city.Fung Wai-kong was believed to be leaving for the UK when he was arrested on Sunday night, local media reported. Continue reading...

How does Australia’s coronavirus vaccine rollout compare with other countries, when will Australia be fully vaccinated and when will you be eligible to get your dose? We bring together the latest numbers on daily new Covid-19 cases, as well as stats and live data on total vaccination figures in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and other states.

Down in the stands, Kevin De Bruyne expressed the way they all felt, nerves shred, tension rising, pleading with his his team-mates to hang on. Alongside him, Eden Hazard sat too. Both men had been withdrawn, injured, now all they could do is watch as Belgium desperately hung on to a Thorgan Hazard goal that would see them go through.If, that was, Portugal couldn’t find a way through, the pressure rising all the time. Continue reading...