Albanese has been attacked for seeking to win by attrition, but could he just be Australia’s Joe Biden?Tony Windsor didn’t have much time for Anthony Albanese when he first arrived in Canberra. The former independent from regional New South Wales felt he had the measure of the current Labor leader. “A smart arse, a student politics type,” he says.But Windsor’s perception changed during the 43rd parliament, when he was a kingmaker in the House of Representatives, and Albanese wrangled the daily parliamentary business of the minority Gillard government. Continue reading...
The crucial fix is more housing supply, experts say, as well more money for Māori-led initiativesOnce a world leader in social housing, New Zealand now faces what the UN has called a “human rights crisis”. Although the government is pouring money in, the waitlist for social housing has ballooned to 23,000 – triple that of three years ago – and there are more than 4,000 children living in motels.The government has repeatedly said it is rectifying a problem it inherited from the former National government, which saw the sell-off of state housing and underinvestment in social housing. The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, told local media in January the government would leave “no stone unturned” to fix the problem. Continue reading...
Second term for prime minister whose handling of Tigray conflict has drawn international criticismEthiopia’s ruling Prosperity party has been declared the winner of last month’s national election in a landslide, assuring a second term for the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed.The National Election Board of Ethiopia announced on Saturday night that the ruling party won 410 seats out of 436 in the federal parliament, which will see some seats remain vacant because no vote was held as a result of unrest or logistical reasons. Continue reading...
While Peter R de Vries fights for life in an Amsterdam hospital the nation reflects on how to end the grip of drug gangsFive gunshots blasted like fireworks on a sunny evening, just behind Amsterdam’s busy Leidseplein. To the horror of the Netherlands, a cold-blooded shooting has left prominent Dutch crime journalist Peter R de Vries fighting for his life in hospital.Everyone from European leaders to the Dutch king Willem-Alexander and Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema have expressed their shock at the ambush of “national hero” De Vries as he walked back to his car on Tuesday after recording a chatshow, on a busy street in broad daylight. Continue reading...
An archaeology student is on her way to Russia’s remote north-west when she has to share a compartment with a shaven-headed drunkDespite the bone-chilling cold of its location in Murmansk in Russia’s remote north-west, there’s a wonderful human warmth and humour in this offbeat romantic story of strangers on a train. It comes from Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, whose 2016 film The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki was a lovely comedy about a real-life Finnish boxing champ in the 1960s.His new film is adapted from a novel of the same name by Finnish artist and author Rosa Liksom, and concerns a young Finnish student of archaeology, Natalia (Yuliya Aug) who is in Moscow sometime in the early 90s; she has begun an impulsive affair with her professor, Irina (Dirana Drukarova). Under Irina’s tutelage, with her encouragement, and perhaps because this older woman does not care to have Natalia hanging around much longer, Natalia has resolved to make the tough rail journey up to Murmansk where she wants to view the petroglyphs there - mysterious rock drawings, thousands of years old. Continue reading...
England-Italy match may be clouded by insects after Met Office radar detects start of ‘nuptial flights’Swarms of flying ants could swarm to Wembley and cloud the Euro 2020 final, after a radar detected millions of bugs over London and the south-east on Friday.As luck has it, the final between England and Italy is taking place on Sunday, which could fall into the mating period of ants, which go on a “nuptial flight” in huge numbers between June and September. Continue reading...
by Tom Phillips , Joe Parkin Daniels in Bogotá and J on (#5M26K)
Police claims that Jovenel Moïse was killed by a mainly Colombian hit squad thrown into doubtQuestions have been raised over Haiti’s official narrative for the assassination of its president, Jovenel Moïse, who was gunned down at his mansion in Port-au-Prince last Wednesday.Haitian police and the politicians who stepped into the political vacuum created by Moïse’s killing have claimed he was shot at about 1am by members of a predominantly Colombian hit squad who had stormed the president’s hillside residence. “Foreigners came to our country to kill the president,” police chief Léon Charles alleged after the shooting. Continue reading...
The singer, 59, talks about music, family, relationships – and reveals she’s shorter than we thinkMusic was my life as a kid. My earliest memory is singing as we drove through Missouri in our powder-blue station wagon. Having swing-band-player parents meant the house was filled with dancing. Music was my identity; I never thought about any other future.I skipped school at 15 to enter a best-legs competition – and won. The contest was being run by a local radio station. I don’t remember who was judging – a bunch of dirty old men, I’m sure – but I proudly walked across that stage to victory. I may have been grounded and thrown in detention, but I kept hold of my $100 winnings. Continue reading...
Finance chiefs endorse landmark move to prevent profits being shifted to low-tax countriesFinance chiefs of the G20 economies have endorsed a landmark move to stop multinationals shifting profits to tax havens and will also warn that Covid variants threaten the global economic recovery.At talks on Saturday, they also acknowledged the need to ensure fair access to vaccines in poorer countries. But a draft communique to be rubber-stamped at the meeting in Venice did not contain specific proposals on how to achieve that. Continue reading...
At my lowest ebb, I found hope in wickedly funny Leah, who lit up the crisis centre where we met. But just months later, she was dead. Could I stop my grief pulling me back under?Over the years there have been only a few people I would have classed as best friends. People whom I counted on in my darkest moments. When I was at my lowest, and feeling more alone than ever, I met Leah. She was an incredible person who showed me how to find joy and belonging even in the worst possible circumstances. But within less than 12 months she was dead, and life was changed for ever.We first met at Scarborough Survivors, the mental health crisis cafe I started attending in December 2018. I was 21, homeless and sofa-surfing, and I didn’t want to be alive any more. The cafe – open until 1am every morning – was my last option. It was a Saturday night, just before Christmas. Leah came in wearing a bright pink Adidas tracksuit and one of her many pairs of Nike Airs. Her thick Welsh accent echoed around the place, and as soon as she started talking, the atmosphere changed. I could tell from the off that humour was one of her coping mechanisms. It was hard to tell how old she was; I sensed some immaturity, but also a deep wisdom. I later learned that she was only 28, and the wisdom came from experiencing unimaginable trauma. Continue reading...
Police chief says entrance was padlocked; separate inquiry looks into use of child labour at food plantBangladeshi police have arrested the owner of a factory where at least 52 people died in an inferno, as it emerged that children as young as 11 had been working there.Police said the owner of the food factory and four of his sons were among eight people detained over the fire that broke out on Thursday and raged for more than a day. The blaze began in the evening at the five-storey Hashem Foods factory in Rupganj, just outside Dhaka. Continue reading...
Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for suicide attack on convoy of senior police official in Somali capitalA suicide car bomb targeting a government convoy exploded at a busy junction in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, killing at least nine people and injuring eight others, a health official said.The convoy was carrying a senior police official, Farhan Mohamud, who survived the attack on Saturday, the government news agency reported. Continue reading...
Sebastian Eubank, also a boxer, found dead days before his 30th birthdayFormer middleweight champion Chris Eubank has led tributes to his son Sebastian Eubank, who has been found dead in Dubai days before his 30th birthday.In a statement, Chris Eubank said the third oldest of his five children had died on Friday. He leaves behind his wife, Salma, and son Raheem, who was born a month ago. Continue reading...
He’s the most successful driver Formula One has ever seen, and its only Black star. Now Lewis Hamilton has a new mission: to change the sport that made him.As Lewis Hamilton rose through the ranks of competitive go-karting, his father, Anthony, told him: “Always do your talking on the track.” Lewis had a lot to talk about. Bullying and racial taunts were a consistent feature of his childhood in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, a new town 30 miles north of London; his dad taught him the best response was to excel at his sport.The trouble was he didn’t have many people to talk to about what he was going through. Lewis is mixed-race, born to a white mother, Carmen Larbalestier, who raised him until he was 12, when he went to live with his Grenadian-British father, from whom she had separated. “My mum was wonderful,” he tells me. “She was so loving. But she didn’t fully understand the impact of the things I was experiencing at school. The bullying and being picked on. And my dad was quite tough, so I didn’t tell him too much about those experiences. As a kid I remember just staying quiet about it because I didn’t feel anyone really understood. I just kept it to myself.” Sport offered him an outlet. “I did boxing because I needed to channel the pain,” he says. “I did karate because I was being beaten up and I wanted to be able to defend myself.” Continue reading...
As Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s sitcom turns 20, top comics and people behind the scenes explain how it rewired British humourIt wasn’t the first painstakingly naturalistic sitcom on British TV (see: The Royle Family). It wasn’t the first comedy to revolve around the cringeworthy antics of a delusional, middle-aged “entertainer” (see: I’m Alan Partridge). It wasn’t even the first mockumentary about the banalities of work (see: People Like Us). Yet by marrying all those things together – and so much more – The Office managed to raze the comedy landscape, establishing a whole new language and style for the British sitcom. Twenty years after it debuted, the influence of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s series about the long-suffering employees at a regional paper merchants and their incredibly unprofessional boss, David Brent, is still everywhere; nothing since has had a comparable impact. How did a sitcom that prioritised footage of photocopiers over proper jokes remake comedy in its image?Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...
Climate crisis researchers worry about the channel’s reach to perpetuate misinformation and advance political goalsFox News Media, the company that owns the reactionary, climate crisis-skeptical Fox News, is launching a weather channel this year – a development that has climate crisis experts worried.Fox Weather, a 24-hour channel devoted to all things meteorological, promises “cutting-edge display technology”, according to a press release, with “forecasting experts surrounding every major weather event”. Continue reading...
by Zoe Wood Consumer affairs correspondent on (#5M1Z7)
Social distancing is feeding an appetite for a new generation of US-style drive-through restaurantsDrive-through restaurants used to be a US-inspired novelty but a big increase in custom during the pandemic means money is pouring into new UK sites, with even upmarket names looking to serve food through car windows for the first time.New property research suggests that demand for drive-throughs has increased by 25% post-Covid with restaurant chains looking to open a total of 200 sites a year. The clamour comes as established names such as McDonald’s and Burger King face competition from North American brands such as Tim Hortons, famous for its coffee and doughnuts, and burger chain Wendy’s. Continue reading...
Actors Andie MacDowell, Helen Mirren and Jodie Foster hit the red carpet with ‘silver fox’ hairThe red carpet at Cannes film festival has long featured A-list stars in glamorous gowns and with perfect hair. This year, that hair might be grey.For the premiere of Annette on Tuesday, Andie MacDowell appeared on the red carpet with a mane of greying curls. Helen Mirren also attended, wearing her grey hair up in a chignon, and Jodie Foster, who received an honorary Palme d’Or at the festival, had her hair in a shoulder-length bob with grey streaks visible around her hairline. Continue reading...
As well as grabby headlines about Hitler, Michael Bender of the Wall Street Journal shows us how millions have been led astrayOn election night in 2016, Donald Trump paid homage to America’s “forgotten men and women”, vowing they would be “forgotten no longer”. Those who repeatedly appeared at his rallies knew of whom he spoke. Veterans, gun enthusiasts, bikers, shop clerks. Middle-aged and seniors. Life had treated some harshly. Others less so.Related: Trump told chief of staff Hitler ‘did a lot of good things’, book says Continue reading...
Another 1,378 cases on Friday as authorities warn new case numbers may nearly double by the end of JulySouth Korea posted its highest ever number of new daily Covid-19 infections within 24 hours, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency has said, in a third consecutive day of record high new infections.Starting on Monday, coronavirus curbs will be tightened to the strictest level possible in Seoul and neighbouring regions for the first time. Continue reading...
Wildlife officials in Montana stake out chicken coop visited by same grizzly that fatally mauled camperA grizzly bear that pulled a California woman from her tent and killed her has been fatally shot by wildlife officials, who used night-vision goggles to stake out a chicken coop it had also raided near the small Montana town of Ovando.They shot the bear shortly after midnight on Friday when it approached a trap set near the coop about two miles from Ovando where 65-year-old Leah Davis Lokan of Chico, California, was killed on Tuesday, said Greg Lemon with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Continue reading...
Theresa May’s former aide Robbie Gibb said to have warned broadcaster not to appoint ex-HuffPost editor Jess BrammarA BBC board member with close ties to Downing Street has been accused of attempting to block a senior editorial appointment on political grounds.Sources told the Financial Times that Sir Robbie Gibb issued a warning to the corporation after Jess Brammar, former editor of HuffPost UK and deputy editor of BBC Newsnight, became the leading candidate to oversee the BBC’s news channels. Continue reading...
by Tom Phillips , Julian Borger and agencies on (#5M1R8)
• Elections minister calls for US help amid political instability• Previous foreign interventions have proved controversialHaiti’s government has requested that the United States send troops to protect key infrastructure after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse this week, the elections minister, Mathias Pierre, said on Friday.Related: Why were Colombian guns for hire allegedly key to Haiti assassination plot? Continue reading...
A lovelorn woman lies in a Paris hospital as violent protests rage on the streets. It’s all very symbolic … but is it any good?The fracture of the title is, ostensibly, the nasty broken arm suffered by ditsy lead character Raf (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), a comic-book artist in Paris who slips and falls over having had a traumatic and possibly metaphorical breakup with her partner Julie (Marina Foïs). But there is another metaphor level to come.Related: Stillwater review – fictionalised Amanda Knox drama is so bad it’s bad Continue reading...
Serving officer Wayne Couzens is suspected of committing indecent exposure three times before murderA major chance to identify PC Wayne Couzens as a sex offender while he served as a constable may have been missed by police six years before he abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard, the Guardian has learned.The revelation comes after Couzens on Friday pleaded guilty to abducting Everard from a London street into a car in March, before murdering her. Continue reading...
by Joe Parkin Daniels in Bogotá and Tom Phillips on (#5M1RA)
The hit squad that killed President Jovenel Moïse is alleged to be largely drawn from veterans of Colombia’s civil conflictsWhen Manuel Antonio Grosso Guarín jetted into Punta Cana’s tourist-clogged airport early last month on Avianca Flight 252, immigration officials are unlikely to have given the 41-year-old Colombian a second glance. Visitors from around the globe flock to this Dominican resort town each week in search of sun, sea and Caribbean sands.Grosso appears to have had rather different plans, though: to sneak over the border into neighbouring Haiti and help assassinate that country’s president. Continue reading...
Millions of younger Australians will never own their own home. With interest rates at record lows, how else can you safeguard your financial future?If you feel like you’re never going to own a home, you may be right.A May 2020 report from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute forecasts that “almost half” of today’s young people will not own property by age 54. In the year since that report was published, Australian house prices have surged record amounts, making an already tricky property ladder even harder to get a foot on to. Continue reading...
Having long encouraged universities to find funding elsewhere, politicians now home in on their ties to China to argue that they’ve lost their wayOutside the political sphere, much of Australia’s China panic centres on university campuses. This is hardly surprising, given the deep connections of the Australian higher-education sector to China.In 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, higher education brought in some A$12bn in export revenue, most of it from China. With more than 150,000 Chinese international students enrolled, some institutions relied on that single revenue stream to make up a quarter of their total budget before the current drop-off. Mandarin is the second language of campus life in most universities these days; Confucius Institutes have been established at 13 universities; partnerships and MOUs with Chinese universities proliferate in many fields. Australian academics now collaborate more with colleagues in China than in any other foreign country: one report found that an incredible 16.2% of scientific papers by Australian researchers – almost one in six – were co-authored with researchers in China, with papers in the fields of materials science, chemical engineering and energy topping the list. Continue reading...
A fire at a juice-making factory in Bangladesh has killed 52 people and injured 20. The fire started late on 8 July on the ground floor of the six-storey factory in Narayanganj, south-east of Dhaka, and firefighters were still struggling to contain it the following day. A key exit was locked, forcing a number of people to jump from upper floor windows to escape the flames. Three of those people died. Authorities have not yet determined the cause of the blaze, but said investigations are ongoing
Family of Nottingham woman say they have received ‘the worst news imaginable’ from policeA British teacher who was missing in Japan for more than a week has been found dead.The family of Alice Hodgkinson, 28, confirmed they had received the “worst news imaginable” from police in Japan. Continue reading...
by Peter Beaumont, Julian Borger and Tom Phillips on (#5M17C)
Details emerge about foreign hit squad accused of being behind assassination of Jovenel MoïseKey members of the hit squad allegedly behind the assassination of Haiti’s president Jovenel Moïse had been in the country for about three months, apparently preparing their attack, with others joining from the Dominican Republic last month, according to Haitian judicial authorities.The Caribbean country was plunged into turmoil in the early hours of Wednesday morning when Moïse was killed in his private residence in Pétion-Ville in the hills above the capital, Port-au-Prince. On Friday it emerged that the alleged assassins – including two joint US-Haitian nationals resident in Florida and about two dozen Colombians – had assembled a cache of weapons, money, mobile phones and other equipment, including rental cars. Continue reading...
Officials say many victims were trapped inside the food factory near Dhaka by an illegally locked doorA fire engulfed a food and drink factory in Bangladesh killing at least 52 people, many of whom were trapped inside by an illegally locked door, according to fire officials.The blaze began on Thursday night at the five-storey Hashem Foods factory in Rupganj, just outside Dhaka, sending huge clouds of black smoke billowing into the sky. Police initially gave a toll of three dead, but on Friday afternoon discovered piles of bodies after the fire was extinguished. Continue reading...
by Helen Pidd in Burnley and Shah Meer Baloch in Isla on (#5M1J9)
Kelsey Devlin’s family in Burnley had concerns for her welfare and want transparency over how she diedThe prime minister of Pakistan and Boris Johnson have been asked to intervene in the case of a British woman who died in Pakistan, with MPs and her family calling for transparency over the circumstances.Kelsey Devlin, a 27-year-old carer and mother of two from Burnley in Lancashire, died on 30 June in a hospital in Rawalpindi. A death certificate says the previously healthy young woman died of sepsis, a stroke and cardiopulmonary arrest, but her family in Burnley say they were concerned about her welfare in Pakistan before her death. Continue reading...
by Tom Phillips and Jean Daniel Delone in Port-au-Pri on (#5M1GH)
Mystery still surrounds the killing of Jovenel Moïse, and there are fears it could lead to further chaosAlix Pierre was watching television at his home in Port-au-Prince’s moneyed hillside suburbs when he heard strange voices in the night.It was about 1am (0600 BST) on Wednesday when the insomnia-stricken salesman noticed the midnight prowlers outside, speaking in a mishmash of Spanish, English and Haitian Creole. Ten minutes later, he heard shots. Continue reading...
by Jennifer Rankin in Brussels and Peter Walker on (#5M1DT)
Brussels’ accounts reveal amount expected, but London says: ‘We don’t recognise that figure’The government has rejected claims it owes the European Union £41bn for a Brexit “divorce bill”, even as it emerged the first payments have been made.Brussels and Westminster reopened a dispute about the size of the bill, after the publication of the EU’s 2020 accounts revealed the European Commission expected €47.5bn (£40.8bn) from the UK, a sum higher than British estimates. Continue reading...
Corruption still sadly plays a part in public life here, but we’re making steps in the right directionOn Wednesday night, at 45 minutes to midnight, Jacob Zuma blinked. In what was the most consequential moment for the rule of law in post-apartheid South Africa, the former president handed himself into police.Zuma was, in fact, three days late. The apex constitutional court ruled last week that he must surrender himself by Sunday on a charge of contempt of court, after repeatedly refusing to appear before a statutory commission looking at allegations of corruption made against him. If he did not voluntarily turn himself in, the police minister was set to arrest him by midnight on Wednesday. For the past week, Zuma and his supporters – gathered outside his rural redoubt near Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal – threatened resistance and even war against the state if the authorities tried to enter the compound, while his lawyers engaged in futile litigation to try to get him off the hook (a judge dismissed Zuma’s application this morning). Continue reading...
by Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul and Akhtar Mohammad on (#5M1DW)
Fears grow for Kabul government after militant group seizes two key border crossingsThe Taliban has swept through western Herat province, seizing two key border crossings to Iran and Turkmenistan, and much of the countryside beyond city limits.It was the latest part of Afghanistan to collapse in the face of a rapid militant advance, during which they have taken control of areas far beyond their original southern strongholds. Their speed has fuelled fears the government in Kabul could fall within months. Continue reading...
Hundreds gathered to protest outside police headquarters after the arrest of 17 men believed to be involved in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on Wednesday. Protesters demanded information about the suspects and set fire to vehicles they thought belonged to the group.Police say they believe a heavily armed commando unit composed of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans assassinated Moïse, as the search for the rest of the group continues
by Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent on (#5M1BD)
A bus camera that captured his number plate was the key to catching PC Wayne CouzensThree days before he kidnapped and murdered Sarah Everard, PC Wayne Couzens took a decisive step in his path to committing his crimes.He hired a white Vauxhall Astra from Enterprise car hire in Dover, Kent, which he would use in the crimes. But as he went through the process of hiring the car, he made a crucial error that would lead to his detection and capture. Continue reading...
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