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...

Total of 118 people have died after two doses in England, as PHE says vaccine drive has prevented about 30,000 deaths

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...

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...

Critics accuse government of incompetence, denial and dragging its feet in response to pandemic

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

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...

Thousands in streets to mourn television star, actor and singer as funeral is broadcast live on TVIn Italy’s week of mourning for Raffaella Carrà, one image summed up her universal appeal: a rainbow flag – the symbol of the LGBT movement – next to her coffin in a Catholic church.Carrà, who died on Monday aged 78, was a cultural institution in her home country and regarded as its “best-loved woman”. The queen of light-entertainment TV, she also acted and topped the music charts of Europe and South America with pioneering, sex-positive pop music. Continue reading...

Two staff may have failed to pass on information over 19-year-old later found dead in Epping ForestTwo Metropolitan police staff members have been given misconduct notices over potential failings in the disappearance of the teenager Richard Okorogheye.The student, 19, went missing after leaving his home in Ladbroke Grove, west London, on 22 March. Continue reading...

Inspired by Erika Eiffel, who married the Eiffel Tower, this surreal debut tells the story of a woman who falls in love with a big, swirling fairground ride. Its director explains allJust imagine the pitch. “I want to make my debut film about a girl who falls in love with a funfair ride. Um, that’s it.” But, however improbable it may seem, Zoé Wittock didn’t just get Jumbo bankrolled, the film was also screened at Sundance. And it’s every bit as strange, and quite a bit richer than you might expect.Jumbo tells the story of Jeanne, played by Noémie Merlant, who lives with her sexed-up single mother near an amusement park, and also has a job there as an after-hours cleaner. One night, while spit-cleaning the knobs on a new fairground machine, Jeanne realises she has fallen in love with “him”. And so begins a giddy rites-of-passage story, with the intoxication of flashing lights and the sensuality of oil standing in for the dopamine rushes and tentative bodily exchanges of first love. Continue reading...

Digging deep into the nonsensical and narcissistic – yet apparently acceptable –ways that we behave online, Tim Robinson’s Netflix series is ahead of the curveIn the first season of I Think You Should Leave, Tim Robinson’s superlative Netflix show, there’s a sketch that made me laugh more than any joke I have ever seen on social media. In it, a trio of brunching women decide to post an attractive picture of themselves on Instagram, accompanied by an obligatory and utterly transparent self-deprecating caption, “so it doesn’t look like you’re just bragging”. But one of the party can’t get to grips with this odd internet etiquette. “OK, got it,” she grins earnestly. “Slopping down some pig-shit with these fat fucks, and I’m the fattest of them all. If I died tomorrow no one would shed a tear. Load my frickin’ lard carcass into the mud, no coffin please, just wet, wet mud. Bae.”You might think the vortex of narcissism, desperation and mindless rote behaviour that characterises many people’s Instagram use would be an obvious, not to say rather tired, subject for satire by now. In fact, TV comedy that mines laughs from the warped ways people behave online is vanishingly rare. But I Think You Should Leave – which returned for a much-lauded second season this week – does it in practically every sketch, drilling down into the absurdity of online interaction, and, in doing so, exposes the half-obscured egomania and self-interest that drives it. Continue reading...

As the country marks a decade since independence, musicians talk of the songs and rhythms that help create a shared culture and community for people displaced by civil war“What comes first is a culture and then a nation,” says David Otim, a musician from Bahr el Ghazal, who performs and teaches South Sudanese songs. “Our [civil] war, which was caused by a foreigner, led us to not understand ourselves, made us go and destroy our culture out there [in refugee camps].” Continue reading...

• Woman had hair pulled by ‘six or seven’ England fans• Also claims of Denmark fans being spat on at WembleyA Denmark supporter who attended Wednesday’s Euro 2020 semi-final at Wembley says she was physically assaulted by England fans as she made her way home after the game.Jeanette Jorgensen, who has lived in west London for 15 years, went with three cousins after obtaining tickets through the Danish Football Association (DBU). Continue reading...

Allegation about Wayne Couzens was reported to Kent police, which faces investigation into its handlingThe Metropolitan police constable Wayne Couzens was the subject of a claim of indecent exposure against a woman six years before he murdered Sarah Everard, it has been revealed.An allegation was reported to Kent police in 2015, who will now face an investigation into whether they investigated it properly. Continue reading...

British investor Stephen Peel in ongoing dispute with partners over Luxembourg company linked to spyware firmA British financier’s voting rights at a Luxembourg company linked to Novalpina Capital, whose fund owns a majority stake in the spyware firm NSO Group, will remain suspended, a Luxembourg court has ruled.Though this may not be permanent, the decision appears to mark a setback for the financier, Stephen Peel, a former Olympic rower, in a bitter legal dispute that has erupted between him and his two longtime business partners, Stefan Kowski and Bastian Lueken. Continue reading...

Prime minister says country ‘cannot afford to waste time getting back the lives we know and love’Fiji’s government has announced it will make Covid-19 vaccinations a mandatory condition of work for civil servants and staff in the private sector, with some people liable to lose their jobs if they do not comply.The prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, said in a televised address on Thursday night that employers and employees in the private sector should receive at least one dose of vaccine by 1 August. Continue reading...

Formula One driver who left the sport after failing to win the world championship in 1981 and entered Argentinian politicsIn the years when Carlos Reutemann competed in Formula One, between 1972 and 1982, the pen portrait of the Argentinian driver printed in the programme for the Monaco Grand Prix memorably described him as possessing le physique d’un séducteur du cinema. Reutemann, who has died aged 79, did indeed resemble the popular idea of a South American racing driver: tall, dark-haired, with a strikingly saturnine visage that could open into a charming smile.But there was an enigmatic side to him, a moodiness that could put a dampener on his performances. Continue reading...

Cheerful Rhinelander poised to succeed Angela Merkel aims to reach out to likes of Russia and HungaryOver her 16 years as German chancellor, Angela Merkel has gained a reputation as the world’s go-to consensus-builder, a relentless forger of compromises between political opponents. The man most likely to step into her shoes this September presents himself as someone with the ambition to outdo her.Armin Laschet, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and conservative candidate for the top job at federal elections on 26 September, says he is a passionate European, a committed transatlanticist and a reliable ally of Israel. Continue reading...

The pair filmed themselves wrecking the house in Murtoa, Victoria, after their sister was named executor of their mother’s estateThe world is laughing at the stupidity of two brothers who destroyed their late mother’s home in regional Victoria after their sister was named executor of her estate, a Victorian judge has said.Malcolm and Garry Taylor missed out on their inheritance and have now received major fines following their dramatic response to their sister being named executor. Continue reading...

Health authority creates adverts to send positive message about social effects of vaccination

As the government continued to fail at governing, at least England had an easy win in exposing Lawrence Fox’s hypocrisyData, not dates! Except, after all – dates. The government (are we still using that word? It feels like such a misnomer at this stage. The gafferment? The gufferment, farting into its empty hands) announces that the country will lay aside virtually all Covid-19 restrictions on 19 July – “Covid Freedom Day” as our genuinely pathetic prime minister terms it – as planned. Continue reading...

Pan-Asian labour rights group launches groundbreaking attempt to hold global labels accountable for alleged rights violations during pandemicLegal complaints are being filed against some of the world’s largest fashion brands in major garment-producing countries across Asia in a groundbreaking attempt to hold the global fashion industry legally accountable for human rights violations in the countries where their clothing is made.The Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), a pan-Asian labour rights group, says it is using legal challenges to argue that global clothing brands should be considered joint employers, along with their suppliers, under national laws and be held accountable for alleged wage violations during the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...

One local barista says he feels police have exaggerated the rate of non-compliance in the region

Do you know your Ant from your Dec and your Three Lions from your Atomic Kitten? Find out with our tricky and slightly silly quizThey are the soundtrack to our summers of joy and despair. The songs that accompany the moments when our hearts soar as goals go in, and break as crucial penalties are missed. But how much do you know about the football tournament anthems that fans sing with such glee? Find out with our football anthems quiz – getting full marks is going to be harder than getting a ticket for Wembley on Sunday. But remember, it is just for fun, and unlike the forthcoming Italy v England Euro 2020 final, there are no prizes.The Guardian Euro 2020 football anthems quiz Continue reading...

Matt Damon is woefully miscast as a rash, violent loser in Tom McCarthy’s calamitous reworking of the notorious murder caseTom McCarthy is the director who gave us the Oscar-winning Spotlight, an estimable film. But this is one to forget: a muddled, tonally misjudged, badly acted, uncertainly directed and frankly dubious drama, something that falls into the so-bad-it’s-bad bracket. It’s hamfistedly inspired by the Amanda Knox case, the young American woman who was acquitted having spent four years in an Italian prison after the murder in 2007 of her roommate in Perugia, the British exchange student Meredith Kercher. This film creates a fictional quasi-Knox figure and fatuously convicts this made-up character of a certain muddled wrongdoing that the real Amanda Knox may very well feel she should not be smeared with.The action is moved to Marseille in France. Abigail Breslin plays Allison Baker, a young woman from Stillwater, Oklahoma, a visiting American student who has been convicted of murdering her lover and is now serving time in prison there. Matt Damon plays Allison’s dad Bill, a construction worker. He comes out to Marseille (presumably on a tourist visa, though he appears to stay indefinitely, doing building-site jobs) . But now he is consumed with the need to solve the case, prove his daughter’s innocence and catch the guy who actually did it. Continue reading...

Serving Met officer abducted 33-year-old from street in south London in March before killing herA serving police officer has admitted murdering Sarah Everard after abducting her from the street as she walked home in south London.The Metropolitan police constable Wayne Couzens pleaded guilty on Friday to her murder at the Old Bailey, having admitted to her kidnap and rape at an earlier hearing. Continue reading...

Who needs for ever? I want a summer of beautiful vignettes. As a friend told me, the length of a relationship needn’t reflect its significanceA friend of mine told me about this guy she met in the queue at Tesco Metro. They both lunged for the same meatball wrap, and he said: “This is like the part in the film where we fall in love,” which didn’t happen but they did go to the pub and then to a nightclub, where they stood so close to the speakers they could feel the sound in the air as if it were wind. When the lights came on, they headed back to his flat and had great sex, watched by a Simon Cowell cutout he had left over from a party. After climbing out of a window on to the roof of his flat, she stayed until the sky turned from flamingo pink to lilac, to dark blue, and it was time for her to go home and get some sleep.“I was going to ask for his number but it was so perfect, I told him, ‘If it’s meant to be, I’ll see you out again.’” Continue reading...

I slept under the escalator, surrounded by plastic barriers – the PA announcements would jerk me awakeI was working as the marketing manager for an insurance company in Abu Dhabi when civil war broke out in Syria, the country of my birth. I’d left five years earlier, aged 25, but military service in Syria is mandatory, and the outbreak of war meant I would be expected to return. But I didn’t want any role in the killing machine.When I refused to join the army, the Syrian embassy wouldn’t renew my passport. Without it, I couldn’t extend my work visa, so I was out of a job. For the next few years, I was forced to live under the radar – remaining in the United Arab Emirates illegally. I sold my belongings and worked off-grid when I could, sleeping in public gardens or stairwells. At the end of 2016, I was finally taken in by the police. After two months in an immigration detention jail, I was deported to Malaysia. Continue reading...

Premier Gladys Berejiklian says 29 of the new cases were infectious in the community as new restrictions announced for Sydney; state and territory leaders meet with PM to discuss the vaccine rollout. Follow latest updates

Medical crews said the injured people were scattered over an area the length of a football fieldA hot air balloon crashed as it was about to land in New Zealand on Friday, injuring all 11 people on board, including two who suffered serious injuries and were airlifted to a hospital.Sunrise Balloons said the hour-long trip near Queenstown had been uneventful and was operating within normal wind speeds when the pilot attempted to land on a private airstrip just before 10am. Continue reading...

The country’s first decade has been marked by civil war, sexual violence and poverty. But women are working to gain justice for victims and hope for changeWhen Gloria Soma left university in Tanzania in 2013, she decided to head for the homeland she had never really known. Her parents had left southern Sudan in the early 1990s and she had grown up in refugee camps overseas, first in Uganda during the “hard times” of the Lord’s Resistance Army, and then in Kenya. While she was immersed in her studies, the Republic of South Sudan was born, the 193rd country to join the UN. And she wanted to go.“It was quite exciting for me because I thought that … I would go back and there were going to be many opportunities and it would be a peaceful place for everyone to live in,” says Soma. “There was already some sense of belonging. Because, as much as I had stayed most of my life in the east African region, there’d always been [the question of] ‘where do you belong?’ There was that bit of me [that felt] ‘finally, we are going to belong somewhere’. But it didn’t happen.” Continue reading...

Planning a trip across state borders or a weekend away? Before you leave home, check our state-by-state guide to coronavirus travel restrictions and border closures to see if you can travel into or out of Sydney, from NSW to Qld, or to Victoria, SA, WA, NT or NZ

The duo started their debut album 36 years ago, but work for Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and others got in the way. Now it’s finally complete, R&B’s great studio psychologists look back at an unmatched careerSome albums take a long time to make, but few have had the gestation period of Jam & Lewis: Volume One. The production duo started work on their debut artist album 36 years ago, just as their career was taking off on the back of the SOS Band’s hit single Just Be Good to Me, but they were thrown off-course working for a minor figure with a couple of flop albums to her name: Janet Jackson.Together they started shaping what would become her 10m-selling 1986 breakthrough Control, which understandably “kind of stopped the progress on our own album”, as Jimmy “Jam” Harris, 62, puts it today, when he and his partner, Terry Lewis, 64, appear on a video call from their homes in Los Angeles. With Control ready to be delivered, they wrote a song for themselves that sounded the perfect calling-card for a Jam & Lewis album. “We thought we were done with Control, then Janet’s manager came to hear the album,” says Harris. “We played him Nasty, When I Think Of You, The Pleasure Principle … And he says: ‘I just need one more song, for Janet.’ I’m going: ‘No, man, no.’ We get in the car to go to a restaurant, Terry puts a cassette in, and about the third song in, Janet’s manager says: ‘That’s the song I need.’” Continue reading...

Non-binding resolution also calls for governments to impose further sanctions on China as tensions riseThe European parliament has overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on diplomatic officials to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in response to continuing human rights abuses by the Chinese government.In escalating tensions between the EU and China, the non-binding resolution also called for governments to impose further sanctions, provide emergency visas to Hong Kong journalists and further support Hongkongers to move to Europe. Continue reading...

Possible veto of Bab al-Hawa UN aid crossing could halt the flow of vital food and health supplies to 3.4 million peopleJust over half a mile away from the Bab al-Hawa border crossing connecting Syria and Turkey a 6th-century triumphal arch still stands, the remains of a Roman road stretching straight as an arrow on either side. For millennia this part of the world has been a crossroads of trade, culture and history. Today, it’s more important than ever.Bab al-Hawa is Syria’s last lifeline, through which vital UN aid supplies for 3.4 million people living in the war-torn north-west of the country arrive. But before 10 July, the security council must vote in New York on whether to keep the aid flowing. What might seem like an obvious decision to outsiders is actually far from certain: Russia may use its veto power as a permanent member of the council to close the UN’s last access point, as it has managed to do with the other three aid crossings. Continue reading...

England showdown fuels mixed emotions for Italians who call Clerkenwell neighbourhood homeThe prospect of Sunday’s Euro 2020 final between England and Italy is a “tragic situation”, according to a priest at the Italian church in London. With a pained expression, he says: “I’m Italian, but I live in England and love English people, but now you have become our foes.”The priest is so troubled by the upcoming game that he refuses to give his name. Speaking after giving a mass at St Peter’s church, in the heart of Little Italy in Clerkenwell, he adds: “England is the only team we don’t want to face. If we win, you’ll be sad and I don’t want the English people to be sad. If you win, I’ll be sad and you can’t console me.” Continue reading...

James Solages is one of two Haitian Americans the government said it arrested in connection with the killing at the presidential residenceThe Haitian government has accused a Florida entrepreneur and former security guard of being involved in the assassination of Jovenel Moïse.James Solages is one of two Haitian Americans the government said it arrested in Port-au-Prince in connection with Wednesday’s killing at the presidential residence. The other was named as Joseph Vincent, but there is little known about him. Continue reading...

The literary sensation from 2017 is trending again. But this time it’s because of a real-life storyHelen, I am seeing that awful close-up picture of mouths kissing on my timeline again and hesitate to ask, but why?The short story Cat Person is in the news once more, because a woman named Alexis Nowicki has written an essay for Slate in which she explains that she is the real-life cat person the Cat Person story is based on, and that her ex-boyfriend is the other cat person in the story, and that he was actually a lovely person in real life and really did have cats and wasn’t pretending, unlike in the story. Continue reading...

St George’s flags featuring surnames of almost every person in England will fly from heritage sites to cheer on teamHarry Kane can trace his surname back to a word for “warrior”. Declan Rice to “impetuous”. Kieran Trippier to “dance”. Kyle Walker will have to make do with “trampler of cloth in a bath of lye” which, to be fair, was once a very important job.English Heritage is getting in the football spirit by revealing the origins of the names of the England players. It will also fly a St George’s flag featuring the surname of almost every person living in England at its properties to help cheer on the team before Sunday’s Euro 2020 final against Italy. Continue reading...

One hot teenage summer, I made a lifelong friend. Years later, it turned out there was much more between usIt was the summer of 2000 when I fell in love. I would love to say it was hot, but it was probably raining; weather doesn’t bother you when you’re 14 and smitten. My baggy jeans were drenched in south London gutter scum, with knee-high puddle water stains and my try-hard skater shoes that had never once touched a skateboard, ugly as hell and a size too big.

Iranian foreign minister meets Taliban negotiators in Tehran, while Turkey offers troops to protect Kabul airportIran, Turkey, Pakistan and Russia have moved to fill the military and diplomatic vacuum opening up in Afghanistan as a result of the departure of US forces and military advances by the Taliban.In Tehran the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, met Taliban negotiators to discuss their intentions towards the country, and secured a joint statement saying the Taliban do not support attacks on civilians, schools, mosques and hospitals and want a negotiated settlement on Afghanistan’s future. Continue reading...

Premier says it’s concerning 29 out of 44 new coronavirus cases were out in the community during their infectious period

Seventeen captured men paraded in front of journalists, as police chief says another three were killed and eight remain on the runA heavily armed commando unit that assassinated Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, was composed of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, authorities have said, as the hunt goes on for the masterminds of the killing.Moïse, 53, was fatally shot early on Wednesday at his home by what officials said was a group of foreign, trained killers, pitching the poorest country in the Americas deeper into turmoil amid political divisions, hunger and widespread gang violence. Continue reading...

Previously held up as a model of how to combat pandemic, country was slow to start vaccine rollout and is now reporting record daily cases

Prime minister Scott Morrison says pace of vaccination rollout accelerating

Plane went down near runway shortly after takeoff from Orebro and caught fire on impactNine people have been found dead after a skydiving airplane crashed outside Orebro in Sweden.

Evidence shows a greater risk of reinfection six months after inoculation as Israel reports a drop in vaccine effectivenessPfizer plans to ask US regulators to authorize a booster dose of its Covid-19 vaccine within the next month, the drugmaker’s top scientist said on Thursday.The announcement was based on evidence of greater risk of reinfection six months after inoculation and due to the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of coronavirus. Continue reading...

Games organisers agree to hold events without fans; Greece to unveil plans to mandate vaccination for specific professional groups next week