Arrests made after prime minister says attackers posed as members of the US Drug Enforcement AgencyThe president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, has been assassinated in his home by a group of armed men who also seriously injured his wife, according to a statement and comments made by the country’s interim prime minister.Speaking on a local radio station, Claude Joseph confirmed that Moïse, 53, had been killed, saying the attack was carried out by an “armed commando group” that included foreigners. Continue reading...

Shortages of beds, oxygen and staff reported across island of Java as number of cases rise sharply

UK also reports 33 Covid-linked deaths and 386 new hospital admissions; Indonesia reports record infections for third day in a row

Foreign affairs committee calls for import ban on products from Xinjiang, where it says there is ‘industrial-scale forced labour’Britain must act to stop China’s atrocities against Uyghur Muslims by banning the import of Chinese cotton and solar panels from Xinjiang province, as well as by announcing that no government officials will attend the Winter Olympics in Beijing, a report by MPs says.The chair of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Tom Tugendhat, said that without action the UK would be allowing China “to nest the dragon deeper and deeper into British life”. Continue reading...

Case involving Mila, who was sent more than 100,000 abusive messages, has fuelled debate about free speech.A French court has convicted 11 people for harassing a teenager online over her anti-Islam videos in a case that has led to a fierce debate about free speech and the right to insult religions.The prosecutions were part of a judicial fightback against trolling and online abuse after the girl, known as Mila, had to change schools and accept police protection because of death threats. Continue reading...

Hubert Caouissin killed his brother-in-law and wife and their two children in 2017 believing they had a hoard of treasureA French man who murdered four members of his family and dismembered their bodies because he thought they were hoarding gold hidden from the Nazis has been jailed for 30 years.Hubert Caouissin had admitted killing his brother-in-law, Pascal Troadec, 49, Troadec’s wife, Brigitte, 49, and the couple’s two children, Sébastien, 21, and Charlotte, 18, in February 2017. Continue reading...

Sometimes, your luck is just in, you catch a break when you most need it and, after so much major tournament semi-final heartache, England finally got something to go their way and, in the process, one of these suffocatingly high tension encounters to follow suit.The 90 minutes had been nerve-shredding, England forced to find a response to Mikkel Damsgaard’s stunning 25 yard free-kick on the half-hour, which they did when Bukayo Saka’s cross, intended for Raheem Sterling, was bundled over his own line by the Denmark captain, Simon Kjær. Continue reading...

Thursday: Renewed focus on vaccine rollout as NSW outbreak continues to grow. Plus: Haitian president assassinated in his homeGood morning. Covid concerns spread to western Sydney, Haiti is thrown into political crisis and Roger Federer’s dream of a ninth Wimbledon title appears over. Those stories and more this Thursday, in Guardian Australia’s morning mail.Residents in Sydney’s south-west are being urged to isolate amid the city’s extended lockdown, with three local government areas – Liverpool, Fairfield and Bankstown-Canterbury – placed on high alert after 27 new cases. The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has told families: “Do not leave the house,” adding that “the next nine or 10 days will determine how we live” until the end of the year. The state’s chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, said the admission to hospital of eight people under 35 was “a bit of a wake-up call to young people” but, as Josephine Tovey writes, younger Australian don’t need a wake-up call, they need a functioning vaccine rollout that incorporates their age group. Continue reading...

State government says risk of people in insecure jobs spreading Covid was ‘ignored’ during pandemic

Rights advocate says proposed partnership with Emirates raises ‘profound concern’ and Cambridge documents note ‘values gap’The University of Cambridge has been accused of entering “a Faustian pact” over plans for a £400m collaboration with the United Arab Emirates in what would be the biggest deal of its kind in the university’s history.According to internal documents seen by the Guardian, the 10-year collaboration would help Cambridge, one of the wealthiest higher education institutions in the UK, “weather the challenges faced by universities as a result of Covid, Brexit and a constrained funding environment”. Continue reading...

Lucara diamond firm shows off 1,174-carat diamond to Gaborone cabinet after find of 1,098-carat gemstoneAn exceptionally large and white 1,174-carat diamond stone has been unearthed in Botswana, trumping another huge precious stone that was found in the African country in June.The latest find, which fills the palm of a large hand, was also discovered in June, on the 12th. It was found by the Canadian Diamond firm Lucara and presented to the country’s cabinet in Gaborone on Wednesday. Continue reading...

André Dussollier and Sophie Marceau are outstanding as a father and daughter whose tricky relationship is upended when he asks for her help to dieFrançois Ozon has brought a tremendous understated confidence and artistry to this very affecting film about euthanasia and assisted dying. There is a robust unsentimentality here, encapsulated by the throwaway gesture in the title itself, leaving is to decide what it exactly it is in the end which has gone “well”. And the final shot of a dead person, the supremely difficult moment to bring off, is haunting in its lack of emotional affect.André Dussollier, the veteran French character actor, plays André, a wealthy and socially well-connected retired industrialist (late in the film, he will ask his daughter if she has remembered to bring his Legion of Honour ribbon). In his late 80s, André suffers a stroke and the vigorous, handsome but cruelly sharp-tongued man that we see in flashback is reduced to a sad state in hospital: his face and right eye sagging. He is regularly visited by his daughter Emmanuelle, or Manue, played by Sophie Marceau (and based on the author of the original autobiographical novel, Emmanuelle Bernheim). She is patently his favourite, despite her agonised memories of his cruelty towards her when she was a girl. He certainly seems much closer to Manue than to his other daughter Pascale (Géraldine Pailhas) and indeed his ex-wife (played by Charlotte Rampling) who is herself consumed with her own ill-health and utterly unmoved by her ex-husband’s woes. Continue reading...

Campaigners say ‘shoddy’ and ‘outdated’ law has led to bystanders being wrongfully convictedA Labour government would reform the law of joint enterprise that has led to hundreds of mostly young men unjustly serving life sentences for murder, David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, has told a protest rally at Westminster.Organised by the campaign group Joint Enterprise Not Guilty By Association (JENGbA), which is threatening a legal challenge against the justice secretary, Robert Buckland, the rally was attended by about 200 family members and supporters of young people serving long sentences after joint enterprise convictions. Continue reading...

A look at the demographics as 18.5 million people in the UK fall into the heightened risk category

At 21.16 metres in height, it is more than 3 metres taller than the previous holder, says Guinness World RecordsThe world’s tallest sandcastle has been completed in Denmark, towering more than 20 metres high and comprising nearly 5,000 tonnes of sand, according to its designers.Standing 21.16 metres in height (69.4 feet), the castle is more than 3 metres taller than one built in Germany in 2019, which previously held the title, according to Guinness World Records. Continue reading...

Assassination of President Jovenel Moïse leaves impoverished Caribbean nation on brink of chaosThe assassination of Haiti’s president early on Wednesday marks the explosive climax of a spiralling political and security crisis – and threatens to open a violent new chapter in the Caribbean nation’s volatile history.Jovenel Moïse was gunned down at his home in the capital, Port-au-Prince, with witnesses and government officials suggesting the attack was perpetrated by black-clad “mercenaries” posing as DEA agents. His wife, the first lady, Martine Moïse, was also reported to have been wounded in the attack. Continue reading...

Nadav Lapid’s film begins with some distinctively original sequences about his movie-directing hero, but sinks into anguished monologuingHere is a fierce, jagged shard of autofictional rage from the Israeli director Nadav Lapid, the winner of the Berlin Golden Bear in 2019 for his previous movie Synonyms. There is some really distinctive film-making language here, with the looming, uncontrolled closeups, whip-pans between characters for dialogue scenes, the throbbing sound design and some really sensational musical set pieces.But the mystery and the unprocessed anger that make this film interesting all come at the beginning. As it begins to explain more and more about what drives its leading character, the film becomes less and less interesting and the stridently melodramatic finale, as well as being highly unlikely in ordinary plot terms, feels a little bit self-exculpatory. Continue reading...

Mike Ryan issues warning over letting people catch Covid earlier as England prepares for ‘big bang’ reopening

The duo’s shows boast catchy songs but pose problems for directors. As South Pacific and Carousel return this summer, our writer looks back on enchanted evenings with the odd couple’s musicalsSouth Pacific opens at Chichester Festival theatre this month and Carousel comes to the Open Air theatre in Regent’s Park in August. The musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein are always with us but what does their ubiquity tell us? Should they be seen as comforting box-office bankers or is there some pathfinding element in their work we have lost sight of?The smart thing to say is that Rodgers was at his best in his earlier collaboration with the lyricist Lorenz Hart, writing shows such as The Boys from Syracuse and Pal Joey that are defiant, sexy and urban. It is a view fiercely articulated by David Hajdu in a 2002 article in the New York Review of Books: “Anyone tempted to dismiss Richard Rodgers’ work as theme-park Americana, children’s music or camp is likely thinking of the work of Rodgers and Hammerstein.” Continue reading...

Former Children of God member says simple question put to her by Walter Schwarz was life-changingIt was a simple question to a child, one routinely asked by adults: what do you want to be when you grow up? But for 11-year-old Bexy Cameron, who had never known anything but the strict religious cult she was born into, it was life-changing.Her brief encounter with the Guardian journalist Walter Schwarz in the 1990s led to her escaping the Children of God cult at the age of 15, leaving behind her parents and siblings. Now she has written a memoir, Cult Following, about growing up in a movement founded by a controlling sexual predator. The last line of her acknowledgments reads: “Eternal gratitude to Walter Schwarz (RIP). Who knows what would have happened without that ‘one simple question’?” Continue reading...

Pledge marks first time items will be returned to Congolese ownership without waiting for requestsBelgium has promised to return artworks plundered from its former Congolese colony, as it seeks to confront its brutal colonial past.Belgium’s Africa Museum – a former totem to empire that has undergone a €75m (£64m) revamp and “decolonisation” process – has said up to 2,000 works, including statues, musical instruments and weapons, were acquired illegally during colonial rule of a swathe of central Africa, mostly the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. Continue reading...

The young stars trust just one man with their fades, tapers and curls. He discusses Raheem Sterling’s lucky cut, Jadon Sancho’s sideburns and Phil Foden’s viral blond transformationThe south London barber Sheldon Edwards knows footballers who feel as if they haven’t prepared for a game if they haven’t had a haircut. “[It’s] like they left their boots at home; that’s how important the haircut is.” A good cut, he says, can lift a player’s confidence, on and off the pitch.Take Raheem Sterling. “There was a time [a few months ago] when he changed his haircut,” says Edwards. He was “growing it a bit and he was having a bit of a sticky time at Manchester City”. When Edwards “gave him a new-wave look, a bit of a different fade”, the goals started to roll in, like Samson in reverse. Edwards says his inbox was full of people pleading with him to “please keep this lucky haircut” and while he concedes that Sterling creates his own luck, he likes to “think the haircut is just like an enhancer”. Continue reading...

Social Democrat leader says he will resign again if he cannot find majority support for a budget by autumnSweden’s parliament has backed the return of Stefan Löfven as prime minister, weeks after he became the first Swedish leader to lose a no-confidence vote.But Löfven, a former union boss who guided the Social Democrats to power in 2014 and then moved the party to the right after inconclusive 2018 elections, has yet to find majority support for a budget and said he would resign again this autumn if he could not do so by then. Continue reading...

Giant cargo ship that caused week-long blockage sails for MediterraneanThe container ship that blocked the Suez Canal earlier this year has departed Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake to fanfare and a signing ceremony for a compensation agreement between its owners and the Suez Canal Authority.The 220,000-ton Ever Given was freed after three months at anchor, bound for an inspection in the northern city of Port Said and then to Rotterdam, where it will unload the 18,300 containers onboard long after they were due. Continue reading...

Madrid faces ‘catastrophic’ year at borders with 2,087 dead or missing on sea crossings in six months to June, says NGOSpain is facing an unprecedented and “catastrophic” year on its borders, finds a leading NGO which estimates that more than 2,000 people died or disappeared trying to reach the country in the first six months of 2021 – almost as many as perished in attempts in all of last year.In a report published on Tuesday Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders) found that 2,087 people, including 341 women and 96 children, had died or gone missing while trying to reach Spain by sea between January and the end of June this year. Last year, 2,170 migrants and refugees lost their lives or vanished en route to the country. Continue reading...

Despite losing a lot of fruit to bad weather, Italy has beaten the record twice this yearItalian farmers have grown the world’s largest cherry, shattering the record with a mammoth 33g fruit.The carmen cherry was grown by Alberto and Giuseppe Rosso from Pecetto Torinese, about four miles south-east of Turin, in Piedmont, a town renowned for the production of cherries. Continue reading...

The actor, who has died at 98, gave expression to the intense cultural complexities raised as independence met modernity – with respect, depth and subtletyRarely do Narendra Modi and Imran Khan agree, but the death of Indian film great Dilip Kumar united the prime ministers of India and Pakistan in grief as each expressed their admiration and affection for the actor who has died aged 98.Born Muhammed Yusuf Khan in 1922, in Peshawar, close to the border with Afghanistan in what was then British India, he moved to Bombay to take his first role in Jwar Bhata (High and Low Tides) – a film now remembered only for featuring his debut – and would go on to become a star in the post-independence boom in Hindi cinema, as the industry became a unifying voice for a vast, disparate population, who saw its concerns and aspirations reflected back to it with compassion and intelligence for the first time. Continue reading...

Leaders give mixed responses to PM’s decision to lift most restrictions from 19 July

‘It had become a favourite spot for Estonians to swim and relax in – even though the perimeter fences, watchtowers and barbed wire were still there’It was August 2016 and I’d been travelling for weeks, documenting the decaying borders between the Baltic states. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, there had been little in the way of physical demarcation between Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. But after the collapse, each nation had built up its borders, until the creation of the Schengen Area, when the need once again faded away. I went to photograph what remained.After the seizure of the Baltic states by the USSR, a maximum security prison had been established by the quarry at Rummu. The area was turned into a secure compound, where the incarcerated were used as forced labour. Post-USSR, the prison was closed and the pits flooded. Although the land is privately owned, over time it had become a favourite spot for residents and visitors to swim and relax in. Continue reading...

Mina Smallman says potential legal action would relate to Metropolitan police’s alleged failures to actThe family of two sisters whose killer was this week convicted of their murders are considering suing the police over alleged failures to act when they were reported missing.Mina Smallman, the mother of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, indicated the potential legal action would revolve around “neglect … what should have been done and wasn’t done” over the period when the sisters first went missing. Continue reading...

Flavoured gin or sweet frangipane? Readers share their favourite ways to put a glut of cherries to good useI rent a cherry tree on a farm in Northiam, East Sussex. Each year we are given a week to harvest the cherries from our tree, so we make a day of it with a picnic nearby. The tree looks small, but last year we harvested 15kg in one day. We make jam, pies, ice-cream and liqueurs; we give away some then freeze the rest after stoning them. This means we have a year-round supply of my favourite cocktail: frozen cherry margarita. I can’t drink tequila so I swap it for vodka. The result is delicious and very moreish, so be warned! Continue reading...

Self-isolation of vaccinated medical staff could be one area to review, doctor suggests

While my teenage friends were going wild in Faliraki, I was in a serious relationship. But at 21, I broke up with my boyfriend and flew to Disney World for romantic adventures“So, you want Mickey Mouse to help you get laid?”I knew it was a mistake to attempt small talk with the man at immigration. Or to tell him the real purpose of my visit. Continue reading...

Politicians and press campaigners call for justice as Peter R de Vries remains in hospital fighting for his lifeEuropean leaders and press freedom campaigners have condemned the shooting of journalist Peter R de Vries on a busy Amsterdam street, demanding his attackers face justice as the veteran Dutch crime reporter fights for his life in hospital.“This is a crime against journalism and an attack on our values of democracy and rule of law,” the head of the European Council, Charles Michel, tweeted. “We will relentlessly continue to defend the freedom of the press.” Continue reading...

Radical shift needed in how police tackle crimes disproportionately affecting female victims, says watchdogWomen and girls are being subjected to an epidemic of violence that requires a “radical and bold” shift in how authorities in England and Wales tackle crimes that disproportionately affect female victims, a police watchdog has warned.In an interim report, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) calls for councils, schools, health and social care bodies and all areas of the criminal justice system to work together to address the problem, as police “cannot solve this alone”. Continue reading...

The band of the Coldstream Guards performed a rousing rendition of Three Lions outside Clarence House before England's Euro 2020 semi-final match against Denmark.The Prince of Wales had invited the band to play the anthem at his London residence. Should England win, it will be the first time the team has reached the final of a major tournament since the 1966 World Cup

Ministers expected to announce rule change for fully-vaccinated people in boost for travel industry

Focus shifts from eastern suburbs to Sydney’s south-west with Gladys Berejiklian not ruling out stricter measures for three local government areas

Aid package, including 1,000 ventilators, announced after nation records daily high of 31,189 coronavirus casesAustralia will send 2.5m AstraZeneca vaccine doses to Indonesia and will fund 1,000 ventilators as the country battles record-high Covid cases that are pushing the health system to breaking point.The aid package, announced on Wednesday night, is in response to growing calls for Australia to help its most populous neighbour. Continue reading...

Victoria eases Melbourne restrictions; greater Sydney schools to return to online learning after holiday break; more than a dozen NSW residents under 55 in hospital with Covid. Follow latest updates

We danced in water features, stupefied with drugs. And while my big crush was unrequited, the whole season was irresistible funA summer of love is predicted when – if – we emerge from the Babylonian captivity of lockdown in a frenzy of courting. It will be the third summer of love in recent years. The first occurred, in a cloud of hashish and patchouli, around San Francisco in 1967. I was five and living on the outskirts of Kettering, untouched by those events, although I have heard it said the Skew Bridge Ski Club could get quite racy.The second summer of love I can talk about because I was in it. It was 1990, I was 28, and recently retired from pop music. It arrived on the back of a new party drug, ecstasy. I had come across E – more properly MDMA – in the United States, in the clubs of the east and west coasts, where enterprising leisure professionals realised that its effect on the neurotransmitters responsible for the experience of pleasure could make every venue a Xanadu of irresistible fun. Continue reading...

Black artists pioneered dance music, but the scene remains white-dominated. UK rising star Sherelle is dodging the trolls and trying to make change with her platform BeautifulWearing a fleece jacket covered in black and white acid smilies, Sherelle is a walking embodiment of dance music when I meet her. The 27-year-old north Londoner and self-professed “bocat” – a Jamaican slang term used in a derogatory manner to describe someone who enjoys giving cunnilingus, now proudly reappropriated by her on her T-shirts – is one of the UK’s most purely enjoyable new DJs. By blending various global forms of dance music, she is a catalyst for unrestrained raving who has stormed her way into the limelight at 160 beats per minute.She grew up on dancehall booming out of her mum’s hi-fi system, and hip-hop and R&B music videos on cable TV. “In my house we had cable illegally, because we couldn’t afford to pay for it,” says Sherelle, whose younger self would cringe at her mother and older sister. “Whatever they were watching, they would dance to. I have a graphic image of Beenie Man’s Who Am I, around the time the tune came out, and my mum and sister having the greatest time. I was mortified.” Continue reading...

Mina Smallman says she forgives Danyal Hussein but is concerned he will become more radicalised in prisonThe mother of two sisters murdered in a London park last year has expressed her fear that the teenager who murdered them will become “even more radicalised” in prison and risks becoming a “killing machine”.Mina Smallman, the first black woman to become an archdeacon in the Church of England, said she had already forgiven 19-year-old Danyal Hussein, who on Wednesday was found guilty of murdering Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46. Continue reading...

Kurt Campbell says Beijing assessing world’s response to Hong Kong crackdown to understand potential reaction on TaiwanA senior US official has warned China not to seek emboldenment from its Hong Kong crackdown to move against Taiwan, as Japan’s deputy leader said it would defend Taiwan against an attack.Kurt Campbell, coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs on the US national security council, told a forum on Tuesday the US had tried to send a “clear message of deterrence across the Taiwan Strait” and any attempt by China to move on Taiwan would be “catastrophic”. Continue reading...

Is the world getting too hot for humans?

Seventy-seven people have vanished since the start of the unrest in late April – some protesters, others not linked to the demonstrationsBefore 17-year-old Duvan Barros left his home in a downtrodden neighbourhood in Bogotá to attend an anti-poverty demonstration, he asked his mother, Dolores Barros, to make him a fruit juice. She said no, but there would be one waiting when he got back.That was 5 June, and Barros hasn’t seen him since. Continue reading...

There are only 21 lesbian bars remaining in the US – a vertiginous drop from 200 in the 1980s. The much-loved Cubbyhole is one of themEveryone at the Cubbyhole has an origin story.Mona Williams was 21, queer, and had been kicked out by their family when they first arrived at the quaint little lesbian bar on a street corner in New York’s West Village. They had Googled “lesbian bars in New York” and found themselves outside the bar a few hours later, alone and not knowing what to expect. Continue reading...

What does the extension mean for schools? What’s going on in Sydney’s south-western suburbs? And what happens if lockdown doesn’t work? Here’s what we know.