The massive Titanosaur, which lived more than 90m years ago, was discovered in south-west QueenslandA new species of dinosaur discovered in south-west Queensland has been officially recognised as the largest ever found in Australia and among the biggest in the world.The Australotitan cooperensis, a plant-eating dinosaur of the family known as titanosaurs, likely lived between 92m and 96m years ago, during the Cretaceous period. Continue reading...
At least 38 people killed and up to 20 passengers trapped in wreckage of derailed Millat ExpressAt least 40 people have been killed and more than 100 injured in a pre-dawn crash between two express trains in Pakistan, as rescuers and villagers worked throughout the day to pull survivors and the dead from the crumpled cars.Cries for help pierced the night as passengers climbed out of overturned or crushed rail cars and local people rushed to the scene in the district of Ghotki, in the southern province of Sindh. Later in the day, heavy machinery arrived to cut open some cars, in the hopes of rescuing several people still believed to be trapped. The military deployed troops and helicopters to assist. Continue reading...
From Connell and Villanelle sharing a moment to Michaela Coel with her mum, The Guardian’s Sarah Lee had exclusive behind-the-scenes access to this year’s ceremony
by Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent on (#5JR8E)
Exclusive: files at national archives suggest different version of eventsA minister privately expressed concerns that Aids was being transmitted by contaminated blood products while the government publicly insisted there was no “conclusive evidence”, newly uncovered documents from 1983 show.Among the victims of the contaminated blood scandal, which is the subject of a public inquiry, were 1,240 British haemophilia patients, most of whom have since died. They were infected with HIV in the 1980s through an untreated blood product known as Factor VIII. Continue reading...
National team shirt features map of Ukraine that includes Russian-annexed CrimeaRussian officials have reacted angrily after the head of Ukraine’s football association unveiled a new national team shirt emblazoned with a map of Ukraine that includes Crimea.Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has sought to integrate the peninsula into Russia permanently, but it is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine. Continue reading...
The professor and broadcaster discusses writing black Britishness back into history, the backlash this provokes – and why he’s so proud of his heritageHistory’s purpose isn’t to comfort us, says David Olusoga, although many in the UK seem to think it is. “History doesn’t exist to make us feel good, special, exceptional or magical. History is just history. It is not there as a place of greater safety.”As a historian and broadcaster, Olusoga has been battling this misconception for almost two decades, as the producer or presenter of TV series including Civilisations, The World’s War, A House Through Time and the Bafta-winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners. His scholarship has been widely recognised: in 2019, he was awarded an OBE and made a professor at the University of Manchester. (He is also on the board of the Scott Trust, which owns Guardian Media Group.) Yet apologists for empire, in particular, like to dismiss him as a “woke historian” in an attempt to politicise his work or flatly deny the realities that he points out. Continue reading...
Australian-born Tharnicaa Murugappan in Perth hospital with suspected blood infection after Tamil family’s 18-month detention on islandThe youngest daughter of the Tamil family from Biloela who have been detained for more than 18 months on Christmas Island has been evacuated to Perth for emergency medical care, advocates have said.Tharnicaa Murugappan has been evacuated along with her mother, Priya, after being hospitalised with a suspected blood infection. Continue reading...
Members of the body that awarded the 2019 peace prize to Ethiopia’s premier, Abiy Ahmed, should all depart in protestThe war on Tigray in Ethiopia has been going on for months. Thousands of people have been killed and wounded, women and girls have been raped by military forces, and more than 2 million citizens have been forced out of their homes. Prime minister and Nobel peace prize laureate Abiy Ahmed stated that a nation on its way to “prosperity” would experience a few “rough patches” that would create “blisters”. This is how he rationalised what is alleged to be a genocide.Nobel committee members have individual responsibility for awarding the 2019 peace prize to Abiy Ahmed, accused of waging the war in Tigray. The members should thus collectively resign their honourable positions at the Nobel committee in protest and defiance. Continue reading...
He charmed as slimeball lawyer Saul in the drugs drama and its spinoff – but now Bob Odenkirk has gone badass in action thriller Nobody. Has he left his comedy days behind?On the surface, Bob Odenkirk’s new film is entirely preposterous. As the story of a man who goes on a murder spree after his house is broken into, Nobody is an all-out, full-throated action movie. In one scene, 58-year-old Odenkirk tears a handrail off the inside of a bus and beats a man senseless with it.However, as he explains, the story stems from something much more personal. “My family had two break-ins,” he reveals from his home in LA, where he’s sitting beneath a vast Chinatown poster. “It was very damaging.” Continue reading...
During the pandemic, every pet became an emotional support animal – and many people decided they wanted to commemorate them indelibly and incrediblyAlice was a double rex rat we adopted from the local RSPCA. She was such a special girl and we had a great bond, so she was the natural choice for my first tattoo. Sadly, Alice died earlier this year, so I’m getting a second tattoo in tribute in a couple of weeks, on the spot where she loved to sit.
New Zealanders increasingly believe you need money and connections to get ahead in lifeJacinda Ardern can take heart: in the last decade, public attitudes have swung sharply against New Zealand’s persistently high levels of economic inequality. Space has opened up for her to pursue the egalitarian agenda she cherishes – although, conversely, her excuses for not acting have sharply diminished.Public opinion surveys from the two decades after 1990 showed a consistent trend: decreasing concern over economic inequality, and decreasing support for government action to tackle it, especially through taxes. The pro-market ideas of New Zealand’s 1980s reforms seemed invulnerable. Continue reading...
Conservative win in Saxony-Anhalt seen as last big test ahead of national election in SeptemberAngela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) fought off a challenge from the far right in a state election on Sunday seen as the last big test for Germany’s political parties before a national vote in September that will end the chancellor’s 16 years atop German politics.The CDU, whose current leader, Armin Laschet, will vie for the top job in September, improved on its 2017 performance to gain 37% of the vote in the eastern state, according to public service broadcaster ARD early on Monday. Reiner Haseloff, the state premier, said the result symbolised “a clear demarcation against the far right”. Continue reading...
Red Army soldier David Dushman used his T-34 Soviet tank to mow down the electric fence of the Nazi death campDavid Dushman, the last surviving soldier who took part in the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in 1945, has died at the age of 98.He died in a Munich clinic on Friday night, the city’s Jewish IKG cultural community said on Sunday, describing him as a liberating “hero of Auschwitz”. Continue reading...
Critics say PNG does not have adequate governance or welfare systems to deal with problems casino may bringPlans to build Papua New Guinea’s first casino in Port Moresby have sparked criticism from transparency advocates and experts who say the country’s industry regulator has undermined its independence with the deal and fear it could worsen social problems.The agreement to build the US$43m venue was signed on 28 May by Paga Hill Development Corporation and the National Gaming Control Board (NGCB), drawing immediate condemnation from Transparency International. Continue reading...
Journalism has been outlawed in all but name since the coup, with reporters and editors fleeing the country or leading double lives to surviveAs a cyclone rolled over the Bay of Bengal on 24 May, American journalist Danny Fenster, 37, contemplated the brooding skies near a terminal window at Yangon international airport.For a while, the threat of foreigners being seized at the airport by Myanmar’s military was real, but after watching international reporters exit the country safely in April, the Michigan native was more worried about turbulence. Continue reading...
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have named their new arrival with the royal family in mindAs the Duke and Duchess of Sussex welcome their new baby, Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, to the world, many are curious to know what the names of Prince Harry and Meghan’s second child and first daughter mean.Lilibet refers to the Queen’s nickname within the family, and was first used when Princess Elizabeth was just a toddler and unable to pronounce her name correctly. Continue reading...
Child named after the family nickname for the Queen, the baby’s great-grandmotherThe Duke and Duchess of Sussex have announced the birth of a daughter they have named Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.Harry and Meghan’s daughter, who was born in hospital in California on Friday, weighed 7lb 11oz (3.4kg) and has been named after the family nickname for the Queen, the baby’s great-grandmother. Her middle name was chosen to honour her late grandmother Diana, Princess of Wales, the couple said. The baby is the Queen’s 11th great-grandchild and is eighth in line to the throne. Continue reading...
Pontiff fails to issue direct apology for church’s role in residential schools where children were abusedPope Francis has said he was pained by the discovery of the remains of 215 children at a former Catholic school for indigenous students in Canada and called for respect of the rights and cultures of native peoples, but stopped short of the direct apology some Canadians had demanded.Speaking to pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican during his weekly blessing, Francis urged Canadian political and Catholic religious leaders to “cooperate with determination” to shed light on the finding and to seek reconciliation and healing. Continue reading...
Home secretary accused of deflecting blame from government policies after letter to social media companiesPriti Patel has been accused of attempting to deflect blame from the UK government’s failure to assist refugees after she told social media companies to remove posts that “glamourise” migrant crossings.The home secretary wrote to firms on Saturday urging them to do more to remove “totally unacceptable clips” that she said promote “lethal crossings”. Continue reading...
When I discovered the dreadful toll of the pandemic in Costa Rica, I realised there were worse things than holidaying at homeI’d been aware, for a while, that wealthy friends had resumed travelling, and a few months ago – in the first flush of vaccination optimism and with Covid rates in New York plunging – it looked easy. Perhaps we can do this, I thought. Countries reliant on tourism dollars were reopening. Airline prices were still low. It was, I told myself, safer to go to Costa Rica than to Florida. If Jet Blue thought it was OK to travel to San Jose, then that was good enough for me. Besides which, I thought, with stubborn servility, if it really was dangerous to fly to Central America, the US government wouldn’t let me do it. (Ha.)That was in late March. Last summer we had, along with everyone else lucky enough to be able to leave the city, rented a minivan and, after driving north for three hours – the minimum journey required to clear the extraordinary inflation-hitting resort rates near New York – sat out August in a house in Massachusetts. There was no question of flying to England or anywhere else, and if we missed seeing friends and family, there was some consolation in having that option removed. Of course, people still flew last summer. But their circumstances were generally so different from our own that it removed the pain of decision-making. Continue reading...
Former leader of Revolutionary Guards rounds on ex-central banker in bruising first debateIran’s presidential election candidates have engaged in a fiery and bruising first television debate, during which one promised to put another, the former governor of the central bank, on trial for treason and ban him and other members of the government from leaving the country.The threat to put Abdolnaser Hemmati on trial was made on Saturday by the former leader of the Revolutionary Guards Mohsen Rezaei, currently secretary of the Expediency Council. He claimed the Iranian currency had been devalued so much by Hemmati that “the train of the revolution has turned into a scooter”. Continue reading...
by Jason Burke in Johannesburg and Samuel Okiror in K on (#5JQCE)
Roundup of opposition activists took place in May around date of swearing-in ceremony for President Yoweri MuseveniA new wave of repression in Uganda has led to the abductions of dozens more opposition activists by security forces and at least one alleged death. Several hundred people are thought to have been detained without trial in the east African country in secret prisons where they are subjected to a brutal regime of mistreatment. The country has suffered a series of crackdowns aimed at stamping out dissent since campaigning began for presidential elections late last year.The trigger for the most recent repression by security services appears to have been the swearing-in ceremony of Uganda’s veteran president, the 76-year-old Yoweri Museveni, in May. Continue reading...
The vocalist breaks her long silence to talk about grieving for her daughter, her pioneering work with Tricky on Maxinquaye and finally making an album she’s 98% happy with…Martina Topley-Bird is struggling with her voice today. “It was awful last night,” she says, croakily, down the line from her home in Valencia. “My first interview in 11 years and then this happens!” As it turns out, Topley-Bird’s will hold out for well over an hour. But it won’t always take her to where she wants to go. She’s agreed to an interview to promote Forever I Wait, her first album since 2010’s Some Place Simple, but she doesn’t enjoy talking about herself; she’s fully aware of her tendency to let conversations drift, leave sentences unfinished, not quite pin down the message she wants to deliver. Speaking to her can be like listening to some of her dreamier music: captivating, meditative, yet somehow with a sense of her barely being there at all. A typical anecdote might grind to a halt midway through: “But yeah… I don’t know… sorry, vagued out again!”There is also a subject that is never going to be easy to talk about. In 2019, Topley-Bird’s daughter, Mazy, also known as Mina, killed herself at the age of 24. She had suffered a psychotic episode following a gig with her band 404 and died after being admitted to West Park hospital, Darlington. An inquest led to the coroner saying he would make two prevention of future death reports to reduce the risk of patients self-harming on the ward. At the time, Topley-Bird put out a statement saying: “Sweet baby, life won’t be the same without you.” But she hasn’t spoken since. She’s said in advance today that the subject can be broached, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult. “I’m only just beginning to process it,” she later admits. Continue reading...
Harry’s HRH is to be removed, with earlier inclusion blamed on an ‘administrative error’Prince Harry is to have his royal title dropped from the credits of an exhibition at Kensington Palace showing the dresses of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales.A week ago, the Diana exhibits came with a display panel that said “Lent by HRH [his royal highness] the Duke of Cambridge and HRH the Duke of Sussex”, the Sunday Times reported. But Harry’s HRH is to be removed with its inclusion blamed on “an administrative error”. Continue reading...
The Italian artist may have wanted to brush Beatrice Hastings out of his life, but artifical intelligence has thwarted him by enabling a re-creation of the workNo one wants to be reminded of a failed relationship by having the ex’s portrait hanging around. After Amedeo Modigliani and his lover, Beatrice Hastings, broke up, the Italian artist is thought to have obliterated her memory by painting another woman’s likeness over his portrait of her.So he might not be too happy to learn that science has now brought back that “lost” portrait, using artificial intelligence, an X-ray and 3D-printing to re-create the painting, with full colour and textured brushstrokes. Continue reading...
Backlog of 305,000 applications in post-Brexit settlement scheme prompts calls for extension of 30 June deadlineHundreds of thousands of European citizens face legal limbo if the Home Office fails to clear a backlog of more than 300,000 applications before the EU settlement scheme closes at the end of this month, campaigners have warned.With about three weeks to go before the deadline for EU workers and their families to apply for permanent residency in the UK, campaigners say anxiety and confusion remain over the rights of the 305,000 who have applied and are waiting for a decision, with many fearing that they risk a loss of rights similar to that experienced by the Windrush generation. Continue reading...
Aid agencies write to Foreign Office minister as pressure grows on Boris Johnson ahead of Commons voteUK aid cuts of 42% will leave about 70,000 people without health services and 100,000 without water in Cox’s Bazar, the world’s largest refugee settlement, before the deadly cyclone season, the Foreign Office minister for Asia has been warned.A private letter sent to him last week by a group of aid agencies working in the area comes before a vote on Monday designed to force ministers to guarantee they will restore UK aid to 0.7% of gross national income next year. Continue reading...
Rivers are especially vulnerable to water abstraction and global heating, but now there is hope for River ChessConservationist Allen Beechey remembers a time, in the 1990s, when trout swam along the River Chess as it meandered through the centre of his home town of Chesham. “It was a gentle, reassuring sight and it helped trigger my love of nature,” Beechey said last week.Then came the droughts, the river dried up – sometimes for several years at a stretch – and the fish died out. They have yet to come back to the Buckinghamshire town. Continue reading...
Local media reported villagers fought back with catapults and crossbows after being assaulted by soldiers during a search for armsMyanmar’s security forces have reportedly killed 20 people in clashes with villagers armed with catapults and crossbows in the Ayeyarwady river delta region. If confirmed, the death toll would be one of the worst days of violence in the country in nearly two months.Khit Thit Media and the Delta News Agency reported that 20 civilians had been killed and more wounded on Saturday, after villagers tried to fight back when soldiers assaulted residents in what they said was a search for arms. Continue reading...
Like Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo, Super Frenchie follows the unusual life of a daredevil, this time ski base jumper Matthias GiraudThe moments that skier Matthias Giraud lives for are a blip on the screen, less than a fourth the length of a standard playback button. Again and again in Super Frenchie, a new documentary covering the career of the ebullient French ski base jumper, Giraud plunges down the peak of an otherwise barren mountain, sails off a cliff, front flips and parachutes away from certain death in a matter of seconds with the grace and seamlessness of a dancer.Related: ‘Nothing can be taken at face value’: should we ever trust the recorded image? Continue reading...
Mark Lowcock says funds slashed affect key issues on G7 agenda, as party rebels prepare to vote for reversalA senior UN diplomat has warned Boris Johnson that his decision to slash overseas aid is tarnishing international faith in Britain’s trustworthiness at a crucial moment, as he called on the government to back Tory demands for a swift reversal of the cuts.With Conservative rebels increasingly confident they have enough votes to inflict a humiliating government defeat before the G7 meeting in Cornwall late this week, the head of the UN’s office for humanitarian affairs said Johnson had demonstrated “a failure of kindness and empathy” that was undermining Britain’s reputation. Continue reading...
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