Federal Labor wants wider ‘sports rorts-style’ inquiry into the government’s $660m car park programThe Victorian government says it is “completely false” for the federal assistant treasurer, Michael Sukkar, to blame the state for the commonwealth failing to build one of its controversial commuter car parks.The proposed Mitcham station car park in Sukkar’s electorate of Deakin was junked in May. It was one of two projects the Australian National Audit Office found had been selected for federal funding with no authorisation evident beyond a Coalition press release. Continue reading...
Fans complain of confusion over sale of tickets for Saturday’s Euro 2020 match against UkraineThe Football Association has said tickets for England’s Euro 2020 quarter-final against Ukraine in Rome on Saturday will soon be made available, as Italian officials warned fans travelling from the UK to respect quarantine rules.The FA said on Wednesday that if fans were not subject to travel restrictions and wanted to buy a ticket for the match at Rome’s Olympic Stadium, general access tickets would be sold via Uefa’s ticket portal. Continue reading...
Generation Equality Forum in Paris announces plans to radically speed up progress on women’s rightsBillions of pounds will be pledged to support efforts to tackle gender inequality this week at the largest international conference on women’s rights in more than 25 years.The Generation Equality Forum, hosted in Paris by UN Women and the governments of France and Mexico, will launch plans to radically speed up progress over the next five years. Continue reading...
Brazil suspended contract on Tuesday for Covid vaccine deal from Bharat Biotech after allegations of undue pressure within ministryBrazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has fired a health ministry official who reportedly asked for a bribe in a vaccine deal, the latest graft accusation to rock the government amid investigations of its pandemic response.With over half a million Covid-19 deaths and more new cases daily than any other country, anger is mounting in Brazil over missed opportunities to buy coronavirus vaccines. Accusations of corruption undercutting efforts have poured fuel on the fire, triggering new calls for Bolsonaro’s impeachment. Continue reading...
by Libby Brooks Scotland correspondent on (#5KQ53)
Scottish data shows almost 2,000 cases among people who attended Euro 2020 football eventsNearly 1,300 Scotland fans who travelled to London to watch their team play England on 18 June later tested positive for coronavirus, with a total of almost 2,000 football-related cases emerging from Test and Protect data on Wednesday, as Scotland continued to break its record for daily case numbers.Public Health Scotland (PHS) analysis published on Wednesday revealed that 1,991 people who later tested positive had attended one or more Euro 2020 events during their infection period, a time when they “may have unknowingly transmitted their infection to others”. Continue reading...
Critics of regime among those released from Yangon jail, but ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi seen in court this weekMyanmar authorities have released more than 2,000 anti-coup protesters from prisons across the country, including local journalists jailed after reporting critically on the junta’s crackdown.Myanmar has been rocked by massive protests and brutal military action since the February coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi and her government. Continue reading...
Stunning visual details, from blooming flowers to morning dew, illustrate our troubled hero’s growth in this bittersweet sequelThe first film completed by Kyoto Animation after the arson attack in 2019, this carries a lot of emotional weight both on and off-screen. Starting out as a “light novel”, Violet Evergarden was later adapted into an anime series; a side story, Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll, was also made into film, all by Kyoto Animation. The return of Violet Evergarden and a message of overcoming trauma is not only an act of closure for the character but also a moving return for one of Japan’s most beloved animation studios.A sequel to the anime series, the film quickly recaps Violet Evergarden’s painful origin story. The story takes place in Leidenschaftlich, an imaginary country with old-school western European influences, as evident in the romantic, Victorian flavour of the architecture and costumes. Thrown into battle as a child soldier, Violet loses both of her hands as well as her mentor Major Gilbert, who leaves her with the three words before disappearing: “I love you.” Traumatised, Violet finds solace as a Doll, a ghostwriter who helps people express their feelings to others via letters. After encountering Yurith, a terminally ill boy who shuns his family but beckons her service, Violet is forced to confront her suppressed memories and her love for Gilbert. Continue reading...
‘I went there to take pictures of kids at the end of their school years. Katya is dressed as a woman – but she’s still a girl’Two things particularly have always drawn me in my work: teenagers and costumes. I am interested in the age, around 16 and 17, that is full of transition. During those years there is confusion everywhere: confusion about roles, confusion about gender. There are a lot of changes for people to deal with.In 2008, I travelled to Ukraine to take pictures of kids during the week of their prom that marks the end of their school years. They are very young but they are entering a stage in their lives where they are expected to act like adults. The prom is an example of this. They don’t always feel comfortable in the clothes they’re wearing. Continue reading...
by Jonathan Watts , Matthew Taylor and Leyland Cecco on (#5KQ0G)
Record-shattering temperatures linked to dozens of deaths, buckled roads, blackouts and wildfiresJoe Biden has joined scientists in blaming the climate crisis for a record-shattering heatwave in the western US and Canada that has been linked to dozens of deaths, buckled roads, blackouts and wildfires.Officials in Canada have been shocked by the rise in temperature, which on Tuesday hit 49.6C (121.1F) in the town of Lytton, British Columbia, smashing the national record for the third day in a row. Continue reading...
by Jessica Murray Midlands correspondent on (#5KQ29)
Inquests into deaths of Spinks, 23, and her alleged killer, Michael Sellers, who was found dead nearby, open at Chesterfield coroner’s courtA 23-year-old woman thought to have been killed by her alleged stalker died from a stab wound to the neck, an inquest heard.Gracie Spinks was found fatally injured in a field in Duckmanton, Derbyshire, where she had gone to care for her horse.
Aide to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya says limited measures will embolden Alexander Lukashenko’s regimeAn aide to the Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has called on the EU to “close loopholes” in its sanctions on Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.The EU approved sanctions last week targeting industries that bankroll the regime to punish the Belarusian president over the forced landing of a Ryanair flight to arrest a dissident, but promises to make it “run dry” have been called into question after it emerged that they apply only to about 15% of Belarusian potash exports to the bloc. Continue reading...
Ebrahim Raisi sat on a committee that approved the deaths of thousands of dissidentsEbrahim Raisi, winner of Iran’s presidential election, bears responsibility for the deaths of thousands of prisoners in Iranian jails in late 1988. He served as a prosecution member of a three-man “death committee” – as prisoners later termed it – which ordered executions of male and female members of an opposition group, and then of males who were atheists, communists or otherwise leftwing “apostates”. Women in this category were tortured until they recanted, or else died after continual whippings.Raisi, only 28 at the time, was Tehran’s deputy prosecutor and alternated on the committee with his chief. Last week, facing questions on the subject, he claimed: “All the actions I have taken have always been in defence of human rights against those who disrupted the rights of humans.” In a lecture in 2018, he is reported to have referred to the killings as “one of the proud achievements of the system”. Continue reading...
Regulating the sex industry via standard business laws will help make sex workers safer and reduce stigma, minister saysThe Victorian government will move to decriminalise sex work and regulate the sex industry “through standard business industry laws” following a review that heard the current system left many unprotected.The review was conducted by the Reason party leader, Fiona Patten, in 2020 and is currently before the state government. The government is expected to release the report and table proposed legislation by the end of the year. Continue reading...
MP to take over private member’s bill proposed by Sajid Javid to raise legal age to 18, after his promotion to health secretaryThe MP Pauline Latham will step in to adopt Sajid Javid’s private member’s bill to end child marriage after his promotion to health secretary.Javid presented a bill raising the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 in England and Wales to parliament earlier this month, but is not able to take it forward because he is no longer a backbencher. Continue reading...
Only the most hardcore action junkies will have the stamina for what is essentially one marathon sword-fighting sceneThe craziness is all in the idea of this singular Japanese action movie: essentially one marathon battle scene, filmed in a single take, in which a master swordsman takes down several hundred assailants. The execution, as it were, is a triumph of stuntwork, strategy and stamina, but in the watching it gets rather repetitive and wearying. Few but the most hardcore action junkies will really be up for it.The set-up is quickly dealt with: a clan rallies in the forest around its newly anointed leader, a small boy, in anticipation of an attack. Attack there swiftly comes, in the form of Musashi Miyamoto: real-life master swordsman, 17th-century folk hero, and fixture of Japanese pop culture (Toshiro Mifune played him four times; Kinnosuke Nakamura played him seven times). Here, the role is filled with focused athleticism by local action hero Tak Sakaguchi, although acting abilities play a distant second to sword-swinging skills. The battle progresses through woodlands then into an abandoned village, with Miyamoto dispatching most of his inept assailants with a few efficient strokes: a slash to the neck, a chop to the top of the head, slashes across the belly as they practically hurl themselves into the path of his blade. Continue reading...
After feeling sexualised even before her teens, the south London rapper wrested back her power. She explains how her disruptive club music creates a space where anything can happenShygirl’s tracks are, for want of a better word, filthy. The 28-year-old musician’s lyrics detail sexual exploits and disposable partners. “I like to glide, figure skate,” is not about ice dancing. This week she releases BDE, a collaboration with Northampton rapper Slowthai, and it’s less rapping on her part, more an intoxicating mix of cooed and snarled commands over ominous production. This is sex as chaotic workout, and if it ends up jarring the listener, the artist has achieved her goal. “I love it when art makes me uncomfortable, because I have to question where that’s from,” she says. “How can something affect my equilibrium like that? I want to affect other people’s equilibrium.”Her domineering musical persona is worlds away from the chatty, pleasant woman I meet in a bar outside Cambridge University’s Union, where she has just given a talk about her artistry and the accessibility of the creative industries. About a quarter of our time is spent laughing; sharp introspections on owning one’s narrative as a public figure come as easily as self-deprecating tales of recording angry voice notes about previous partners. And it’s easy to see why she’s increasingly considered a fashion force: following a recent Burberry campaign and soundtracking runways for Thierry Mugler, she stands out majestically via orange hair, wholesome babydoll dress and eye-catching Telfar Clemens boots, noticed by wide-eyed students in our vicinity. Continue reading...
David O’Byrne apologises to his family, saying he ‘genuinely believed the kiss and text exchanges to be consensual’Tasmania’s newly appointed Labor opposition leader has stood down pending the party’s investigation of allegations he sexually harassed a woman more than a decade ago.The ABC reports David O’Byrne is accused of kissing and sending unwanted text messages to a junior employee while he was head of the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union in 2007 and 2008. Continue reading...
The International Seabed Authority has two years to finalise regulations governing the controversial industryDeep-sea mining has been given the go-ahead to commence in two years, after the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru notified the UN body governing the nascent industry of plans to start mining.Triggering the so-called “two-year rule”, which some have called the nuclear option, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) now has two years to finalise regulations governing the controversial industry. Continue reading...
Many women have lost children, been separated from newborns or are unable to breastfeed and bond with their babies because of the warIn the last month of her pregnancy, May al-Masri was preparing dinner when a rocket landed outside her home in northern Gaza, killing her one-year-old son, Yasser.Masri had felt the explosion’s shockwave when the attack happened last month, but was largely unharmed. Running outside once the air had cleared, she found her husband severely wounded and her child’s body covered in blood. Continue reading...
by Richard Partington Economics correspondent on (#5KPGZ)
Business leaders also warn of renewed threat to jobs and growth as Delta variant drives up infectionsBritain’s economic recovery from Covid-19 is coming under pressure amid worker shortages and lengthier pandemic restrictions, as the Delta variant of coronavirus drives up infection rates.As the government begins to wind down the furlough scheme on Thursday – despite delaying its roadmap out of lockdown by four weeks until 19 July – the Guardian’s monthly snapshot of economic developments suggests the pace of recovery has plateaued. Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent on (#5KP94)
High political stakes in NI protocol shown in research released hours before unveiling of new UK-EU dealVoters in Northern Ireland are evenly split over the need for Brexit checks on goods coming in from Great Britain, a new survey has shown just hours before a new deal between the EU and the UK is revealed.The EU will on Wednesday say it is retreating from the threat of a trade war and confirm a “package” of arrangements to take the heat out of the bitter dispute over the sales of British sausages, secondhand cars and potted plants in Northern Ireland. Continue reading...
$324m deal to buy 20m doses of Indian jab has become a headache for Bolsonaro after sleaze allegationsBrazil will suspend a $324m Indian Covid-19 vaccine contract that has mired President Jair Bolsonaro in accusations of irregularities, health minister Marcelo Queiroga announced on Tuesday.The deal to buy 20m doses of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin shot has become a headache for Bolsonaro after whistleblowers went public with alleged irregularities. Continue reading...
Wednesday: under 40s are being refused AstraZeneca jabs by some GPs. Plus: teachers share impact of staff shortagesGood morning. Queensland is in lockdown and confusion continues for Australians seeking Covid vaccinations following the government’s backflip on AstraZeneca advice. Plus more than 200 teachers have shared their concerns with us about the state of the industry. In happier news, Australia’s Ash Barty has had success in the opening round of Wimbledon.Some doctors who were blindsided by the government’s change in AstraZeneca recommendations are telling eager under 40s to cancel their Covid vaccination appointments because Scott Morrison’s comments on Monday do not accord with expert medical advice. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners said it was given “no warning” of the announcement and was “scrambling” to work out what it meant for patients, while the Australian Medical Association said it would continue to endorse the advice that Pfizer was the preferred vaccine for under-60s. State premiers have also queried the AstraZeneca backflip and have demanded the Morrison government lower the cap on international arrivals for the next three months. Continue reading...
Renowned documentary-maker Ken Burns turns his attention to perhaps the most famous American writer in history, via cameos from the likes of Meryl Streep. What a treatThose familiar with the Ken Burns style – memorably put to use to unpick such varied topics as the Vietnam war, jazz and baseball – will expect a certain standard from the renowned documentary-maker’s take on Ernest Hemingway (BBC Four). With his regular partner, Lynn Novick, Burns offers a meaty and impeccably researched look at perhaps the most famous American writer in literary history. Over six episodes, it examines the author’s life in chronological order, recruiting top-flight actors – Patricia Clarkson, Jeff Daniels and, later, Meryl Streep as his third wife, the foreign correspondent Martha Gellhorn – to read his work and his letters, as well as letters sent to him by friends and family. It also circles the themes that came to define his work and the myths around the man that have led him to be considered, in more recent times, a controversial figure.“He made himself the most celebrated American writer since Mark Twain,” says the narrator, just as the story begins. That “made himself” makes it plain that this is not a hagiography. This is as much about the creation of the Hemingway myth, by him and others around him, as it is the myth itself. Though as one contributor, the writer Michael Katakis, puts it, “the man is much more interesting than the myth”. Continue reading...
FA says it can’t sell tickets domestically for Saturday owing to Italy’s five-day quarantine periodEnglish expatriates will be called upon to roar Gareth Southgate’s side to success in their Euro 2020 quarter-final on Saturday after Covid restrictions stopped domestic fans from travelling to Rome.The Football Association has confirmed it will not be selling tickets to the England Supporters Travel Club, the official arm of England’s away support, after the requirement by the Italian government that all British citizens quarantine for five days on arrival in the country. Continue reading...
British national Nnamdi Kanu has been wanted since 2015 when he was charged with terrorism and incitementThe fugitive leader of a prominent Biafra secessionist group has been arrested and extradited to Nigeria to face trial, in a move likely to inflame separatist unrest in south-east Nigeria.Nnamdi Kanu, a British national who has lived in south London, had been wanted by Nigerian authorities since 2015, when he was charged with terrorism offences and incitement, after broadcasts aired on Radio Biafra, a digital station he founded and ran from his home in Peckham. Continue reading...
British national Nnamdi Kanu has been wanted since 2015 when he was charged with terrorism and incitementThe fugitive leader of a prominent Biafra secessionist group has been arrested and extradited to Nigeria to face trial, in a move likely to inflame separatist unrest in south-east Nigeria.Nnamdi Kanu, a British national who has lived in south London, had been wanted by Nigerian authorities since 2015, when he was charged with terrorism offences and incitement, after broadcasts aired on Radio Biafra, a digital station he founded and ran from his home in Peckham. Continue reading...
Even with England’s poor record against Germany the mood in the Trafalgar Square fan zone was confidentThey say anything can happen in football. But England’s repeated defeats against the well-oiled German machine through the years belied that particular adage. For England, however, this was the day – a 2-0 result sending Gareth Southgate’s side into the quarter-finals.The prevailing mood as fans gathered to watch the last-16 match in the Trafalgar Square fan zone on an overcast Tuesday afternoon had ranged from quiet confidence to bold optimism, with a consensus that even with their poor record against Germany, the stars were aligning and this was England’s time to shine. Continue reading...
Warehouse worker who became ‘Yang Million’ – China’s first retail investor in government bondsIn February 1988, Yang Huaiding, who has died aged 71 of diabetes, saw the opportunity that enabled him to give up being a warehouseman at a ferroalloys factory in Shanghai to become a retail investor – China’s first. Eventually his success led to him being popularly referred to as Yang Bai Wan (Yang Million).His example served as an inspiration to ordinary Chinese people looking for ways to change their livelihoods after years of the communist planned economy. With his immediately recognisable buzzcut and endless insights into the city’s stock market in his awkward yet distinctive Shanghainese-accented Mandarin, Yang represented a rags-to-riches tale that paralleled the country’s transition from pure communism to semi-capitalism. Continue reading...
Works by 20th-century masters recovered nearly a decade after audacious burglaryA Picasso gifted to the Greek people by the artist in honour of their resistance to Nazi rule has been found in a gorge after a builder admitted to stealing the masterpiece and two other artworks in an audacious theft from the National Gallery in Athens nearly a decade ago.For nine years, Head of a Woman had lain hidden in the home of the self-described art lover alongside Stammer Windmill, a work by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, also stolen during the overnight raid on 9 January 2012. Continue reading...
by Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent on (#5KNFG)
Statement pays tribute to the ‘struggles of black British communities’, after PC Benjamin Monk jailed for eight yearsDalian Atkinson’s brothers and sisters called for justice for other black families who lost loved ones “at the hands of the police”, after they saw an officer jailed for eight years for the manslaughter of the former footballer.The Atkinson family watched on Tuesday as PC Benjamin Monk was sentenced after a jury found his use of a stun gun for 33 seconds, and at least two kicks to the former football star’s head while he was on the ground, had killed him. Continue reading...
Under current law only heterosexal couples can access medically assisted reproduction methodsFrench gay rights campaigners are celebrating a milestone for equal rights after parliament finalised adoption of a bill giving lesbian couples and single women access to fertility treatment for the first time.Under current French law, only heterosexual couples have the right to access medically assisted procreation methods such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Continue reading...
Teachers tell us the stresses on the system are creating huge workloads and leading many to consider leaving the profession, to the detriment of a generation of schoolchildrenMore than 200 people responded within three days to our callout on the effects of teacher shortages in Australia. Current and former teachers, and some parents, expressed their anguish at what unbearable workloads were doing to staff and students. Many referred to the casualisation of the workforce and the increase in administrative tasks asked of teachers.Some also said they were routinely expected to deal with a rising number of behavioural problems of students, and others cited aggressive and unrealistic demands of parents as factors that contributed to burnout. Continue reading...
Students experience harassment and intimidation from classmates for criticising China’s government, Human Rights Watch revealsWu Lebao, 38, recounts receiving a string of insulting messages and calls from a fellow student calling him stupid and a traitor to China.The alleged harassment experienced by Wu – who is studying mathematics at the Australian National University in Canberra – recently took a disturbing turn. Continue reading...
by Aubrey Allegretti Political correspondent on (#5KNVK)
Tory MP backs police protection for England’s chief medical officer after he was targeted twice over weekendChris Whitty has been harassed four times in recent months, including by anti-lockdown protesters, prompting growing concerns for his safety.There are calls for England’s chief medical officer to get police protection, following the latest incidents over the weekend when he was targeted in a Westminster park on Sunday, a day after demonstrators gathered outside what they thought was his house and shouted “murderer”. Continue reading...
Transport Action Network says £27bn programme does not take account of Paris climate agreementThe government’s plans for a multibillion pound road-building scheme would breach the UK’s legal commitments to tackle the climate crisis and critically undermine the country’s standing ahead of a key summit later this year, the high court has heard.Lawyers acting for the Transport Action Network (TAN) argued that plans for the UK’s huge £27bn road building programme – set out in its Road Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2) last year – did not take into account the government’s obligations to reach net zero emissions by 2050 or its commitments under the Paris climate agreement. Continue reading...
Great fun is had in giving us the backstory to the assassin’s place in the Marvel Cinematic UniverseThe sensuous cough-syrup purr of Scarlett Johansson’s voice is something I’ve missed in lockdown; now it’s back with a throaty vengeance in the highly enjoyable standalone episode for which her character Black Widow was well overdue. It is co-written by WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer and directed with gusto by Cate Shortland, with touches of Terminator 2 and Mission: Impossible but undoubtedly keeping the tonal consistency of a typical MCU melodrama.This movie gives us the backstory to Black Widow’s presence in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, involving an origin-myth tale of family trauma, identity crisis and sibling rivalry with a pugnacious kid sister, Yelena, entertainingly played by Florence Pugh. Yelena can’t help mocking – but also maybe envying – Black Widow’s balletic fight stance which involves absurd posing and resembles the mane-tossing antics of a woman in a shampoo advert. Continue reading...
Teargas used against protesters in African kingdom with an overnight curfew imposedGovernment forces in the southern African kingdom of Eswatini fired gunshots and teargas on Tuesday to break up protests calling for reforms to its system of absolute monarchy, witnesses said. A dusk-till-dawn curfew was also imposed.The acting prime minister, Themba Masuku, denied media reports that King Mswati III had fled the violence to neighbouring South Africa. Continue reading...
Catalan city is hosting new show looking at relationships between men who spend their lives at seaA new exhibition at the Maritime Museum of Barcelona seeks to tell the story of the romantic and sexual reality of men who spend their lives at sea.El desig és tan fluid com la mar (Desire Flows Like the Sea) aims to evoke the lives of men living in isolation but at close quarters and whose intimate lives were once clandestine out of necessity because homosexuality was and, and in many places still is, considered both a sin and a capital offence. Continue reading...
Sergeant used N-word and homophobic slur in messages to colleague with whom he was having affairA former police sergeant who used racist and homophobic language in messages to a fellow officer with whom he was having an affair has been found guilty of gross misconduct.The male sergeant used the N-word and a homophobic slur in phone messages with the female colleague, a misconduct hearing was told on Tuesday. Continue reading...