World news | The Guardian

UN nuclear inspectorate chief asks Tehran to ‘come clean’ about uranium found at three sitesIran’s failure to provide credible explanations for traces of uranium found at two undeclared sites is “a big problem” that is affecting the country’s credibility, the head of the UN’s nuclear inspectorate, has said.Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also said Iran and the US could not simply return to the old nuclear deal on exactly the same terms as signed in 2015, but needed a new understanding on how to handle Iran’s increased nuclear knowledge, and its possession of more advanced centrifuges. Continue reading...

Once every 17 years, trillions of cicadas emerge from beneath the ground in the US. They taste like tinned asparagus, are sometimes attracted to power tools – and can number 1.3m an acre

Judge rules two former officers and ex-solicitor accused of perverting the course of justice have no case to answerA judge has stopped the trial of two former South Yorkshire police officers and the force’s former solicitor, who had been charged with perverting the course of justice for amending police statements after the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.Mr Justice William Davis ruled that there was no case for the defendants to answer because the altered police statements were prepared for the public inquiry into the disaster by Lord Justice Taylor. That was not a statutory public inquiry, at which evidence is given on oath, so it was not a “course of public justice”, which could be perverted by amending statements, Davis ruled. Continue reading...

Pilot responded only after 40 minutes and was instructed to head to Gold Coast airport, where he safely landedA pilot fell asleep and was uncontactable for 40 minutes as his plane flew over Brisbane and the Gold coast, an investigation has found.The Air Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said air traffic control lost contact when the plane was around 53km north-west of Sunshine Coast airport in July 2020 and tried repeatedly to get through to the pilot. Continue reading...

Crash investigators say emergency brakes had been deactivated to avoid disruptions to service

PM’s former top adviser to be quizzed by senior MPs conducting inquiry to learn lessons from the pandemic

Morrison’s chief of staff has concluded he ‘was not in a position’ to make a finding that briefing against Sharaz took placeBrittany Higgins’ partner has trashed a report that declined to find the prime minister’s office briefed against him, and warned he and Higgins won’t be intimidated or silenced.David Sharaz, a journalist and former public servant, has described the report by John Kunkel as an exercise in “PMO staffers protecting themselves” after Morrison’s chief of staff concluded he was “not in a position to make a finding that the alleged activity took place”. Continue reading...

Just like the prime minister’s promises on Brexit, Boris Johnson’s pledges of support to UK farmers will ring hollowYou can tell that British farmers will be betrayed by Boris Johnson by the way he promises to look after them. The prime minister has pledged support equivalent to forfeited European subsidies. He says the sector will be safe from cut-price competition when new free trade deals are signed. He has told Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers’ Union, that he would “rather die” than hurt her members. Really? Death before cheap beef? Maybe Johnson can honour those pledges, but it would be out of character.It would also defeat the purpose of Brexit for many Tory MPs. “Take back control” signalled many things to voters, but to Eurosceptic ideologues it meant liberation from the EU’s common external tariff. Having trade policy run from Brussels was proof of Britain’s colonisation by continental bureaucrats. Deals with non-Europeans are the prize for emancipation. Continue reading...

Winds snap power lines and kill two as residents in Odisha and West Bengal scramble for safetyMore than 1.2 million people have evacuated low-lying areas of India’s east coast as Cyclone Yaas made landfall on Wednesday.A week after Cyclone Tauktae claimed 155 lives in western India, wild weather has already caused two deaths and inflicted damage to homes amid heavy rain and high winds rains in Odisha and West Bengal states. Continue reading...

As Covid travel restrictions begin to be lifted, a new, far less welcoming post-Brexit attitude is greeting EU citizens at the UK borderEU citizens living and working in the UK are being met with suspicion and in some cases refused entry at the UK border for the first time in their lives, after the implementation of new post-Brexit rules and the lifting of Covid travel restrictions.Chloe, a pastry chef from Denmark, tells Anushka Asthana that, because she could not produce a return ticket, she was denied entry at Calais to the UK recently and forced to make the long drive back to Denmark. It is becoming a familiar story, with other EU citizens reporting hostility from officials and some being held at immigration detention centres. Continue reading...

Fast & Furious actor and wrestler apologises profusely on social media for offending Chinese fansFast & Furious star and wrestler John Cena began learning Mandarin Chinese nearly a decade ago. But this month, by showing off his linguistic skill in Taiwan, he got into trouble in mainland China.On Tuesday, Cena apologised for calling Taiwan “a country” in an interview he gave to a Taiwanese broadcaster early this month, saying that it was not appropriate. Continue reading...

Wednesday: Sussan Ley faces a preselection challenge amid allegations of ‘toxic’ branch-stacking by far-right party members. Plus: how to view tonight’s lunar showGood morning! Covid restrictions are back in Melbourne as an outbreak in the city’s north grows, preselection battles are brewing in the Coalition and a stink over Tasmania’s Pooseum could be headed to the state’s Integrity Commission – it’s a real mixed bag in today’s morning mail. Enjoy!One of the Coalition’s most senior women, the federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, is expected to face a challenge in her rural NSW seat of Farrer amid allegations of “toxic” branch-stacking by far-right conservatives. The threat comes as the prime minister, Scott Morrison, urged Liberal colleagues not “to get distracted” by a tumultuous preselection season in NSW in which at least four sitting MPs are being challenged, including two female marginal seat holders. Fiona Martin in Reid, Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney and Alex Hawke in Mitchell are also facing challenges, with the outcomes to be decided by plebiscites of local members for the first time. Continue reading...

Far from minimal disruption, the full impact of leaving the EU may take 15 years to appearTeething problems? Bumps in the road? The consequences of adjusting to life outside the EU in the midst of a pandemic are starting to become clear. Official figures show a drop in EU trade of almost a quarter at the start of 2021 compared with the same period three years ago.Far from the “minimal” disruption observed by ministers earlier this year, the figures confirm Brexit came with reasonably substantial short-term costs. It turns out that handing exporters reams of paperwork and border checks on EU shipments, just as the pandemic worsened, isn’t an ideal recipe for a booming global Britain. Continue reading...

Secretary of state Antony Blinken also announces aid to help rebuild Gaza as he begins Middle East trip

Guardian Council’s bar on reformist candidates has left narrow field of hardliners for June pollIran’s leadership has been accused of a transparent fix after most prominent reformists were barred from running in next month’s presidential elections, leaving one of the most politically constrained fields in the 41-year history of the republic.Delaying the announcement to the last minute, the country’s 12-strong Guardian Council – the body that vets candidates – barred most reformist or centrist candidates, leaving a field of seven, largely made up of hard-liners. The manipulation was so clear that even one of the candidates likely to benefit most, Ebrahim Raisi, the current head of the judiciary, claimed he was trying to persuade the council to rethink. Raisi said he was conducting consultations to make the election more participatory and competitive. Continue reading...

Analysis: Minsk and Moscow watching carefully to see if EU makes good on threat of targeted economic sanctionsA new wave of sanctions and restrictive measures on Belarus’s aviation industry, severing its direct links with much of Europe, looks set to increase the country’s reliance on Russia, yet Moscow, its remaining ally, appears wary.Kremlin officials have offered only muted support over an incident that has been described as “air piracy” and an “act of state terrorism” by Alexander Lukashenko, a leader whom Vladimir Putin treats as a junior partner, and often with open disdain. Continue reading...

Trade with EU falls 23% from 2018 as Brexit and Covid disrupt exports from Britain

The threat to the environment minister comes after Scott Morrison urged MPs not to get distractedOne of the Coalition’s most senior women, the federal environment minister Sussan Ley, is expected to face a challenge in her rural New South Wales seat of Farrer amid allegations of “toxic” branch-stacking by far-right conservatives in the seat.The threat comes as the prime minister, Scott Morrison, urged Liberal colleagues not “to get distracted” by a tumultuous preselection season in NSW in which at least four sitting MPs are being challenged, including two female marginal seat holders. Continue reading...

After working with camels for five years, 32-year-old Sophie Matterson decided to embark on an epic trek across Australia, with nothing but the animals she had come to love for company. She trained five of them to carry her provisions before beginning a 5,000km coast-to-coast walk from Australia’s western-most point in Shark Bay, Western Australia, to the eastern-most point in Byron Bay, New South Wales

Friends describe arrest of influential opposition journalist as an act of ‘personal revenge’ by the country’s presidentIn an interview last November the 26-year-old opposition journalist Raman Pratasevich said he was not planning to spend his life in exile. “I would go back to Belarus immediately if my safety was guaranteed,” he said. “My intention is to return.”The extraordinary circumstances of Pratasevich’s involuntary homecoming have provoked international outrage, after his Ryanair flight was forced on Sunday to land in Belarus’s capital Minsk. It was on its way from Greece to Lithuania, where Pratasevich was living. Continue reading...

World leaders condemn ‘grave and serious’ kidnapping of Mali’s leaders as Col Assimi Goïita seizes powerMali’s interim vice-president, Col Assimi Goïta, who led a military coup last year, has declared he has seized power from the transitional president and prime minister, after they failed to consult him about the formation of a new government.In a statement broadcast on state television, Goïta said Mali’s civilian president, Bah Ndaw, and prime minister, Moctar Ouane, had been placed “outside of their prerogatives”, and that he orchestrated their arrests and removal to the Kati military base, outside of the capital, Bamako. Continue reading...

Sedat Peker accuses senior government figures of crimes including murder, rape, corruption and drug traffickingTurkish television shows are popular fare throughout the Muslim world during Ramadan, full of tales of palace intrigue and the criminal underworld.This year’s surprise hit, however, isn’t fictional. Continue reading...

Carey Mulligan on Syria, playwright James Graham on the Troubles … the Imperial War Museums’ new podcast brings celebrities and experts together to understand recent armed strugglesComedian and author Deborah Frances-White is sitting at a table, in the shadow of a Spitfire which soars above her head. She is being interrogated on everything she knows about one of the most violent conflicts in recent decades. What comes to mind when she thinks of the Yugoslav wars? “I think of words like Milošević, Serbo-Croatia, Bosnia … I think there’s a star on the flag?” she flounders. “I remember there was a Time magazine cover with a man at the end of the war.”Frances-White is in the hot seat because she is a guest on Conflict of Interest, a new podcast from the Imperial War Museums (IWM) – the Spitfire above her head is hung from the ceiling of its London museum’s atrium, and her interrogator is Carl Warner, the IWM’s head of narrative and curatorial. Continue reading...

Spate of road collapses blamed on Italian capital’s underground tunnels, sewers and ancient quarries

Human rights judgment follows legal challenge begun in 2013 after Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing revelationsThe UK spy agency GCHQ’s methods for bulk interception of online communications violated the right to privacy and the regime for collection of data was unlawful, the grand chamber of the European court of human rights has ruled.In what was described as a “landmark victory” by Liberty, one of the applicants, the judges also found the bulk interception regime breached the right to freedom of expression and contained insufficient protections for confidential journalistic material but said the decision to operate a bulk interception regime did not of itself violate the European convention on human rights. Continue reading...

Fazze offered money to YouTubers and bloggers to falsely claim jab was responsible for hundreds of deaths

Zhu Keming rescued runners during cross-country mountain race in which 21 other competitors diedA shepherd has been hailed as a hero in China after it emerged that he saved six stricken runners during an ultramarathon in which 21 other competitors died.Zhu Keming was trending on Weibo on Tuesday, three days after a 100km (60-mile) cross-country mountain race in the north-western province of Gansu turned deadly in freezing rain, high winds and hail. Continue reading...

Charities post photographs of dead babies and toddlers said to have left Libya in dinghies in recent daysPhotographs have emerged of the bodies of babies and toddlers washed up on a beach in Libya, highlighting the human tragedy of the migration crisis on Europe’s borders.According to one of the charities that posted the photos on Twitter, the children had been travelling with their parents on one of the many dinghies that set off from Libya in recent days. Continue reading...

Moderna becomes second manufacturer to announce successful trial results in adolescents

Black Lives Matter activist was shot in the head at party in Peckham, south-east LondonPolice are hunting four men who burst into a party before shots rang out, leaving the Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson critically injured with a gunshot wound to the head.The Metropolitan police believe Johnson, who came to prominence last year as protests for racial justice sprang up across Britain, was not specifically targeted, nor was the shooting linked to her activism. Police think the mother of three was probably an unintended victim. Continue reading...

A new documentary, The Falconer, follows Rodney Stotts, who found fulfillment in working with raptors and inner-city kidsFalconry is a profession with roots in the ancient Middle East and medieval Europe but one of its practitioners is making some history of his own.Related: I'm a falconer - and there's nothing like watching a bird you trained in action Continue reading...

Observers say mistrust of government, disinformation and a lack of urgency mean vaccine take-up has been slow

Four family contacts of a coronavirus case announced earlier on Tuesday also test positive

Move comes amid preparations in Tokyo for the Olympics, which are due to be held from 23 July despite a raging fourth waveThe US has urged its citizens to avoid all travel to Japan, where concern is rising over new variants of the coronavirus, but officials insist the move will not complicate preparations for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.The state department on Monday issued its highest Level 4 travel warning for Japan, where a month-long state of emergency has helped reduce cases in Tokyo but failed to have a significant impact on the country’s fourth wave of Covid-19 infections. Continue reading...

The country has no testing capacity for the B.1.617.2 strain and medics are concerned about resilience of health system

For some, living in a van is their culture or a symbol of resistance. But for many others it is the only possible response to our growing housing crisis – and proposed legislation could make life much harder for them

Company founded by three Spanish friends hopes to tap into demand for new sources of proteinThere are no gargantuan mastiffs or shepherds on quad bikes watching over the hundreds of thousands of newborn animals that tumble and crawl around an unlikely farm among the wind turbines, motorways and patchwork fields of this corner of Castilla-La Mancha, in central Spain.Nor are there any fences to pen them in. Plastic tubs, shelves and the insulated walls of a unit on a windswept industrial estate do the job perfectly well. But whatever Origen Farms lacks in land, tradition and rural romance, it aims to make up for in innovation, enthusiasm and resilience. Continue reading...

In an excerpt from her new book, Sinéad Stubbins offers a guide to decor that tells a lie – you have this whole thing figured outThe thing they don’t tell you is that parties change when you get older. You have this idea that once you graduate from sticky floors and vodka in plastic cups you’ll suddenly get invited to sophisticated dinner parties every weekend. Parties where everyone is drinking tempranillo and saying thought-provoking things, where the apartment is scented like linen and figs and is washed in a warm orange light.Big wooden bowls of pasta materialise from nowhere and there are delicate salads of shaved pear. Somehow there is never a mess to clean up. Everyone is wearing white trousers. Continue reading...

He was a demonic emperor who stabbed citizens at random and let Rome burn. Or was he? We go behind the scenes at a new show exploding myths about the ancient world’s favourite baddieNero comes with a lurid reputation. “The main thing we know about him is his infamy,” says Thorsten Opper, curator of the first British exhibition devoted to the Roman emperor. “The glutton, the profligate, the matricide, the megalomaniac.” Also, the pyromaniac: famously, Nero “fiddled while Rome burned”, or at least strummed his kithara to one of his own compositions, The Fall of Troy, while a fire, supposedly begun by him, destroyed three of Rome’s 14 districts and seriously damaged seven.His afterlife on the page and screen is certainly arresting. Nero inspired some of the greatest Renaissance and baroque operas, notably Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea and Handel’s Agrippina, which chart the emperor’s adulterous love for Poppaea, who became his second wife. In the epic 1951 movie Quo Vadis, Peter Ustinov played Nero as entirely unhinged: a mincing, purple-swathed toddler in a man’s body. Christopher Biggins took him on in I, Claudius, the classic BBC adaptation of Robert Graves’s novel, and made him power-hungry, baby-faced and quite, quite mad. Continue reading...

A documentary about the persecuted Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh shows her courage and her symbolic importance to the resistance movementThis clandestinely shot documentary about Iranian human-rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh reveals what superheroism looks like in the real world. As significant as the tireless work in lawyer’s cabinets, drab constitutional courts and prison visiting rooms is her symbolic importance: her sinewy persistence and true courage in standing up to Iran’s dogmatic regime have the potential to ignite such qualities in others, and unlock the collective action needed to shift this sclerotic society.Narrated by Olivia Colman, the film details how this one-time journalist began practising law in 2003, specialising in representing minorities, opposition activists and minors on death row – all groups denied the human rights Iran’s clerics claim are incompatible with Islamic values. Sotoudeh was arrested for endangering state security in 2010, and served more than two years in Tehran’s Evin prison, where she undertook a 50-day hunger strike. Continue reading...

West Midlands police said they arrested a 24-year-old woman from Worcester over incident on SaturdayA woman has been arrested on suspicion of racially abusing a pub doorman in Birmingham after footage of the alleged incident was viewed over two million times on social media.West Midlands police said they arrested a 24-year-old woman from Worcester on Monday after a video showed a customer apparently shouting racist abuse towards a member of security staff outside a Wetherspoon’s pub on Saturday night. Continue reading...

Psychologists in Scandinavia have been researching how people in bars rate their own attractiveness as the evening progresses – regardless of how drunk they feelName: Sexy time.Age: Not important, this is all about attractiveness. Continue reading...

Rights groups condemn arrests in Ho city as illegal and say those held have been denied access to lawyers

Police operations in London, Coventry, Birmingham and Colchester took place during week of actionEight men have been arrested in early morning raids as part of an investigation into scam texts claiming to be from Royal Mail.The men were arrested on suspicion of fraud involving “smishing” texts claiming to be from delivery firms. Continue reading...

Peter Hain says government must demand proper proof of life of Emirati royal after third image appears on Instagram within daysThe UK government has been urged to intervene to find out whether the Emirati royal Princess Latifa has been genuinely freed from house arrest by her father, after a third Instagram photo appeared in as many days showing her in a Dubai shopping mall.The latest photo showed Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, a daughter of the ruler of Dubai, looking at the camera blankly next to a clairvoyant at a coffee table. Continue reading...

Analysis: ‘Air piracy’ is just latest act of Alexander Lukashenko’s brutal campaign against his opponentsBelarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, has unleashed a brutal campaign against his opponents. More than 35,000 people have been arrested, thousands have been tortured or abused, and 400 political prisoners are currently behind bars. Earlier this week a 50-year-old opposition activist, Vitold Ashurok, died in a penal colony. The official cause of death was “heart attack”. His widow believes he was murdered.It is against this dark and repressive backdrop that the extraordinary events of Sunday took place. According to state media, Lukashenko personally authorised the forced downing of a Ryanair plane as it flew over Belarusian airspace between Greece and Lithuania – a real-time hijacking. He even dispatched a MIG-29 fighter jet to ensure the pilot complied after being informed of a fake bomb threat. Continue reading...

Spokesperson dismisses Wall Street Journal claims based on ‘previously undisclosed’ intelligence

Corporation appoints team to look at effectiveness of policies and practice, particularly around whistleblowersThe BBC’s governing body has launched an investigation into the culture of its news operation, as ministers said the circumstances of Martin Bashir’s interview with Diana, Princess of Wales could be used to justify reform of the national broadcaster.The BBC’s board said it was confident the corporation’s internal processes had improved in the period since Bashir used fake invoices to gain the trust of Diana’s brother in an attempt to secure a Panorama interview with the royal. Continue reading...

Analysis: jihadists regroup after Boko Haram ‘defeat’ in the north-east while secessionist forces grow in south-east“Can our president keep us safe when we travel to any part of this country?” said Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, months before the former military dictator won the Nigerian presidency on a wave of mass anger at jihadist violence and corruption. “Is your life better today than it was six years ago?”Halfway through his second term, the same questions are being levelled at him. As an insurgency in the north-east has persisted – and grown in recent years – security crises have proliferated around the country. Criticism has mounted against his administration, including from within his own party. Continue reading...