by Jason Burke, Africa correspondent, and Samuel Okir on (#5HGRX)
Former child soldier Dominic Ongwen committed crimes against humanity as commander in cultThe international criminal court has sentenced a former militia leader and child soldier from Uganda to 25 years in prison after he was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in a landmark judgment.The presiding judge, Bertram Schmitt, said the panel of judges had considered sentencing Dominic Ongwen to life imprisonment, the court’s harshest punishment, but had sided against it due to the defendant’s own personal suffering. Continue reading...
The charismatic leftwing founder of Podemos ended Spain’s stale party political duopoly but failed to halt a resurgent rightSeven years after revolutionising Spanish politics by founding Podemos and inspiring imitators around Europe, the unabashed leftwing populist Pablo Iglesias resigned from all his posts on Tuesday night. Does this spell the end of the Podemos dream?Having stood down as deputy prime minister in order to lead his party into Tuesday’s Madrid regional elections, where Podemos faced a wipeout, Iglesias decided that the results obliged him to go. His party won just 7% of the vote, less than far-right Vox. “It’s the best thing for Podemos now,” he said. Continue reading...
British naval patrol vessels arrived in the waters around Jersey on Thursday as scores of French boats gathered at the port in St Helier to protest against post-Brexit fishing rights.It followed French threats to cut off electricity to Jersey, a self-governing dependency of the UK off the tip of northern France. French fishers are protesting over new licences issued on Friday that restrict for the first time the number of days they can operate in shared waters
With her new film My New York Year released on 21 May, plus Ghostbusters: Afterlife and endless new Avatars in the offing, we sift through the career of Hollywood’s imperious, stylish powerhouseWilliam Friedkin directed this broad, knockabout comedy about arms dealing without much flair and it is really only a vehicle for that lost legend of 80s screen comedy, Chevy Chase. He is a small-time arms dealer and Sigourney Weaver plays the haughty and enraged widow of a corporate defence contractor, Wallace Shawn, blaming Chase for her husband’s untimely death in the fictional South American state of San Miguel, where both men had been touting for business. United by greed, and maybe a spark of something more, Weaver joins Chase on a mission to close the arms deal of the century. This doesn’t do justice to Weaver’s class and style. Continue reading...
South Australia coroner will hear from seven guards who were in a prison transport van with the Aboriginal man who died after being held on remandA South Australian coroner has rejected a bid from prison officers to avoid answering some questions at an inquest into the death in custody of Aboriginal man Wayne Fella Morrison.Lawyers for seven prison officers had applied to allow all of them to give evidence on the same day and be asked basic questions to make it easier for the group to claim legal protection from answering further questions. Continue reading...
I’ve long nursed vague plans of moving back to China for a few years, to solidify my place there. But with each year that passes in the US, such a move gets harder and harder to make
Kurt Campbell says Beijing has been increasing military activities without taking measures to reduce the chance of miscalculationThe Biden administration’s top Asia official has warned about the absence of a crisis-communications channel between the US and China at a time of rising military tensions over Taiwan and the South China Sea.Military and leadership hotlines have been established at various points in the fraught history of the relationship, but Kurt Campbell, the White House Asia “tsar” responsible for coordinating policy across the administration, said Beijing had shown no interest in using them, out of a preference for uncertainty. The hotline simply rings out in “empty rooms”, he said. Continue reading...
Critics say state’s relaxed approach to restrictions has caused surge in prairie province averse to perceived government overreachIn an open field outside the prairie town of Bowden, Alberta, hundreds of people braved chilly winds and the threat of spring rain to attend their first rodeo in more than a year.For the unmasked attendees cheering on as riders clung into bucking horses, the gathering this weekend must have seemed like a long-awaited return to normality. Continue reading...
Factions within royal family allege poisoning and forgery after death of queenThe traditional ruler of South Africa’s Zulu nation has been buried amid an increasingly acrimonious succession battle involving allegations of poisoning and forgery.Queen Shiyiwe Mantfombi Dlamini Zulu, died aged 65 last week, only a month after she took the role following the death of her husband, King Goodwill Zwelithini. Continue reading...
Downing Street dispatches armed boats to ‘monitor situation’ amid row over post-Brexit rules on fishing rightsTwo British naval patrol vessels have arrived off the coast of Jersey as about 80 French boats also gathered at the port in St Helier in protest over post-Brexit rules on fishing rights.HMS Severn and HMS Tamar were deployed a mile off the coast of Jersey while observing the French flotilla amassing at about 6am south of the Channel Island’s capital before it headed into the port just before 7am. Continue reading...
Fifteen questions on general knowledge and topical news trivia every Thursday lunchtime – how will you fare?It is Thursday lunchtime, and so it must be time for the second edition of our exciting new weekly quiz. You’ll face 15 questions on general knowledge and topical news trivia and possibly a couple of terrible jokes in the answer text. It is just for fun and there are no prizes, but do let us know how you get on in the comments below.The weekly Guardian quiz, No 2 Continue reading...
We would like to hear from people living in Jersey about how they feel about the situation. Share your views and experiencesAround 80 French boats have been met by two British naval gunboats off the coast of Jersey, as French fishers protest over post-Brexit fishing rights.The French boats gathered at the port in St Helier and are protesting over new licences that restrict the number of days they can operate in shared waters for the first time. Continue reading...
The former attorney general is suing the public broadcaster and is trying to stop parts of its defence being made publicChristian Porter has moved to strike out major sections of the ABC’s defence of his defamation claim, and prevent them from becoming public, accusing the public broadcaster of abusing the court process.The ABC filed its defence on Tuesday, prompting an interlocutory application from Porter for an order to make confidential and strike out sections of the document on the basis they contain material that is either scandalous, frivolous, vexatious, evasive or ambiguous or “are otherwise an abuse of the process of the court”. Continue reading...
by Elias Visontay (now) and Nino Bucci and Matilda Bo on (#5HG1F)
Mask-wearing mandatory for all indoor public venues, including public transport, as authorities brace for more infections; five blood-clot cases ‘likely’ linked to AstraZeneca in past week. Follow the latest updates
This documentary about Sean Penn’s response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti may be self-congratulatory, but the actor has had an undeniable impactActor, director, screenwriter and now novelist Sean Penn has had some mixed notices for his non-showbiz activities and his dramatic interventions in various international situations – including his defiant declaration of faith in the late Hugo Chávez and his successor as Venezuelan president, the now-notorious Nicolás Maduro. And the naysayers and the eye-rollers may not be entirely mollified by this documentary about Sean Penn’s charity work in Haiti, which does come across in some ways as a 93-minute self-administered high-five.It begins with a carefully curated montage of TV news footage tacitly admitting what a paparazzo-punching brat he once was – but there is no clip of his puppet appearance in Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s comedy Team America: World Police as an archetypal whiny liberal. Well, Sean Penn is entitled to praise. In 2010, he responded to the news about the Haiti earthquake by mobilising contacts already amassed during his experience helping out during Hurricane Katrina, and he got on to Chávez, and asked him to supply hundreds of thousands of vials of Venezuelan morphine for Haiti’s field hospitals. (Penn had been out to Venezuela to meet Chávez the year before in the sceptical company of Christopher Hitchens, who had called him an “oil-rich clown”.) Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent on (#5HFK4)
Don Thompson says response from France is ‘like something you would see from Iran or Russia’France’s response to post-Brexit fishing restrictions around the island of Jersey has been described as “pretty close to an act of war” by fishing community leaders in St Helier. They say they have been told 100 boats are being lined up in France for a 6am blockade at the main Channel Island port on Thursday, threatening food and energy supplies.“It was inevitable that the French would kick off,” said the head of the Jersey Fishermen’s Association, Don Thompson. “But the reaction we’re seeing from France is almost like something you would see from Iran or Russia. They’re not just saying they can cut off the electricity supply, French fishermen are saying that they’re coming tomorrow [Thursday] to blockade the harbour in time to stop the ferries from coming in so there’ll be no food supply and no fuel coming into the island either. So it comes pretty close to an act of war, this.” Continue reading...
Activist Joshua Wong separately sentenced over Tiananmen vigil protest in 2020A court in Hong Kong has sentenced three people to years in jail on riot convictions, despite no evidence they were actually involved in rioting. In a separate case, the activist Joshua Wong and three others were also given jail terms over a Tiananmen massacre vigil held in breach of Covid restrictions.The three protesters, all in their 20s, were jailed by the district court judge En-nest Lin on Wednesday, for terms of up to four years and three months. Lin said even though there was no evidence the trio were involved in any rioting, their presence at the rally in October 2019 encouraged other protesters, RTHK reported. Continue reading...
The comedian’s 2018 show Dr Cosmos addressed mental health, midlife and Brexit – little knowing a crisis lurked around the corner. Now it’s being streamed, might no mention of Covid be a selling point?Dr Cosmos will see you now – or will he? Dylan Moran is Zooming from his Edinburgh home before his show of that name streams this weekend. “Can I ask you to move an inch the other way?” he asks. I adjust in my seat, but he’s still not happy. “My photo is right on your face and I don’t know how to take it off-screen.” For five minutes he fusses with his camera, obscuring his face, so I find myself interrogating an indistinct patch of grey. “I’m so ignorant of tech,” he grumbles.This won’t surprise followers of the Irishman’s career, which includes his role as grouchy bookshop owner Bernard in the sitcom Black Books. In his standup, he’s long traded in curmudgeonliness, albeit elevated by philosophical insight and lyricism. The blend was never more potent than in Dr Cosmos, which premiered at Edinburgh three years ago. Like all Moran’s stage work since he won the career-making Perrier award in 1996, it had no theme, give or take Moran’s promise to offer “all the answers” to the problem of life. But it had potency, and big laughs, as a newly teetotal Moran addressed mental health, midlife and Brexit, and considered modernity in light of the simpler world in which he grew up. Continue reading...
Investing in midwifery could prevent two-thirds of maternal and newborn deaths, but investment and training are urgently neededThe world is facing a shortage of 900,000 midwives, with more than half the shortfall in Africa, where nearly two-thirds of maternal deaths occur, according to a new survey.Insufficient resources and a failure to recognise the importance of the role mean there has been little progress since the last study in 2014, according to the State of the World’s Midwifery report, which looked at 194 countries. Continue reading...
In 1938, there was a surge of classified ads in this newspaper as parents – including my grandparents – scrambled to get their children out of the Reich. What became of the families?On Wednesday 3 August 1938, a short advertisement appeared on the second page of the Manchester Guardian, under the title “Tuition”.“I seek a kind person who will educate my intelligent Boy, aged 11, Viennese of good family,” the advert said, under the name Borger, giving the address of an apartment on Hintzerstrasse, in Vienna’s third district. Continue reading...
From Billie Eilish to Beyoncé, the Mugler outfit has become the natural successor to Madonna’s bustierPop music has a new uniform. The feline, figure-hugging Mugler bodysuit, with its generous cutouts, has become ubiquitous with the biggest female singers. Billie Eilish wore one for her recent Vogue cover shoot, Beyoncé was in one on the cover of the same magazine’s December issue, as was Dua Lipa at the MTV Europe music awards, while Miley Cyrus wore hers accessorised with silver jewellery at the I Heart Festival and Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion wore versions in, respectively, lime green and purple for one of the many costume changes in the WAP video.“The bodysuit and what it represents is powerful,” says Casey Cadwallader, who has been the creative director at Mugler since 2017. “People see how relevant it is – being really open-minded, embracing diversity, embracing different expressions of gender.” Continue reading...
The Brummie reggae stars are back, but in two rival groups. They talk about clocking up 39 hits, partying hard and the bitter splitUB40 are remembering the days when they were dangerous. “MI5 were tapping our phones, watching our houses, all sorts,” says drummer Jimmy Brown. “We thought, ‘Haven’t they got criminals to catch?’ We were just a bunch of potheads, smoking weed and playing music. We weren’t planning the revolution, but if the revolution happened, we knew what side we were going to be on.”The band are back this year – in duplicate. In contrast to the longstanding and bitter rift that divides the two factions, more of which later, the Brummie eight-piece once presented a united, staunchly uncompromising front. For those who remember UB40 primarily for lilting lite-reggae covers of Red Red Wine and (I Can’t Help) Falling in Love With You, the fact that they were considered a grave threat to national security might seem absurd. Look closer at the origins story of the band, however, and the concerns of the spooks – later confirmed by MI5 whistleblower David Shayler – make a certain kind of sense. Continue reading...
Tourism minister says overcrowded sites such as Milford Sound-Piopiotahi ‘cannot return to its pre-Covid state’The days of allowing tourist hordes to some of New Zealand’s best-known natural attractions are over, the government has signalled, as it unveiled new plans to protect the environment and reconsider the role of tourism in its economy.The tourism minister, Stuart Nash, outlined on Tuesday plans to “reset” tourism for a post-Covid world – planning for fewer international visitors and attempting to diversify the economies of tourism-dependent towns. Continue reading...
National leader’s warning about greater Māori self-governance are designed to deflect from her unpopularityIn October I wrote in praise of the Māori party’s Mana Motuhake policy, a 25-year plan to improve Māori outcomes based on Māori asserting their right to exercise tino rangatiratanga – roughly translated as self-management, self-determination and self-governance – over all their domains. I predicted that whether the Māori party made it back into parliament in 2020 or not (it did), this call was only going to get louder.After a speech last Saturday by the National party opposition leader, Judith Collins, this issue has been catapulted to the middle of the political agenda. Collins’ speech drew attention to a report named He Puapua, written by an expert working group charged by the Labour-led coalition cabinet in 2019 to develop a plan and engagement process to realise the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP), which the John Key-led National coalition government signed up to in 2010. Continue reading...
More than 9,000 Australians remain trapped in India by the Coalition’s Covid travel ban. Many travelled before the crisis to visit sick and dying relatives, and say they are angry at their treatment. Here are six of their storiesThe backlash has been fierce in the days since the Australian government moved to make it a criminal offence for its citizens to return from Covid-ravaged India.Members of the Morrison government have denounced their own policy, while medical experts and international human rights groups, including the United Nations, have called for an immediate reversal of the Biosecurity Act determination. Continue reading...
Sinn Féin, Labour, SDLP and Alliance accused Downing Street of betraying victims of violencePoliticians in Northern Ireland have condemned reports that the UK government is to ban prosecutions of British army veterans for alleged crimes during the Troubles.Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Alliance party and Labour accused Downing Street of betraying victims of violence and making a shameful attempt to protect security force personnel at the expense of justice. Continue reading...
Ombudsman says police were at fault when four people were killed in Divis and Ardoyne areas in 1969Police blundered at the dawn of Northern Ireland’s Troubles by using vehicle-mounted machine guns in residential areas and not effectively investigating the ensuing deaths, including that of the first child killed in the conflict, according to a new report.The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) committed “significant operational and investigative failures” during the killing of four people in Belfast on 14 and 15 August 1969, the police ombudsman said in a report published on Thursday. Continue reading...
Thursday: Contact tracers scramble to contain Sydney coronavirus outbreak. Plus: Queensland police blocked research into domestic violence cases and officer attitudesGood morning. Contact tracers in NSW are scrambling to contain the spread of Covid-19 in the community, Queensland police face scrutiny over domestic violence inaction, and the Guardian marks its 200th birthday. That, and more aplenty in Thursday’s morning mail.NSW is bracing for more cases of community transmission after a man who tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday has health authorities concerned due to his level of activity while potentially infectious. The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said the man, aged in his 50s, had been “very active in the inner east” areas of Sydney prior to being tested on Tuesday. As contact tracers scramble to identify people who may have been exposed to the virus, Berejiklian praised the man for using venue QR codes, making it easier for them to issue a list of venues of concern. Continue reading...
by Izzy Brown, as told to Zelda Grimshaw on (#5HFZE)
I had never imagined how horribly the company my father works for was entangled with the story of my West Papuan partnerThey make great trucks. That’s what my father says whenever I ask him: “What do they make? Who do they sell them to?” “Only to the good guys,” is his standard answer, and the topic changes quickly. But what he calls “trucks”, most people call “tanks”. And I am always led to wonder, “What kind of ‘good guy’ drives a tank?”My father works for Thales, one of the richest weapons corporations in the world. Before heading up security for Thales he worked for Asio, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. Continue reading...
Publication represents close of ‘fruitless 18-year legal war’ between estates of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and wife ConsueloIt was a romance that helped inspire one of the great works of 20th-century fiction and a bitter conflict between his heirs, but a new book of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s love letters to be published on Thursday suggests a reconciliation may finally have been achieved.The Little Prince, by the French aviator, poet and war hero Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is said to have sold more than 200m copies in 450 different translations since it was first published in 1943. Continue reading...
Molly Forbes, who has died aged 96, will be remembered by many as the Scottish woman who stood up to Donald Trump.When Trump tried to buy the Forbes’ farm for his Aberdeenshire golfing resort, the family resisted. He attempted to have compulsory purchase orders taken out, saying at a press conference in 2010 that the farm was “a pigsty”, “slumlike” and “disgusting”. Molly responded with a banner across her hen shed reading: “TRUMP THE GREATEST LIAR”. Trump did not succeed in buying the farm. The golf course was opened on 10 July 2012 but the luxury hotel was never built. Continue reading...
by Emmanuel Akinwotu in Lagos and agencies on (#5HEMR)
Halima Cisse was expected to have septuplets but gave birth to nonuplets at a hospital in MoroccoA Malian woman has given birth to nine babies – all “doing well so far” – in what is thought to be a world record for the most children in a single birth to survive.Halima Cisse had been expected to give birth to seven babies, according to ultrasounds conducted in Morocco and Mali that missed two of the siblings. The nonuplets – five girls and four boys – were all were delivered by caesarean section. Continue reading...
Brexit has settled the UK’s relationship with the EU for years to come. Labour’s duty now is to help improve leavers’ livesTraditionally, Europe is the issue that afflicts the Conservative party. Margaret Thatcher, John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May were all – in different ways – booted out of Downing Street as a result of Britain’s troubled relationship with Europe.The political pattern has now been turned on its head. It will be five years next month since the UK voted narrowly to leave the European Union, and the Tories have accepted the result and moved on. Labour now says that it is reconciled to a post-Brexit future, but its predicted defeat in the Hartlepool byelection suggests the new approach has failed to convince. Continue reading...
Not only are little dogs more likely to lash out, they also tend to be less obedient and less well house-trainedName: Small dogs.Age: Human years x 7. Continue reading...
The UN has condemned the violent repression of protests in Colombia after clashes between police and demonstrators left at least 18 dead and 87 people missing. The demonstrations began with a general strike last Wednesday over an unpopular tax change but quickly escalated when protesters were met by riot police armed with teargas, bean-bag rounds and billy clubs. The now-axed policy would have hiked taxes on individuals and business during a coronavirus pandemic that continues to ravage public health and the economy
Kamen, who appeared in seminal 1985 Levi’s 501 advert, died on Tuesday after a long illness, it is understoodNick Kamen, who sprang to fame as a Levi’s model and later became a singer-songwriter, has died at the age of 59, a friend of his family has confirmed.Kamen died on Tuesday night after a long illness, it is understood. Continue reading...
Move comes as France threatens to cut off electricity to island in row over post-Brexit licences for fishing boatsFrench fishers are threatening to blockade the ports in the Channel Islands in an escalation of a post-Brexit row in which the French maritime minister has backed calls to cut off Jersey’s electricity supply.French officials have also said they will close their offices in Jersey and stop products from the island entering France. Continue reading...
Reality TV star named in US court papers over relic bought in her name and sought by Italian authoritiesThe US government has named Kim Kardashian in a civil forfeiture claim for an ancient Roman statue seized at Los Angeles port in June 2016 that Italian officials think was originally looted from Italy.According to the court documents, the statue, known as Fragment of Myron’s Samian Athena, had been bought by Kardashian from a Belgian art dealer. It has been assessed to be an early to mid-Roman empire copy of a statue in the ancient Greek style. Continue reading...
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