In a project for the Lady Freethinker NGO, photographer Aaron ‘Bertie’ Gekoski has teamed up with Ashley Fruno, founder of Pasay Pups, to document the impact of poverty and the Covid-19 pandemic on people and pets living in public cemeteries in Pasay, the PhilippinesIn the photograph, a skeletal white dog stands on top of a tomb, his spiky vertebrae sharply visible through his ghostly fur. His jutting ribs and pelvic bones match the monotone of grey cemetery aisles and a prominent white cross in the background. Continue reading...

Barry Jenkins’ acclaimed 10-part adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel shines much-needed light on a history that many still don’t knowDon’t be fooled by the train carriage. The Washington Waterfront Underground Railroad Museum might be housed inside one but its content has nothing to do with railways. Its true genesis lies across the street in the Pamlico River, once used as an avenue of escape by enslaved African Americans seeking freedom.Leesa Jones, cofounder and executive director of the museum, says: “We realised through reading copious documents and old slave ads from Washington newspapers that would say things like, ‘My slave has escaped, they’re going to try to get to Washington to board a ship to get to their freedom’, that we wanted to tell an accurate story of how freedom seekers left from the Washington waterfront.” Continue reading...

As war forces more to flee, humanitarian organisations facing funding shortfalls and increasing demand are unable to keep paceThe number of people having to leave their homes in the Lake Chad region of central Africa has more than doubled over the past year with agencies warning they are struggling to feed people.The fighting, which last month claimed the life of the president of Chad, Idriss Déby, has displaced more than 400,000 Chadians, according to the International Organization for Migration, a rise from 169,000 at the start of 2020. More than 65,000 people were displaced in the first quarter of this year. Continue reading...

Bringing a baby into the world can be tough at the best of times, and the pandemic has been far from that. Readers reflect on the pain and joy of new parenthood

Adam Wagner, an expert on Covid rules, believes ministers have assumed far too much say over our livesLawmaking during the coronavirus pandemic has been anti-democratic, sidelining parliament and handing huge control over people’s private lives to a small group of ministers without adequate scrutiny, a prominent human rights barrister has said.Adam Wagner, described in the House of Lords as “perhaps the only person in the country who can make sense of this variety of [Covid] regulations”, urged MPs to “take back control” after a period in which laws have been passed “by the swish of a minister’s pen”. Continue reading...

17 May 1971 From the broad ridge the fertile Shropshire plain spreads out to the south and the hills of Wales to the north and westSHROPSHIRE: On a broad ridge high above the market town, the old racecourse is now a bracken-clad common, dotted with small rowans and hawthorns and intersected by paths of short turf. The views from it are magnificent, with the fertile Shropshire plain spread out to the south and the hills of Wales, a bewildering mass of rounded summits, to the north and west. Scores of willow warblers were singing there as well as the first whitethroats that I have heard this year, whilst in the deep valley below the plateau a cuckoo was calling. On the low wall of a ruined barn almost smothered in brambles, a black cat was prowling above a baby rabbit which was apparently trying to climb the wall into the predators jaws. The terriers drove off the cat and the rabbit escaped into the dense bramble thicket.Related: Activists fight to save 550-year-old oak threatened by new Shrewsbury road Continue reading...

From an approval rating of 80% earlier in the year, now tough questions are being asked of PM’s leadershipThe missing persons complaint was filed at Parliament Street police station in Delhi as a matter of some urgency: it concerned the “disappearance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi” and 10 of his cabinet ministers during the pandemic.Nagesh Kariyappa, the general secretary of the Indian national students’ union who filed the report to police on Friday, said he wanted the absence of political leadership when India had been brought to its knees by Covid-19 to be a matter of official record. “Where are the so-called leaders who had promised to make India a global leader but have instead made people suffer like this?” said Kariyappa. Continue reading...

Indigenous people in the grip of a humanitarian crisis as Bolsonaro gives encouragement to wildcat miners with designs on their rainforest territoryA photograph of an emaciated Yanomami girl, huddled listlessly in a hammock beside an empty cooking pot over an unlit fire. Shaky footage of indigenous people screaming as they flee in panic to a soundtrack of gunfire.Shocking images shared on Brazilian social media this week have cast a spotlight on a spiral of violence, malnutrition and disease that threatens fresh devastation for the Yanomami people and their ancestral territory in the Amazon state of Roraima. Continue reading...

Front pages celebrate easing of restrictions but they all deliver a health warning as cases of the new variant spreadNewspapers are almost unanimous in identifying the easing of coronavirus restrictions as the biggest story of the day – but they all deliver the news with a health warning.As the most parts of the UK take another step out of lockdown on Monday – with two households or groups of six allowed to meet indoors in England for the first time since last year – health experts have said that the Indian Covid variant still poses a real risk. Continue reading...

Japan expanded a coronavirus state of emergency on Friday as the nation battles a fourth wave of Covid infections

Khet Thi, who captured the unflinching determination of the Myanmar public, was the third poet to be killed by the military since the coupHis words captured the unflinching determination of the Myanmar public in the face of military brutality: “They shoot in the head, but they don’t know revolution dwells in the heart.”The poet Khet Thi was taken from his home in Shwebo, in the Sagaing region, last Saturday. The next day, his wife collected his body from a hospital. His organs had been removed, she told BBC Burmese. Continue reading...

Grounding of the container ship in a southern section of the canal in March delayed the passage of hundreds of vessels through the waterwayEgypt has started dredging work to extend a second lane that allows for two-way traffic in a southern section of the canal near to where a giant container ship got stuck for six days in March.The state-owned Suez Canal Authority (SCA) announced last week that it was planning to extend a second canal lane that opened in 2015 by 10km to make it 82km long, and would widen and deepen a single lane stretch at the southern end of the canal. Continue reading...

AP chief Sally Buzbee says she has no evidence from Israeli officials to justify attack on 12-storey building housing international media organisationsThe executive editor of the Associated Press wants an independent investigation into Israel’s bombing of a building in Gaza that was home to her news organisation as well as broadcaster Al Jazeera.Sally Buzbee said her organisation had not yet seen any evidence from Israeli officials to justify the bombing, which levelled the 12-storey al-Jalaa tower block on Saturday. Continue reading...

Experts say recovery at risk amid sharp fall in EU workers and dwindling interest in UK jobs from abroadBritain’s employers are struggling to hire staff as lockdown lifts amid an exodus of overseas workers caused by the Covid pandemic and Brexit, industry figures reveal.According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and the recruitment firm Adecco, employers plan to hire at the fastest rate in eight years, led by the reopening of the hospitality and retail sectors as pandemic restrictions are relaxed in England and Wales on Monday. Continue reading...

Monday: 42 Palestinians killed in the deadliest day in Gaza so far. Plus: why more of Australia’s outback is now in fewer handsGood morning. It’s Monday 17 May, and this is Imogen Dewey with today’s main stories: the deadliest attack since hostilities broke out in Gaza last Monday, calls for medevac-style repatriation flights for Covid-positive Australians in India, and a new Guardian Australia series going deep into Australia’s outback.The eruption of violence in Gaza is heading for an “uncontainable security and humanitarian crisis”, the UN secretary general has warned after a day of significant escalation, with 42 Palestinians killed by airstrikes. So far at least 181 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 52 children in Gaza, and 10 people in Israel. On Saturday as thousands marched in Free Palestine demonstrations worldwide, Israeli forces bombed the office which housed Associated Press and Al Jazeera in Gaza. A week of relentless bombardment has destroyed power lines, smashed water pipes beneath roads and left human waste spilling out of the ground. The political ground is shifting as the death toll rises, and Julian Borger suggests those resolutely defending Israel, such as US president Joe Biden, may find themselves increasingly isolated. Continue reading...

Barcelona shrugged off their Champions League final demons to obliterate Chelsea and deliver a crushing blow to the prestige of the Women’s Super League.A first-minute own goal and another three inside 36 minutes, from the midfielders Alexia Putellas, Aitana Bonmatí and the Norwegian forward Caroline Graham Hansen, quietened the usually vocal Emma Hayes, who stood alone in her technical area, unable to mastermind a way past an exhilarating team that has played 26 and won 26 on the way to a La Liga title with five games to play, scoring 129 goals and conceding only five in the process. Continue reading...

Coronavirus restrictions are set to be eased in England, Wales and most of Scotland from Monday

Complex web of data reveals large swathes of country controlled by small number of billionaires and large companies Continue reading...

Forty-two Palestinians killed by airstrikes in Gaza as Hamas launches more rocket attacks on IsraelThe eruption of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is heading for an “uncontainable security and humanitarian crisis”, the UN secretary general has warned after a day of significant escalation with 42 Palestinians killed by airstrikes in Gaza.The death toll made it the deadliest single attack since fighting broke out between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas a week ago. Fifty Palestinians were injured. Meanwhile, air-raid sirens sounded for the seventh consecutive day across southern Israel as Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza launched more rocket attacks into the country – and reaching further – than in the entirety of the 2014 war. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer condemn ‘utterly disgusting’ footage of convoy in St John’s WoodFour men have been arrested by officers investigating a video that appeared to show antisemitic abuse being shouted from a car in north London.Politicians had earlier condemned the footage, which was posted on Twitter and showed the cars travelling through the St John’s Wood area on Sunday afternoon. The cars were covered in Palestinian flags with a speaker blasting out antisemitic slurs and threats against Jews. Continue reading...

At least 33 Palestinians have been killed and 50 injured in the deadliest airstrikes since the start of fighting between Israel and Hamas six days ago. Israel targeted the home of the Hamas leader Yehya al-Sinwar over the weekend and destroyed the building that housed the offices of Al-Jazeera and the Associated Press. At least 181 people in Gaza and 10 in Israel have been killed so far

Europe’s ageing societies must make it easier for young people to start a familyEurope’s baby deficit is becoming impossible to ignore. In Rome on Friday, Italy’s prime minister, Mario Draghi, and Pope Francis were the star attendees at a special conference to discuss the country’s declining birthrate. According to latest figures, 2020 saw the lowest number of births recorded since Italian unification in 1861. Spain is ageing at a similar pace, as is much of eastern Europe. In Britain, it is the same story. The Centre for Population Change recently predicted a post-pandemic decline in annual births, deepening a secular trend that has already taken the birthrate to “historically low levels”.The social implications of these downward trajectories, exacerbated by Covid, are many and various. Assuming current demographic trends continue, Eurostat has calculated that the number of European over-65s will have grown by over 40% by 2050. Fewer people will be in work paying taxes when their pension and care bills arrive. Against that backdrop, rightwing nationalist parties fantasising about a future without migrant labour may as well howl at the moon. Immigration seems likely to continue to be a structural necessity in western democracies, as well as a source of innovation and renewal. Continue reading...

Party leader says new blueprint for power will not draw on those of either Jeremy Corbyn or Tony BlairKeir Starmer has said Labour will have a completely new blueprint for power not based on previous manifestos, as he told activists he would spend the summer making extended visits to places the party must win.The Labour leader told a conference hosted by the centre-left thinktank Progressive Britain on Sunday that the party’s policy review would not take previous manifestos as its starting point, despite the close attachment of many members to the radical manifestos drawn up under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Continue reading...

More than 1,200 vendors operating in the UK and worldwide, offering false documents for as little as £25

Electricity lines down, farm deliveries blocked and thousands are without proper supply of drinking waterA week of relentless Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip has destroyed power lines, smashed water pipes beneath roads and left human waste spilling out of the ground.With 188 Palestinians having been killed, and families trapped under rubble, fears are mounting of a deepening humanitarian crisis in the enclave, where 2 million people live under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade in place for 14 years. Continue reading...

Parents pay tribute to George Arthur Hinds as two adults remain critically injured in hospital

Wiener Holocaust Library in London has gathered testimonies and photographs of forced evacuations at end of second world warFirst-hand accounts from survivors of Nazi death marches, which formed a last ruthless chapter of the genocide, are to go on display with testimonies translated into English for the first time.During the death marches, tens of thousands of people died on roadsides of exhaustion, shot for failing to keep up, or murdered in seemingly random massacres as the Nazis moved people from concentration camps before liberation by the allies, leaving a trail of blood across Europe. Continue reading...

Refusal to recognise British Indian Ocean Territory stamps is latest move to assert Mauritian sovereigntyStamps issued by the British Indian Ocean Territory could soon be rendered invalid after the United Nations’ Universal Postal Union (UPU) council recommended they no longer be recognised, in the latest step rejecting the UK’s claim to the Chagos Islands.The move by the UPU, the second oldest international organisation, is in recognition of Mauritian sovereignty over the strategically important islands in the Indian Ocean and is the first of what is likely to be many by UN specialised agencies, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization and International Monetary Fund. Continue reading...

A rush for escape as Israeli forces bombed the building that housed the US news agency and Al JazeeraOn Saturday, Israeli forces bombed the office which houses Associated Press and Al Jazeera in Gaza, alleging that Hamas military intelligence was operating inside the building.Twelve AP staffers and freelancers were working and resting in the bureau when the Israeli military telephoned a warning, giving occupants of the building one hour to evacuate. The AP journalist Fares Akram told how he escaped the building. Continue reading...

Health secretary’s comments come amid mounting concerns over spread of Indian B.1.617.2 variant

Country widely considered to have had one of best pandemic responses now racing to contain outbreak

After a series of events combined to reignite clashes, a wave of communal violence broke out that could take years to healAbd al-Fattah Iskafi, 71, has lived in his house on a tree-lined street near the historic Damascus Gate entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City since he was six years old. But he has spent decades locked in a court battle with hardline Jewish settlers over whether he has the right to stay.Families in his Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood who also face losing their homes have been “destroyed psychologically” by the long legal fight, he says. But as lawyers prepared this month for a final showdown in Israel’s highest court, fallout from the case spread far beyond their neighbourhood. Continue reading...

Military says it struck senior Hamas officials as rockets continue to be fired into IsraelAn Israeli air attack on a three-storey building in Gaza City has killed eight children and two women from an extended family, according to residents, in the deadliest single strike since the fighting began this week.Efforts to recover casualties from under the rubble of the house on the edge of Shati refugee camp were ongoing. Continue reading...

Tim Pallas announces plans to strip single-gender social clubs of land tax concessions traditionally afforded to charitiesThe Victorian government has taken a swipe at exclusive men’s only clubs, announcing plans to strip them of land tax concessions traditionally afforded to charities and social associations.Victoria’s treasurer, Tim Pallas, is preparing to deliver the state’s 2021 budget next Thursday, and staring down an eye-watering bill from the devastating Covid-19 second wave. In order to raise revenue Pallas has announced new land tax measures, expected to bring in an extra $2.7bn over the next four years. Continue reading...

Her track Peng Black Girls was a love letter to womanhood, and a huge lockdown hit. Now the rising south-London star is ready for her closeup.Photography by Suki Dhanda. Styling by Barbara Ayozie Fu Safira.In the depths of a bleak Covid winter, very few of us were feeling peng. With Zoom meetings and state-mandated daily walks our only form of socialising, there was little to dress up for, and few opportunities for us to feel beautiful.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...

New restrictions, including a mandate on mask-wearing and limits on gatherings in the capital, Taipei, will stay in place for two weeks

The violence in Gaza and Jerusalem has made the conclusion to the Muslim holy month a somber event for manyThe sound of the call to prayer resonated through Astoria Park in Queens, New York, on an Eid that saw sunny weather and an opportunity for human connection after a year spent apart during the pandemic.The conclusion to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is usually marked with a celebratory breakfast, new clothes, and a chorus of “Eid Mubaraks” and “Alhamdulillahs.” Continue reading...

Former Australian PM wants Boris Johnson to make ‘ambitious pledge’ to support girls at Kenyan summitThe former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard has called for Britain to return its aid budget to pre-cuts levels “as soon as possible”.Gillard, who now campaigns for education in lower-income countries as chair of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), said she wanted the British government to step up with an “ambitious pledge” for global education when it co-hosts the G7 summit next month. Continue reading...

Ian Stewart says a parliamentary inquiry is needed after the state’s human rights commissioner queries the CCC’s findingsThe former Queensland police commissioner Ian Stewart has called for a parliamentary inquiry into controversial findings by the state’s Crime and Corruption Commission that police recruitment practices discriminated against men.The controversial CCC report, released on Wednesday, found 200 men had missed out on joining the Queensland police force because recruiters had favoured women in order to try to meet a 50/50 gender strategy. Continue reading...

State media says at least six people died in the inland city of Wuhan, where Covid-19 first emerged in late 2019Back-to-back tornadoes killed at least 10 people in central and eastern China and left more than 300 others injured, officials and state media have reported.Six people died in the inland city of Wuhan and four others in the town of Shengze, about 400km (250 miles) east, in Jiangsu province, local government statements said. Continue reading...

Katie, 25, branding and innovation consultant, meets Jack, 30, actorWhat were you hoping for?

Lod’s mayor has described events as a ‘civil war’ with city filled with rocks, burnt cars and armed police in riot gearA smell of petrol lingered in the air and the synagogue’s metal gate had been completely ripped from its hinges. Inside, a small room filled with colourful books for children had been blackened by smoke. Outside, the skeletons of palm trees stood charred, save for a few bits of green at the top.“Those animals destroyed and burnt,” said Eytan Schnur of his Arab neighbours, who, he said, had torched the Jewish house of worship on Thursday night. “We will rebuild; we’ll build it bigger.” Continue reading...

New Zealand PM’s plea during Christchurch Call meeting comes two years after deadly mosque attack killed 51Tech companies need to make more progress on algorithms that can drive social media users to become radicalised, New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has said.Along with France, New Zealand is leading a push to rid the world of extremist and terrorist content online – known as the Christchurch Call. Continue reading...

Five years since the Indigenous man died in an Adelaide hospital, prison guards with him in his final hours avoid key questions“I do not recall”, “I don’t remember”, “I cannot recollect” – these were the phrases heard at least 45 times during Friday’s hearings in courtroom nine of the South Australian supreme court.In just two hours of stilted evidence given by two prison guards involved in the restraint and transport of 29-year-old Indigenous man, Wayne Fella Morrison, prior to his death, the coroner gleaned little about the events of 23 September 2016. Continue reading...

About half of the Australians due to return were barred from flying after 40 tested positive to Covid and others were deemed close contactsAbout 80 Australians who were stranded in coronavirus-ravaged India after the Morrison government banned them from returning home have touched down in Darwin on the first post-ban repatriation flight.More than 70 people due to fly were blocked in the final hours on Friday after 40 tested positive for Covid-19 with a further 30 also unable to fly because they were close contacts. Continue reading...

Addition of 2,500 extra services will mean rail network running at levels before start of December lockdown

Australia’s first nonalcoholic bar has opened in Melbourne. So what is a bar for, if not for drinking?It must take steely nerve to open a new hospitality venture in the current climate. Let alone a bar without alcohol.Yet I’ve lost count of the number of friends who sent me excited texts about the opening of Brunswick Aces cocktail lounge, such was the buzz around the opening of Australia’s first nonalcoholic bar. Continue reading...

How do Australia’s two major parties compare on key policies after the federal budget was delivered? Treasurer Josh Frydenberg delivered his budget address on Tuesday, pledging his budget spend would allow Australia to bounce back from a Covid recession by extending tax cuts for business and workers as well as providing a multibillion-dollar boost to aged care, childcare and espousing his government’s plans for housing. In response, opposition leader Anthony Albanese says Labor will establish a new $10bn social housing fund to build 30,000 affordable homes for vulnerable Australians in addition to reforming childcare and aged care Continue reading...

Farmers and residents in NSW and Queensland are still battling surging rodent numbers but they fear the ordeal will stretch on for monthsWarning: graphic images may disturb some readersWhen the mouse plague began in regional New South Wales and Queensland, residents spoke like generals in a war. It was all about strategy, setting the cleverest traps, fortifying houses to keep the enemy out and outsmarting the tiny creatures as they attacked wave after wave.But, six months on, with rodent numbers surging again despite thousands of tonnes of poisons being deployed and devastating floods, conversations about mice have changed. They aren’t foes to be bested any more, they’re more like a giant dark cloud hovering over each town. Continue reading...

Tourists threaten the island’s economic recovery by ignoring Covid protocols, including refusing to wear masks and even making a porn filmA Russian Instagrammer who launched his motorbike off a dock, crashing into the sea. Two YouTube pranksters who fooled a supermarket guard with drawn-on face masks, violating the island’s health rules. A couple allegedly filming porn on a sacred mountain.Bali has hosted a range of badly behaved influencers during the pandemic. And now it’s had enough. Continue reading...