The budget does nothing to specifically support single mothers on low incomes or older women facing homelessness, report findsIt was billed as the “women’s budget” before its delivery earlier this month but new analysis of the Coalition’s eighth budget has found it spent 30 times more on tax cuts than it did on women’s economic security.The Australian Council of Social Service analysis found the 2021-22 budget provided a boost to services for women’s safety, but fell short in the necessary investment for women to achieve economic security, particularly those on low incomes, while doing nothing to enact structural change. Continue reading...
Black Lives Matter movement has been a ‘pinch point’ for racial intolerance, Inclusive Australia board member Ian Hamm saysMajor discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – like being unfairly denied a job or unfairly discouraged from continuing education – remains at elevated levels and is far higher than for the rest of the population, according to new data.Researchers at Monash University, on behalf of Inclusive Australia, surveyed people over several years on a number of measures, including their experiences of discrimination, feelings of belonging and wellbeing, and prejudices towards minority groups. Continue reading...
Thousands of residents abandoned their homes as the city of Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was thrown into panic when a nearby volcano erupted. Lava from Mount Nyiragongo destroyed homes on the edge of Goma, which has a population of about 1 million people, but appeared to be slowing by midday on Sunday, giving hope that further damage could be avoided
Roman Protasevich wanted for organising last year’s protests against Alexander LukashenkoBelarusian authorities appear to have forced a Ryanair jet to perform an emergency landing in Minsk in order to arrest an opposition blogger wanted for organising last summer’s protests against leader Alexander Lukashenko.Roman Protasevich, a former editor of the influential Telegram channels Nexta and Nexta Live, was detained by police after his flight was diverted to Minsk national airport due to a bomb threat. Minsk confirmed it had scrambled a Mig-29 fighter to escort the plane. Continue reading...
The row over a new biography of Philip Roth has exposed the way agents and estates restrict access and manage archives to maintain a writer’s posthumous good nameWriters and critics are raising questions over the role that agents and estates play in managing archives and limiting access to biographical material.Fresh worries have been fuelled by the continuing fiasco over the publication of Philip Roth: The Biography, with accusations that access to the famed US author’s archival material is being unfairly constrained. Continue reading...
Glam rockers Måneskin, representing Italy, won the 65th Eurovision song contest on Saturday night. The competition returned in Rotterdam after the 2020 edition was cancelled because of the pandemic. The UK’s entry, Embers, sung by James Newman, finished last, failing to win a single point. It was the only Eurovision act to receive zero points after all 39 countries allocated their jury and public votes.
Joe Biden’s administration increases pressure on government of prime minister Abiy Ahmed to end human rights abusesSenior Ethiopian officials may face restrictions on their travel to the US, as Washington increases pressure on the government of prime minister Abiy Ahmed amid growing global concern about atrocities and famine caused by conflict in the northern region of Tigray.Though visa restrictions are likely to target only a small number of individuals, the move signals President Joe Biden’s administration is shifting to a more direct strategy to force Ahmed to end continuing human rights abuses in Tigray and allow free flow of much-needed humanitarian aid. Continue reading...
Hibbing, the birthplace of the musician, is paying tribute with a year of special eventsBob Dylan’s debut 1962 single began: “I got mixed-up confusion; man, it’s a-killin’ me”. It hasn’t yet – he turns 80 on Monday, and the pre-eminent custodian of American roots music, with its storytelling and protest traditions, is set to be celebrated by a public avalanche of events, programmes and tributes.The occasion will be marked in his birthplace of Hibbing, Minnesota – where, inspired by the sounds of country and blues music drifting up from the south on AM radio, he wrote in his high-school yearbook that his ambition was to join Little Richard. St Louis county, in which Hibbing sits, has issued a proclamation declaring a “Year of Dylan Celebration”. Continue reading...
A deal allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect images of nuclear facilities won’t be renewedIran’s parliament speaker has said that a three-month monitoring deal between Tehran and the UN nuclear watchdog has expired, escalating tensions amid diplomatic efforts in Vienna to save Tehran’s atomic accord with world powers.Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf’s comments, aired by state TV, further underscored the narrowing window for the US and others to reach terms with Iran. Continue reading...
Undercover agent who identified 1999 attacker says police are failing to keep pace with online spread of extreme ideologyAn undercover informant who identified the man behind Britain’s deadliest far-right attack has warned that a similar atrocity is inevitable due to the spread of extreme ideology online.The mole, codenamed “Arthur”, told his handler, who then informed the police, that David Copeland was behind a series of attacks that killed three and injured more than 100 over a bombing campaign lasting less than two weeks in 1999. Continue reading...
The comparison rankles supporters of Israel but the growing Palestinian Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions movement draws on the struggle to isolate racist South AfricaAsk an older generation of white South Africans when they first felt the bite of anti-apartheid sanctions, and some point to the moment in 1968 when their prime minister, BJ Vorster, banned a tour by the England cricket team because it included a mixed-race player, Basil D’Oliveira.After that, South Africa was excluded from international cricket until Nelson Mandela walked free from prison 22 years later. The D’Oliveira affair, as it became known, proved a watershed in drumming up popular support for the sporting boycott that eventually saw the country excluded from most international competition including rugby, the great passion of the white Afrikaners who were the base of the ruling Nationalist party and who bitterly resented being cast out. Continue reading...
Cases on voting rights, abortion and gun control will be a test of the ex-president’s laser-like focus on reshaping the judiciaryDonald Trump’s presidency was capricious and chaotic, but there was one issue on which he focused with laser-like discipline: tilting the judiciary to the right.Now America is about to reap that harvest. In the next year the supreme court is set to consider healthcare, voting, LGBTQ rights, guns and, most explosively, abortion. The cases provide a vivid demonstration of how, after being rejected at the ballot box, conservative partisans could push their agenda through the courts instead. Continue reading...
Forget bowling nights and bar-hopping – the thud of metal in wood is the new way of letting off steamOn a blustery Thursday evening, the sound of deep thuds and high shrieks can be heard along the canal in east London’s Hackney Wick. They emanate from axe-throwing venue Skeeters, named after the famous native American axe and knife thrower. It might sound unnerving, but head inside and the fairy lights – plus colleagues enjoying a work social – soon put you at ease.“It’s been a stressful year at work so it seemed like a good work social,” says Gemma Sutton, a 27-year-old product designer who tonight tried axe throwing for the first time. “It was fun. Most things you do as work socials involve going to a bar – it was nice to do something a bit different.” Continue reading...
Your friend’s death has hit you hard, says Mariella Frostrup. Don’t leap to conclusions – or insist anyone else doesThe dilemma I’ve spent the pandemic quarantining in my university house with my closest friends, one of whom passed away last year. He was in the middle of an “off” part of an on-again-off-again abusive relationship with someone who was my best friend at the time. Since then, me and his girlfriend have fallen out badly, and most of my friends and I feel very angry with her at the way she treated the friend who has passed away – and how much she’s hurt me. However, one of my other closest friends is still friends with her.I can’t understand how he would be able to have a friendship with her despite the terrible things she has done, and it makes it hard for me to talk to him without thinking of her. He, however, will not talk about their friendship as he doesn’t want to be put in the middle, or convinced to dislike her in any way, so it is just left as this elephant in the room. How do I come to terms with sharing a friend with someone who has caused a lot of pain? Especially when most of that pain was aimed towards someone dear who we have lost? Continue reading...
Yes, the club is owned by the morally dubious regime of Abu Dhabi, but look at all the other organisations that depend on Gulf cashAs a lifelong Manchester City supporter and season ticket holder (even in the days when we were penniless in the third tier), I read with interest Nick Cohen’s article on the use of our club as a vehicle for Abu Dhabi soft power and the moral issues it throws up (“Man City play beautiful football but it masks the ugliness of their owners”, Comment). The assumption is that Manchester City fans have become like “gangsters’ molls” and willing accomplices, ignoring the human rights abuses in their thirst for glory.Without wishing to characterise Cohen as a “puritanical nag” (to use his phrase), his observations highlight just how dangerous a place the moral high ground is and that moral relativism is not the sole preserve of some City supporters. Do we equally condemn the UK government and workers when Gulf states buy arms to oppress their own and neighbouring people or a UK racing industry heavily dependent on Gulf cash? We will soon be watching the 2022 World Cup in stadiums built on the exploitation of migrant workers, while wearing replica outfits produced in sweatshops in China and Bangladesh. Continue reading...
Austrian expedition leader Lukas Furtenbach says the real number could be 200, despite official Nepali denialsSee all our coronavirus coverageA coronavirus outbreak on Mount Everest has infected at least 100 climbers and support staff, a mountaineering guide said, giving the first comprehensive estimate amid official Nepalese denials that the disease has spread to the world’s highest peak.Lukas Furtenbach of Austria, who last week halted his Everest expedition due to virus fears, said on Saturday one of his foreign guides and six Nepali Sherpa guides had tested positive. Continue reading...
More Labor voters prefer the premier than Jodi McKay, while One Nation’s spirited campaign in the NSW seat doomed Shooters, Fishers and Farmers to electoral failureNew South Wales Nationals leader John Barilaro has proclaimed “the Nationals are back” and all but declared victory for Dave Layzell in the coalmining and rural seat of Upper Hunter – but he should probably be thanking One Nation.For Labor too there will be some soul-searching and pressure on opposition leader, Jodi McKay, to consider her future. Speaking on Sunday afternoon, McKay said she was “devastated” that people did not vote for Labor and that the party was shocked that it had “failed to connect” with the voters of the Upper Hunter. Continue reading...
Union says more than one in four of the country’s teachers have been suspended days before start of new school yearMore than 125,000 school teachers in Myanmar have been suspended for joining a civil disobedience movement to oppose the military coup that overthrew the country’s elected government in February, an official of the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation said.The suspensions have come days before the start of a new school year, which some teachers and parents are boycotting as part of a campaign that has paralysed the country since the military seized power and cut short a decade of democratic reforms. Continue reading...
Health agency says the rates of myocarditis are not higher than expected and no causal link has been found to mRNA jabsSome teenagers and young adults who received Covid-19 vaccines have experienced heart inflammation, a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group said, recommending further study of the rare condition.In a statement dated 17 May, the CDC’s advisory committee on immunisation practices said it had looked into reports that a few young vaccine recipients, predominantly male adolescents and young adults, developed myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. Continue reading...
Journalist defends 1995 Panorama special saying he and Diana stayed friends after the broadcastMartin Bashir has said he “never wanted to harm” Diana, Princess of Wales with the Panorama interview, adding: “I don’t believe we did.”The journalist’s reputation is in tatters following Lord Dyson’s report that he used “deceitful behaviour” to land his world exclusive 1995 interview. Continue reading...
Contest returns for its 65th edition after being postponed last year due to the coronavirus pandemicMåneskin, representing Italy, have won the 65th Eurovision song contest, which was held in Rotterdam on Saturday night. Their entry, Zitti e buoni, scored 524 points in the grand final, which was broadcast across Europe and around the globe.The UK’s entry, Embers, sung by James Newman, finished last, failing to win a single point. It was the only Eurovision act to receive 0 after the juries of all 39 countries allocated their 12 points. Continue reading...
We were seen as a ‘bunch of wallies’ by the likes of Tony Hall, says Richard Eyre, an ex-board memberAn atmosphere of “total contempt” coloured all dealings of BBC managers with their board of governors in 1995, as journalist Martin Bashir and his Panorama bosses were cooking up their covert interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, according to Sir Richard Eyre, who sat on the BBC board at the time.It led to a complete lack of communication about the controversial programme, which has, two and half decades later, now earned the corporation a devastating public rebuke from the future king and forced the resignation of its former boss, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, from his chairmanship of the National Gallery on Saturday. Continue reading...
by Zevonia Vieira in Dili and Tjitske Lingsma on (#5J59Z)
The trial of defrocked priest Richard Daschbach, charged with sexual abuse of 14 girls, is dividing the small, deeply Catholic countryLita grew up in a poor family in a hamlet surrounded by the spectacular mountains of Oecusse in Timor-Leste. When she was 11 years old she went to live in Topu Honis shelter home, in the mountainous, forest-encircled village of Kutet.The shelter was run by Richard Daschbach, a now-defrocked 84-year-old US priest who founded the facility in 1992. Continue reading...
The perceived wisdom has been that children do not suffer severely from the virus. Yet they are now in Brazil, Indonesia and IndiaEmergency physician and leading epidemiologist in Brazil, Dr Fatima Marinho, is seeing symptoms of Covid-19 in children that starkly contrast with the message that has been relayed globally throughout the pandemic that children do not appear to suffer severely from the virus.Severe muscle aches, diarrhoea, coughing, abdominal pain and hospitalisation – all of these are happening to children with Covid-19 in Brazil, Marinho says. Continue reading...
Next year’s review of the corporation will be ‘beefed up’ as Dyson report into Diana interview sees ex-boss Lord Hall resign postMinisters pledged on Saturday to intervene to restore trust in the BBC by conducting a wider-than-anticipated review of its operations next year, as recriminations grew over its controversial Panorama interview in 1995 with Diana, Princess of Wales.The fallout from an independent report by Lord Justice Dyson into the programme 26 years ago prompted the dramatic resignation on Saturday of the corporation’s former director-general, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, from his post as chair of the board of trustees of the National Gallery. Continue reading...
Scientists, unions and teachers concerned after data cut from Public Health England report ahead of shift on face masksDowning Street leaned on Public Health England not to publish crucial data on the spread of the new Covid variant in schools, documents seen by the Observer have suggested. Scientists, union officials and teachers said that the lack of transparency was “deeply worrying”.The focus of their anger concerns the pre-print of a PHE report that included a page of data on the spread of the India Covid-19 variant in schools. But when the report was published on Thursday 13 May, the page had been removed. It was the only one that had been removed from the pre-print. Days later, the government went ahead with its decision to remove the mandate on face coverings in English schools. Continue reading...
by Oliver Holmes and Hazem Balousha in Gaza City on (#5J569)
A ceasefire is finally in force, but traumatised families have little hope as they recall collapsing buildings and deaths of loved onesAs they emerge from hiding, people living in Gaza City have had to adapt their memories. So deformed is this small place on the coast that a mental map of its roads and landmarks from two weeks ago is largely useless today. Shortcuts to avoid traffic may no longer work, as craters dot back streets and rubble blocks roads. Locally famous high-rises no longer exist.Eleven days of bombardment have buckled the city. Air attacks shook the ground so violently that some bomb sites appear as if buildings have been pulled into the earth rather than hit from above. Continue reading...
by Bethan McKernan Middle East correspondent on (#5J54W)
Image believed to be of 35-year-old who fled father Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in 2018Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai, whose plight has captivated the world since a daring attempt at escaping her father across the Indian Ocean, appears to have been photographed in public for the first time in years.In a picture posted to Instagram two days ago by both former Royal Navy member Sioned Taylor and another user, Princess Latifa is seated with two women at a cafe table in what Taylor identified as Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates. Continue reading...
The writer – and grandson of Gabriel García Márquez – on Mexican folklore, his early love of horror and learning to live with the family’s literary legacyMateo García Elizondo, a 34-year-old writer from Mexico, may come from literary stock – his paternal grandfather is Colombian heavyweight Gabriel García Márquez and his maternal grandfather is Mexican literary giant Salvador Elizondo – but he is carving his own path at the forefront of a burgeoning scene in Spanish language literature. He has published a novel as well as written scripts for films and graphic novels. His writing is also included in Granta’s Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists 2, which was published last month. He was born in Mexico City, where he still lives.How do you see the overall health of literature in Spanish?
In first interview since February coup, Min Aung Hlaing says deposed leader is in good healthMyanmar’s junta leader, Min Aung Hlaing, has said deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi is healthy at home and will appear in court in a few days, in his first interview since overthrowing her in a coup in February.The coup has plunged the south-east Asian country into chaos. An ethnic armed group opposed to the ruling junta attacked a military post in a northwestern jade-mining town while other violent incidents were reported from other corners of Myanmar. Continue reading...
If the trade secretary agrees to Canberra’s demands for no tariffs on agriculture, it sets a dangerous precedent for other, bigger dealsFarming is the tail that wags the dog in all trade talks. Agriculture might be worth less than 1% of GDP in the UK and Germany and less than 2% in France and Italy, yet the emotional connection with food makes it a critical subject when negotiators sit down to hammer out a deal.According to the latest World Bank data, the sector contributed only 3.3% to global GDP – and in Australia, which is in controversial and secretive talks with the UK about a free trade agreement (FTA), it made up just 2.1% of GDP in 2018. But Dan Tehan, Australia’s trade minister, has placed agriculture front and centre by insisting that any deal with the UK must be covered by tariff-free and quota-free arrangements. Continue reading...
Protests also taking place in other UK cities, including Bristol, Peterborough and NottinghamThousands of protesters have gathered in central London in solidarity with the people of Palestine.Organisers have estimated that more than 180,000 people are in Hyde Park for pro-Palestinian protests. Continue reading...
by Oliver Holmes in Gaza City, Peter Beaumont and Bet on (#5J3Z7)
World leaders welcome ceasefire but Hamas and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu remain belligerentTens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza have begun returning to their homes to inspect the devastation from 11 days of Israeli airstrikes in its war with Hamas.Gaza City, on the Mediterranean coast, had been warped by the attacks, with holes in the skyline where high-rise buildings had collapsed, their remains sprawling into the street. Cars mounted pavements to avoid craters. Continue reading...
She survived a troubled youth – and a spell in prison – to forge a new life for herself as a writer and campaigner. Now, despite the pain of revisiting those years, she’s telling her story in fullParis Lees always knew she would write the story of her life. She knew it when she was a teenager in Hucknall, just north of Nottingham, getting beaten up in alleyways, imagining that her bullies would get to read about her in the paper. She knew when she told her auntie Rachael that when she was older, her life would be like Sex And The City, going to book launches and parties, meeting politicians, wearing nice clothes. She knew when an author visited her university during her graduation, and her mother told her it would be her one day. “It was a bit of a running joke,” she says. “I’ve always known. I just had to write this book.”That book is What It Feels Like For A Girl, a memoir that reads like a novel, written in dialect, Trainspotting-style. Here, it is a Nottingham/east Midlands slang, where “right” is “rate” and “myself” is “mysen”, though Lees has only the bare bones of that accent today. She arrives for lunch almost an hour after we agreed to meet, outside a cafe in Canary Wharf in London, not far from where she lives. “Sorry, sorry,” she says, a fast-talking, 10-to-the-dozen whirlwind in a black hoodie and PVC trousers, hiding for a moment behind tinted Gucci specs in the freezing-cold shadows of metal-and-glass skyscrapers. She didn’t sleep last night, she says, out of nerves. She is anxious about discussing the book, and has been dithering at home, picking up things to give me or show me. She hands over a finished copy of the memoir, wrapped in black tissue, which peels off to reveal a bold, brash neon jacket, with a photograph of young Lees on the cover. In thick eyeliner, hair piled high, she looks like a club kid from two decades before her time. “You tell me how bright this is! Doesn’t it just grab your attention?” she says, beaming. Continue reading...
After an enforced hiatus, the contest is back. As the hopefuls don their sequins, here’s how to succeed at the gloriously OTT pop jamboreeTo some, it’s a cultural cringefest. To others, it’s the World Cup of music. But no matter your spin, the Eurovision Song Contest remains one of the world’s most-watched television programmes, with the last edition, in 2019, attracting more than 180 million viewers. Founded in 1956, it has inspired and outlasted countless reality singing franchises owing to its mix of big voices, over-the-top staging and a fervent nationalism, as artists sing for themselves and their countries. Winning songs can be brash or beautiful; they just need to cultivate votes across the public and a professional jury across Europe (and Australia). Past winners include a bearded drag queen from Austria, a Finnish metal band wearing latex monster masks, and Céline Dion, who, despite having no connection to Switzerland, was scouted to sing for them before she was a global megastar.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...
The singer-songwriter on her Buddhist faith, her mother, and not missing sexBorn in Canada, kd lang, 59, won her first Grammy in 1988 for her duet with Roy Orbison on the song Crying. The following year she won a second for her album Absolute Torch And Twang. Her 1992 album, Ingénue, went multiplatinum and includes the Grammy-winning hit Constant Craving. On 28 May, she releases makeover, a collection of remixes. She lives in Calgary.What is your greatest fear?
Last year the football star twice fought Boris Johnson on food poverty – and won 2-0. Now he has a new goal: helping the 383,000 British kids who have never owned a bookImagine being Marcus Rashford. You’re just going about your business, playing football for Manchester United and England, being an everyday sporting superstar. Then you put out a Twitter thread suggesting that the country’s poorest children need to be supported better in the pandemic, and it’s the government’s responsibility to help them. And the tweets go viral. And the public agrees with you. And suddenly you’re no longer just a footballing hero, you’re a leader, a sage, Mahatma Rashford, Marcus Mandela, a footballing messiah. Just imagine being Marcus Rashford, a supremely successful footballer, a shy young man who has never really shared an opinion publicly before, and you’re now dictating government policy. How profoundly must it change you?Ordinarily, after all, footballers are interviewed about football. And yet today we’re meeting to talk about child literacy, Rashford’s latest passion. He tells me he didn’t start reading properly till he was 17 (which, let’s remember, is only six years ago). Once he started, he couldn’t stop. He mentions his favourite book, Relentless by Tim Grover, the personal trainer who took some of the world’s greatest athletes, including Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, and made them even better. Relentless is a self-help book about how to maximise your potential. Its subtitle is From Good To Great To Unstoppable. And unstoppable is what Rashford aims to be – not just in football, but in all walks of life. Continue reading...
Children’s charity faces claims it failed vulnerable children and misled donors after shutting down activities in the countryOne of the world’s largest children’s rights charities has admitted it “made a number of mistakes” when it left Sri Lanka abruptly last year, amid accusations it had misled the public and donors and failed 20,000 vulnerable children in the country.Former employees and provincial governors who spoke to the Guardian described Plan International’s exit as “irresponsible”, “cynical and indefensible”. Continue reading...