As poaching of date mussels wrecks Naples’ reefs, police joined biologists to find the gangs behind itAfter a three-year investigation into two organised crime groups in Italy’s Campania region that included wire taps, surveillance and nearly 100 suspects, police cracked down with a dozen arrests in March – not for offences linked to drugs or prostitution, but for the illegal harvesting of a small mollusc.Known as date mussels, Lithophaga lithophaga are cigar-shaped shellfish that make their homes inside limestone, secreting an acid that slowly carves out a tunnel in the rock. They take decades to grow – anywhere from 18 to 36 years to reach just 5cm in length – and can live for more than 50 years. Continue reading...

His career has taken him from Shakespeare to Star Trek – and soon he will be swimming with sharks on TV. He discusses longevity, tragedy, friendship and successI think I’m arriving good and early for my interview with William Shatner when I click on our video chat link 10 minutes ahead of time. But Shatner has arrived even earlier: there he is, as soon as my Zoom screen opens, poking away at his computer. “I like to get in early to ease my mind. But it’s OK, I can meditate afterwards,” he says. His tone is often heavily ironical, as if he is daring you to accuse him of playing a joke on you. This has led to much discussion from fans about “the Shatner persona”, although Shatner scoffs at the phrase. “I don’t know what that even is,” he says.I think they think you play up to their expectations, I say. Continue reading...

Bulgaria focused on protecting the economy over saving older people from Covid. Ultimately, it will achieve neither

As his new play The Spank opens in Italy, the writer talks about the power of ludicrous ideas, the crisis facing the middle class – and why he can’t get white liberals off his phoneHanif Kureishi has been reflecting on toxic masculinity. He has heard a lot about it in the past year and it has entered the fiction he has been writing over lockdown – at quite a rate by the sound of it – and sparked stories about predation, sexual misdemeanour and “what’s going on between men and women”.But he is just as interested in the benign, everyday dynamic between male friends. Most of the men he knows are good people, he says, who get together to talk about music and books, tease each other and chew the cud about life. He misses them now, locked away in his study in west London, although he has grownup sons up the road for company (they live with their mother). There’s the dog, too, which they take to the park together most days. Continue reading...

Health minister had said for anyone uncertain about AstraZeneca, there would be enough of Pfizer vaccine later in yearHealth minister Greg Hunt has assured the president of the peak body for doctors that the government’s position on vaccination has not changed and that people eligible for their Covid-19 vaccine should not wait to get vaccinated.It follows comments made by Hunt to the ABC on Thursday morning that for anyone uncertain about the AstraZeneca vaccine, there will be enough of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine. Continue reading...

Government claims largest rise in welfare payments in ‘more than a generation’ as it seeks to tackle pressing social problems as well as post-pandemic recoveryNew Zealand’s centre-left government has unveiled what it called the largest boost to welfare payments in “more than a generation” as the centrepiece of its budget, and pledged to fuel a Covid-19 recovery by addressing the country’s most pressing social problems.“Previous downturns have made inequality worse,” said Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, in written remarks to reporters in the hours before the budget was announced. “We’re taking a different approach.” Continue reading...

US secretary of state tells Russian foreign minister he will defend American interests against any aggression from Moscow

Priti Patel demanded that findings be handed over prior to publicationThe independent panel investigating the Daniel Morgan scandal is refusing the home secretary’s demands to hand over its report before it can be published, as senior police sources say nothing in the case affects national security.Priti Patel provoked fury on Tuesday by demanding the findings be handed over for review prior to publication, angering both the Morgan family and members of the panel conducting the inquiry. Continue reading...

Joe Biden takes tougher line in phone call with Benjamin Netanyahu, but Israel and Hamas deny truce is imminent

Viola Fletcher, the oldest living survivor of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, massacre, was seven when a white mob attacked the city’s 'Black Wall Street' in 1921, killing an estimated 300 African Americans.

Boris Johnson likes to pretend that free-trade deals are easy and have no downside. Talks with Australia are proving him wrongThere is agreement across the Conservative party that free trade is a good thing, in theory. Unity is harder to sustain over practical detail, as has become clear through negotiations on a deal with Australia.The agreement has immense symbolic value. It would be the first substantial post-Brexit deal that was not a rollover of terms that were available under EU membership. The prime minister sees it as the enactment of his “global Britain” rhetoric. The government is determined to have such a trophy ready in time for next month’s G7 summit. Continue reading...

Advocates say delays have a huge impact on the lives of terminally ill people in the last months of their livesSome 130 people diagnosed with a terminal illness died before Centrelink granted them access to the disability support pension last year, new data reveals.The figures were provided to the Senate in response to questions from the Greens senator Rachel Siewert, who described them as “unacceptable”. Continue reading...

Grattan Institute report says industry can’t keep asking federal government for support, and underlying problems such as ageing population and rising healthcare costs need to be addressedAustralia’s private health insurance industry is in a “death spiral” and the federal government and the industry must agree on significant overhauls if the system is to be sustainable into the future, a report from health thinktank the Grattan Institute says.The causes of the malaise are well documented and include an ageing population, increased use of healthcare services, and rising healthcare costs that drive up premiums and make health insurance less affordable – and less attractive – to young and healthy people in particular. Continue reading...

Progress suggests agreement may be possible before Iranian presidential election in JuneUS and Iranian negotiators are are aiming for a final round of talks in Vienna next week on the terms for Washington’s re-entry to the nuclear deal, the Iranian chief negotiator has said, implying a deal is possible before the Iranian presidential election in June.The delegations, meeting in Vienna in a fourth round of talks, agreed on Wednesday to return to national capitals to receive final instructions on the remaining red lines before a definitive round of talks starting on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Madrid says lives of children are being deliberately put at risk in diplomatic dispute

Massed mourners hail the dictator’s flower-clad body in a film that gives long-lost footage a new and unnerving lease of lifeFor this very disquieting film, which is like a two-hour bad dream, Sergei Loznitsa has assembled hitherto unseen footage in colour and black-and-white that was shot in the Soviet Union in 1953; it shows the official obsequies for the death of Stalin, whose body is seen lying in state, surrounded by lush flowers, like a Marxist-Leninist Ophelia. All this was reportedly intended for an official film, but, as the Khrushchev era advanced, and Stalin’s reputation declined, there was evidently no enthusiasm for editing and presenting this footage in the right spirit, and so it was allowed to languish, forgotten.And what is so extraordinary is that these scenes of people shuffling along in the streets, obediently reading newspaper reports, listening to speeches, presenting wreaths, were clearly intended to be edited as ambient material, doubtless accompanied with a strident voiceover. Loznitsa doesn’t do this. He just presents long stretches of eerily fascinating scenes, the long national pageant of sleepwalker-solemnity, like a live feed from some reverential television broadcast. (You can imagine some Dimbleby-esque commentator for the actual funeral scenes at the end.) Continue reading...

We would like to hear from EU citizens who have encountered issues at the UK border and other difficulties related to the policyFollowing Brexit, some EU citizens have been caught up in the UK’s “hostile environment” policy and have reported being held in airport detention rooms and sent to immigration removal centres.We would like to hear from EU citizens about how they have been affected by the “hostile environment” policy. Continue reading...

Children in their early teens have lived through four wars, with the fear, loss and trauma that brings

London fire chief told Kensington and Chelsea leader works could compromise safety but warning was not passed on to right peopleThe London fire brigade warned the leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea that refurbishments could compromise fire safety and cause deaths, but he did not pass it on to housing officials in charge of works at Grenfell Tower.The deputy commissioner of the London fire brigade, Rita Dexter, told Nicholas Paget-Brown, then council leader, in 2015 of “a serious risk to the safety of residents” caused by refurbishment and urged the council to devise a “strategy for assessing that risk and taking appropriate remedial action”, the inquiry into the disaster heard on Wednesday. Continue reading...

The Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent Oliver Holmes examines the series of combustible events that coincided to trigger the worst violence in Israel and Gaza since 2014

Interior minister Gérard Darmanin sparks controversy by announcing he will attend to show his supportThousands of police officers have gathered outside the French parliament on Wednesday in protest at attacks on colleagues and growing fears for their own safety.The officers, who have been criticised for their own aggressive actions during demonstrations, are demanding tougher sentences for people convicted of targeting police, following the killing of several officers in recent months. Continue reading...

Widely read Tut.by news site taken offline in latest attack on media freedom, say human rights groupsA leading news site in Belarus has been taken offline and its journalists interrogated by government officials in what human rights campaigners are calling a “full-scale assault” on the right to freedom of expression in the country.Tut.by, a news site read by more than 40% of Belarusian internet users, has been blocked and its editors questioned after their offices and houses were raided by authorities. Continue reading...

Jennifer Johnson lied at 1987 trail of Russell Bishop, who killed two children in Sussex parkJennifer Johnson, an ex-girlfriend of the Brighton “babes in the wood” murderer Russell Bishop, has been jailed for six years, more than three decades after telling “wicked lies” at his trial.The 55-year-old said she had acted under duress from the violent Bishop at the time, but a jury found her guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice at a hearing earlier this week. Continue reading...

Northern Ireland protocol should be replaced, chair of Loyalist Communities Council tells MPsThe head of a loyalist group in Northern Ireland with links to former paramilitaries has warned of the prospect of more violence in the region, describing tensions over Brexit as “probably the most dangerous for many years”.David Campbell, the chair of the Loyalist Communities Council, called for the Northern Ireland protocol to be replaced, echoing the words of new leader of the Democratic Unionist party, Edwin Poots, who said on Tuesday that it should be “dismantled”. Continue reading...

Police search forest in Limburg for soldier ‘Jurgen C’ who has links to extreme right and went missing from his barracks

Thuzar Wint Lwin, in dress of besieged Chin minority, highlights brutal repression since coup in MyanmarIn the months leading up to the Miss Universe pageant, most contestants were busy making promotional films and rehearsing for their moment in the limelight. Thuzar Wint Lwin of Myanmar was on the streets of Yangon, protesting against the country’s brutal army.As the military used increasingly deadly force to crush rallies opposing its February coup, she visited the relatives of those who had been killed, donating her savings. Online, she raised awareness of military violence, despite the risk of retaliation. Continue reading...

Musicians to play outdoor concerts this summer, providing ‘musical and cultural voice for north of England’

Mystical realism conveys real-life stories of brutal cartel violence in Fernanda Valadez’s chilling directorial debut

Asic said it would make ‘initial inquiries’ into Premier’s jobkeeper disclosure but had ‘not yet decided what action if any we will take’The corporate watchdog is making inquiries into the failure by Premier Investments, the retailer controlled by billionaire Solomon Lew, to tell the market how much jobkeeper it has received.After intense political pressure Premier earlier this month said it would return what it called the “net benefit” it received from the wage subsidy, of $15.6m. However, it did not disclose the total amount it received – estimates of which vary from between $75m to $100m. Continue reading...

A Texas resident has sued the company after burning the candle for three hours before it became ‘engulfed in high flames’Another day, another close call for Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina-scented candle. Texas resident Colby Watson is seeking a jury trial and damages of $5m (£3.5m) after an incident in which he claims one of Goop’s This Smells Like My Vagina candles exploded on his bedside table.Watson alleges he burned it for around three hours before the candle “exploded” and became “engulfed in high flames”, according to court documents. The table was left with a “black burn ring”, and the candle jar was “charred and black”. Continue reading...

Prof Neil Ferguson says early data suggests vaccines may be less effective at curbing India variant

Critics are asking why, if the EU’s mission is to promote peace, it wants to use public money to fund the supply of weapons to foreign armiesThe EU was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2012 in recognition of “six decades of promoting peace and reconciliation” in Europe. In his acceptance speech in Oslo, the then president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, said the world could “count on our efforts to fight for lasting peace, freedom and justice”.Yet less than a decade on, the EU is taking two big steps to bolster its defence capacity and engage in military conflicts through training and equipping governments outside the bloc. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic these developments have slipped under the radar, but they represent a significant expansion in security policy with wide-ranging consequences. Continue reading...

Poor and indigenous protesters have been met with deadly force by armed civilians and police representing interests of the wealthyA convoy of brightly painted buses descended from Colombia’s westernmost mountain range, heading for the city of Cali, where tens of thousands had taken to the streets demanding a shake-up of the country’s deeply unequal status quo.Along the way, well-wishers cheered on the caravan and drivers honked in approval. But as the procession approached Cali’s prosperous southern reaches, it reached a roadblock set up by men in civilian clothing, believed to be from wealthy neighbourhoods nearby. Then the shooting started. Continue reading...

Amid the German ukuleles, anti-colonial Dutch anthems and Ukrainian folk-techno, can the UK’s James Newman reverse a long run of disappointment?Future scholars of camp will pen entire counterfactuals about the great cancelled Eurovision of 2020 and what might have been: while the majority of last year’s contestants are back for 2021, they must all perform different songs. It feels especially cruel to Daði Freyr, the Icelandic act who would surely have won with viral hit Think About Things, a charming study in nerdish twee full of homemade keytars and school-play dance moves. But led by Freyr himself – imagine fey Scandi singers such as Jens Lekman or Erlend Øye crossed with Napoleon Dynamite – the group are back and pretending that last year never happened, with more of the same disco-pop, if lacking maybe 10% of 2020’s magic. Continue reading...

UK government is divided over negotiations on one of its first post-Brexit trade deals as local farmers raise concerns about Australian imports

Exclusive: Message to Boris Johnson comes after citizens with UK job interviews say they were locked upEU leaders will call on Boris Johnson to respect the rights of their citizens in the wake of scandals over their treatment in the UK, including their detention in removal centres, according to a leaked draft statement seen by the Guardian.The message to the British prime minister will follow a first discussion of EU-UK relations between the 27 heads of state and government since the ratification of the trade and cooperation agreement struck last Christmas Eve. Continue reading...

From car parks to the canals beneath Birmingham’s Spaghetti Junction, some truly unlovely locations sparked the imagination and provided solace in lockdownWhat was your lockdown special place? I think most of us had one: somewhere away from home, where we could exhale, enjoy a change of scene and appreciate the peace and beauty of our surroundings. A park perhaps, a riverside or a wood? For Jess Rickenback and Rachel Hein, that place was the path beside the Seafield sewage works in Edinburgh. “Unloved, litter and dog poo strewn, and often very stinky,” says Hein, a photographer, who often took the path in lockdown with her husband, son and labrador, Finn.“It frequently stinks. Really stinks,” agrees Rickenback, a PhD student in atmospheric and environmental science. “It’s conventionally very unattractive.” Her picture confirms their shared verdict: under a leaden sky, a chain-link and barbed wire fence on which trapped plastic bag remnants flap in the wind like grim bunting surrounds weather-beaten grey cylinders, rectangles, and a sphere – child’s building blocks made by a brutalist for a giant. On the other side of the fence, a scrubby grass verge is littered with takeaway cartons and cans. Yet both feel affection for the sewage works path. “It’s a surprisingly tranquil spot,” says Rickenback, who enjoys its “apocalyptically sci-fi” aesthetic. For Hein, it’s a “portal” to the beach beyond. Continue reading...

Coalition backs $600m gas plant as IEA warns against new fossil fuel use; concerns over speed of vaccine rollout continue with Melbourne hubs below capacity. This blog is now closed

The co-author of World Travel: An Irreverent Guide reveals the places and dishes at the top of the late chef and food presenter’s listFrom kebabs and sausages devoured after a night of boozing to ease the blow of tomorrow morning’s hangover, to spicy noodles, grilled birds and fish. From complex braises and soups and stews whose particular flavour profiles tell their own stories, to the classics of French cuisine ancienne – Anthony Bourdain ate it all, and made it his mission to share it with the world.Whether you’ve been to every place he explored or never even owned a passport, it remains a joy to see the world through his hysterical and sometimes profane lens. What he left behind, and what you’ll find in World Travel, was a 20-year history and road map of how to be a happy, mindful, curious and well-fed traveller. Continue reading...

News that online system is open to abuse overshadows efforts by Tokyo to speed up slow rollout

BAT and Imperial will on Wednesday ask the high court in London to dismiss watershed proceedings

Anti-Asian racism and crimes against the Asian community have amplified with Covid. The photographer Wendy Huynh, whose parents are Chinese immigrants from Vietnam who moved to France to flee communism, has experienced racism in Paris and London. She created a series of portraits celebrating Asian women in London from the creative industry to tackle the issue, and the Guardian talked to some of them to about their experiencesFor Bonnie Kwok it was a subtle difference. Whenever she used public transport there was always a space left next to her. At first she dismissed it, but when it started to happen regularly she began to question why other passengers were reluctant to take the free seat.Kwok, 43, who was born in Hong Kong but moved to the UK when she was 16, also started to notice children at the Hackney Chinese community school, where she is a headteacher, were increasingly coming in upset. They were, she says, being subjected to racist abuse on their way to school – something that started to happen with concerning regularity during the onset of the pandemic. Continue reading...

When she was told she had stage four breast cancer in 2009, Hallenga didn’t even know it could be a danger at her age. Then she started a campaign to save thousands of livesEight months before Kris Hallenga was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer that spread to her spine, she went to her GP about a lump. It was 2009, she was 23 years old and, she says, “actually very miserable”, having just come out of a crummy relationship. Living in Beijing, she was working for a travel company, and teaching on the side, but had come back home to the Midlands to visit her mum and get some teaching qualifications. “The doctor said: ‘It’s hormonal changes, something to do with the pill.’ I was on the mini-pill at the time. ‘Take some evening primrose oil to help with the pain.’” Hallenga wasn’t about to argue: she was due back in China, and the last thing she wanted was to wait around for more tests.In Beijing, the lump got more painful, and blood started leaking from her breast. She had bouts of feeling unwell, which she couldn’t explain. She came back to the UK, saw a different GP, but was told again that she was probably undergoing hormonal changes and that she didn’t even need to be examined because she had been seen six months before. To this day she is terribly, if ruefully, understanding about what happened. “The chances of a GP seeing a young patient with breast cancer are so slim. What she should have said is: ‘I’m not worried about this right now because if you’re not checking your boobs anyway, you don’t know if this is normal for you.’ I wasn’t touching my boobs at all. I didn’t know anything about them.” Continue reading...

Industry that accounts for 14% of county’s GDP hopes to bounce back as Covid travel restrictions are relaxed

A man digging a hole for a new septic system found the second world war ordnance, which are part of a deadly legacy of the war in the PacificOne hundred and one unexploded second world war bombs have been discovered in a backyard of a home in Honiara, the capital of Solomon Islands in the south Pacific.The unexploded ordnances (UXO) were found by a man who was digging a hole for a new septic system at his property in a residential area. Continue reading...

Owners of izakayas in the Shimbashi district of Japan’s capital are facing an existential threat

Palestinian man killed and more than 70 wounded as hundreds hurl stones at Israeli checkpointSerious clashes erupted in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on Tuesday as Palestinians took part in a day of protests and strikes over Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.A Palestinian man was killed and more than 70 wounded, including 16 by live fire, in clashes with Israeli troops on the outskirts of Ramallah, according to the Palestinian Authority health ministry. Two Israeli soldiers were injured. Continue reading...

Report highlights data failings, workforce shortages and disconnect between health and social careCoronavirus has exposed decades-long weaknesses in government and divisions in wider society, an official parliamentary watchdog has said, including neglect of social care and chronic underfunding in local government.Amid renewed questions over the reopening timetable, the National Audit Office (NAO) warned that from the very start of the pandemic a lack of planning had left ministers without a “playbook” on how to respond. Continue reading...

South Australian police will conduct forensic testing on the body discovered on Somerton beach in 1948, in an attempt to solve enduring cold caseAustralian police are to exhume the remains of the so-called Somerton man in a bid to finally determine his identity, more than 70 years after his death.On 1 December, 1948, the man’s body was found on Somerton beach in the South Australian city of Adelaide, with the circumstances of his death remaining an open police investigation. Continue reading...