Overshadowed by Syria, the lessons of Libya from the past decade have barely been cross examinedThe last days of Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi 10 years ago conjure up competing images of defiance, defeat and death.In March 2011, in one of his last public appearances and with rebellion against his regime gathering around him, the soon-to-be-deposed leader arrived at the People’s Congress in Tripoli riding an electric golf cart. Continue reading...
Chloé Zhao made history as the first woman of colour to win best director with her drama about van-dwellers as Hopkins and Frances McDormand won top acting honoursDuring an unusual Oscars ceremony, on-the-road drama Nomadland triumphed with a win for best picture, best actress and a historic victory for Chloé Zhao, becoming the first woman of colour to be named best director and only the second woman ever.The film, starring Frances McDormand as a woman living out of her van and interacting with real-life nomads, took home the top trophy near the end of a delayed night and a delayed season amid the pandemic. The ceremony played out in person but with safety precautions and a modest guest list. Continue reading...
by Stuart Heritage, Hannah Marriott and Morwenna Ferr on (#5H1ZW)
At the 93rd Academy Awards, Anthony Hopkins wins best actor, Frances McDormand wins best actress – and Glenn Close does ‘the butt’Oscar winners 2021: the full list – updating live!Oscars 2021: predictions, timetable and what to expect4.21am BSTI’m really not sure what to make of that ceremony at all. On one hand, the Oscars obviously needed to be shaken up, and this year presented a perfect opportunity. But on the other, all the changes were bad and I didn’t enjoy any of it.Briefly, I missed the suffocating heft of the Oscars proper. I missed presenters doing bits, instead of just genuflecting aimlessly at the nominees. I missed having best picture at the end. I missed clips of the films. I missed a lot. But, hey, at least it was relatively short. That’s a big plus.4.16am BSTFor The Father. But he isn’t there, so there’s no speech and then it ends. Abruptly. A bit too abruptly? It’s finished now, and it ended with no dramatic flourish whatsoever. What a weird, weird night this is. Continue reading...
The new government led by the son of late president Idriss Déby says it is pursuing rebels into Niger, but capital may still face assaultChad’s military transitional government has said it will not negotiate with the rebels blamed for killing the country’s president of three decades, raising the possibility that the armed fighters might press ahead with their threats to attack the capital N’djamena.A spokesman for the rebel group known as the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (Fact) said on Sunday that it was now joining forces with other armed groups who oppose the Mahmat Idriss Déby taking control of the country following the death of his father. Continue reading...
South Korean follows her Bafta win with an Academy Award for Minari, in which she played a ‘grandma’ living on a farm in ArkansasSouth Korean performer Youn Yuh-jung has won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role in Minari at the 93rd Academy Awards, which are taking place in Los Angeles.In Minari, Youn plays Soon-ja, “grandma” to young David, who comes from Korea to stay with the family on their farm in Arkansas. She brings with her the “minari” seeds that gives the film its title. Continue reading...
Film about a former resistance fighter travelling to visit the concentration camp where her brother died wins prize at the 93rd Academy Awards• Watch the Guardian’s Oscar winning film, ColetteColette, a film released by the Guardian, has won the Oscar for best documentary short at the 93rd Academy Awards in Los Angeles.Written and directed by Anthony Giacchino, and produced by Alice Doyard, Annie Small and Aaron Matthews, Colette tells the story of 90-year-old former French resistance member Colette Marin-Catherine, who visits the concentration camp where her brother was murdered during the war with a young history student, Lucie Fouble. Continue reading...
The country’s president has also erected a gold statue and dedicated an ode to the Alabai dog breedTurkmenistan marked a new holiday on Sunday dedicated to its national – and very large – Alabai dog breed, to which its longtime leader has already erected a gilded monument and written an ode.The new holiday took place on the same day as a festival celebrating the Akhal-Teke horse breed, which Turkmenistan also considers part of its national heritage. Continue reading...
People in Perth and the Peel region required to stay home for three days after coronavirus spread from hotel quarantine to community. For what reasons can you leave home? Is mask-wearing compulsory? Is travelling permitted? Here’s what you can and can’t do over the Anzac Day long weekend
Car was reversing erratically in pedestrianised city square in capital, Tirana, before dramatic leap through open windowA man has made a running jump, feet-first, through the open window of a moving car in Albania’s capital to stop the driver spinning erratically through the city’s Skanderbeg Square.Footage captured by dozens of cameras set up to report on the country’s general election shows the car’s wheels screeching as it reverses in circles around the pedestrianised square. Continue reading...
Letter from four former secretaries of state says Brexit’s damage to peace process must be addressedNorthern Ireland is in a dangerous political vacuum and could “fall over” unless the UK government acts swiftly, according to a cross-party group of former cabinet ministers with experience in the region.Boris Johnson needs to show more urgency and focus to ameliorate Brexit’s damage to the peace process, the group tells the prime minister in an open letter published on Monday. Continue reading...
Folajimi Olubunmi-Adewole, 20, reportedly did not survive after diving into the river around midnight on SaturdayA young man who died after jumping into the River Thames to rescue a woman who fell from London Bridge has been hailed as a hero.Folajimi Olubunmi-Adewole, 20, did not survive after diving into the river around midnight on Saturday. Continue reading...
Fares, 14, was allegedly stabbed and hit with metal poles during argument in Newham, east LondonA 14-year-old boy has been charged with the murder of the teenager Fares Maatou in east London.Fares, 14, was allegedly stabbed and hit with metal poles during an argument outside a shop on Barking Road in Newham on Friday afternoon. Continue reading...
Over two decades as a GP I’ve witnessed the decline of mental health services. Don’t get me started on psychiatristsI am a GP who has worked in the Hunter region since 1999. This may be longer than you anticipated, but it is so rare to be given an opportunity to tell the truth as I see it that I thought I would make the most of it.First of all, I want to talk about the general level of service as I have observed it. Continue reading...
Fifteen people have emerged from a cave in south-west France after 40 days underground in an experiment to see how the absence of clocks, daylight and external communications would affect their sense of time
The 93rd Academy Awards have finally arrived – here’s what you need to know, when you need to know it by and who (we think) will win the key prizesTwo months late, the Oscars have finally arrived. Covid has wreaked its havoc in the film industry just like everywhere else, with cinema closing, shoots shut down, and cancellations everywhere you look. The awards ceremonies’ troubles appear trifling by comparison, but they are emblematic of what a bizarre year it has been.The nominations themselves, though filled with excellent and interesting films, will always have a “year of the asterisk” feeling: with so many blockbuster and awards-bait films put off until cinemas can properly reopen, there’s a sneaking sensation that the line-up is not all it could have been. Maybe the near-total absence of significant commercial success in Hollywood is going to have a subliminal effect; it certainly looks like it will ensure the TV audience will be the lowest ever. Continue reading...
Carmen Mazarrasa builds exquisite doll’s houses where she can control everything – except when the mice decide to move in…At moments of unrest I open Instagram and scroll impatiently until I see what I need to see, and then I exhale, a gleeful loosening. What I am looking for is something recognisable – a plant, a pencil, a chair, a bowl of dumplings – shrunk to a fraction of its size. How to describe the pleasure, the sweet, squealy pleasure of studying a miniature iPhone, suitable only for a busy mouse, or smoked salmon bagel that would fit on the head of a pin, or a set of tools balanced on a fingernail? My favourites are the miniatures that are truly banal – a plug extension lead on @DailyMini recently thrilled me, as did a rack of postcards showing scenes from holidays appropriate only for ants. In those moments of tightening stress, when the world feels far too large, I have plenty to choose from.The world of tiny things is growing. Artists sculpting miniature objects have found new audiences on Instagram and clients on Etsy – a recent purchase of mine on eBay was a gutted fish on a plate, at 1/12th its real size. I am also watching a pack of crumpets. Once the stuff of elderly hobbyists, over the past decade miniature making among millennials has seen a boom. The queen of the miniacs is Carmen Mazarrasa, whose tiny rooms, filled with covetable things, make the viewer feel wobbly, both at the scale and their desire. Because it’s not just that the rooms of rugs or ceramics or beds look real, it’s that they look like rooms you might see in Architectural Digest, filled with artful paintings and replicas of iconic chairs. Continue reading...
by Aubrey Allegretti Political correspondent on (#5H1GE)
Liz Truss dismisses ‘stream of allegations’ but could not confirm where PM had got the moneyA senior minister has insisted Boris Johnson did pay for the refurbishment of his official Downing Street flat out of his own pocket but could not confirm where he had got the money.The international trade secretary, Liz Truss, insisted Johnson paid all costs personally, and dismissed a “stream of allegations about personal issues” in the light of an incendiary blogpost by Dominic Cummings on Friday night that levelled serious claims of impropriety against the prime minister. Continue reading...
When Kim Jones, visionary designer at Dior Men, saw the exuberant art of Ghana’s Amoako Boafo, a collaboration was soon on the cardsWhen the fashion designer Kim Jones left his role as men’s artistic director of Louis Vuitton in 2018 after seven years he was literally catwalked out of the Grand Palais in Paris by Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. Dressed in LV monogrammed coats and boots, the supermodels – and part of Jones’s starry inner circle that also includes the Beckhams – took one hand each and gave him a suitably social media splashy send-off. On exiting Jones had more than proven his worth at Vuitton having turned it into one of the most influential menswear brands and brokering the smash-hit sell-out collaboration with Supreme – one of those fashion moments that people refer to as “gamechanging”. This intersection of haute fashion with streetwear can almost summarise an entire era of men’s fashion, one that Jones has been central to.This new collection is very much a portrait of an artist. I wanted it to be about Boafo’ Continue reading...
Canada’s supreme court decision on the Sinixt people could affirm hunting rights for tens of thousandsFor decades the Rick Desautel had been told by courts and governments that his people no longer exist in Canada.But Desautel and others in his community in Washington state have long argued that they are descendants of the Sinixt, an Indigenous people whose territory once spanned Canada and the United States. Continue reading...
The secondhand clothing market is growing fast – and not just for adults. Meet the parents changing the way we’ll dress our children in the futureErick Bouwer’s baby son Joshua was, to use a technical term, a whopper: 4.5kg, or almost 10lb in old money. “That was a big guy indeed, he’s 11 years old now and he still is,” says Bouwer, on the line from Amsterdam. Bouwer and his wife had nested assiduously before Joshua’s arrival, supplemented with presents from friends and family, but arriving home from hospital, they realised that none of the onesies and cute cardigans would fit their new arrival. Bouwer laughs, “We were, like, ‘OK, we’ve got a bunch of clothes here, but I hope we’ve still got the receipts.’”A decade on, Bouwer’s “personal frustration” became a business, Circos. All parents know there is a relentless churn with children’s clothes, especially when your kids are growing fast: leggings are worn once and come back with holes in both knees; jackets fit snugly for a month before having to be retired. Bouwer, then a pricing strategy consultant, dug deeper. He found that, on average, parents use 280 items of clothing for their child before his or her second birthday. Items are typically worn for around two or three months. After that, only 15% of clothing is donated or recycled. Most of the remainder ends up in landfill. Continue reading...
Janek Gazecki says Amalfi Beach Club is no more controversial than ‘a restaurant on the sand’ and entry would be freeThe man behind a proposed Italian-style beach club on Bondi beach says he is pushing forward with the controversial plan despite vigorous opposition from locals and politicians.The founder of the proposed Amalfi Beach Club, Janek Gazecki, said media reports had misrepresented his plan when it first hit headlines in October last year, which described it as an “exclusive” or “private” club, targeting “high net worth” individuals such as doctors, surgeons and models. Continue reading...
Germany appears to offer a solution to the European Super League debacle but money also has a voice in the BundesligaRelated: The week English football fans bit back against the billionaire ownersThe last time I was down in the catacombs of Borussia Dortmund’s stadium for post-match quotes, there was an eerie silence drowning out the chatter as players, staff and journalists looked at the monitors usually showing the Bundesliga results. There were no results shown, instead we all stared at Hoffenheim and Bayern Munich players passing the ball to each other as if it were a training exercise. Continue reading...
Relate charity hopes intimate shots by Rankin will shatter taboos about physical intimacy among older peopleIt is intended to start a conversation, but a new campaign on the joys of sex and intimacy in later life may also stop the traffic.Five naked, or nearly naked, couples and a woman have been photographed by Rankin, and his images are accompanied by words that challenge stereotypes of sexual desire and activity in later years. The posters will be displayed on billboards across the country from this week. Continue reading...
by David Spiegelhalter & Anthony Masters on (#5H1C9)
An 18th-century clergyman’s legacy is central to understanding the pandemicBunhill Fields burial ground contains the relics of John Bunyan, William Blake and Daniel Defoe. Of import to statisticians is the tomb of the Rev Thomas Bayes, Presbyterian clergyman from Tunbridge Wells, who died 260 years ago. He is famous for his work on conditional probabilities, which concern the chance of one event occurring, given another event has happened.Take lateral flow tests. The conditional probability of getting an (incorrect) positive result (call this A), given you are not infected (B), is less than one in 1,000. That rate is very low. Bayes’s theorem shows how to calculate what we really want: the conditional probability you are not infected (B), given you have a positive test (A). In that case, you would be isolating with no benefit. Unintuitively, when the virus is rare and there are very few “true positives”, this probability can be high. Currently in secondary schools, around three in 10 positive lateral flow tests turn out to be false. Continue reading...
Asean says consensus with junta was ‘beyond expectations’, but there is no timeline or explicit commitment to stop violenceHuman Rights Watch has told south-east Asian leaders not to “pat themselves on the back” for getting Myanmar’s military rulers to agree to end deadly violence, saying a consensus reached by Asean lacks specifics and makes no mention of freeing political prisoners.Nearly 750 protesters have been killed since the military seized power in a 1 February coup. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations announced after a summit on Saturday that the head of Myanmar’s junta had agreed to stop the violence. The Malaysian prime minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, who attended the meeting, said the outcome was “beyond our expectation”. Continue reading...
by Denis Campbell Health policy editor on (#5H1B5)
Survey reveals remote consultations often felt inadequate and may have made symptoms worseCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageMental health patients found their conditions deteriorated during the pandemic because the NHS switched from in-person help to support by telephone, video and text messages, new research reveals.Many reported a lower quality of care, according to a study by University College London; others had trouble accessing medication, had appointments cancelled or felt the loss of face-to-face help meant they “were missing out on care”. Continue reading...
The state has reported no new community cases of coronavirus on day two of a snap lockdown for Perth and the Peel regionWestern Australia has reported no new community cases of coronavirus on day two of a snap lockdown for Perth and the Peel region after the virus spread from a quarantine hotel in the city.The state’s premier, Mark McGowan, said on Sunday that there had been no new locally-acquired cases, but there was one additional case in hotel quarantine, who was a “returning resident who has travelled back from India”. Continue reading...
You’re at a major turning point in life so figure out what you want, says Mariella Frostrup. Don’t waste time digging for more dirtThe dilemma It’s the usual. He was unhappy, he didn’t feel wanted, blah, blah, blah… We’re in our mid-50s, not married and no children. Together for 16 years and friends for 18.He left me last year. I then discovered the affair, but he told me it started only three months before he left. After nine weeks apart we reconciled and he ended his relationship. I didn’t understand why he was so upset and eventually discovered it was a three-year affair, not three months, and happened three years ago. Why didn’t he just end it? We’ve got no ties. He said it was because he really loves me and was hoping we would be happy again. Continue reading...
Blaze at the Ibn Khatib hospital was caused by an accident involving an exploding oxygen tankAt least 27 people were killed and 46 injured in a fire on Saturday at a hospital in south-east Baghdad that had been equipped to house Covid-19 patients, medical sources at three nearby hospitals said.The fire at the Ibn Khatib hospital in the Diyala Bridge area of the Iraqi capital occurred after an accident caused an oxygen tank to explode, the sources said. Continue reading...
Private Ted Ryan stands as a talisman for today’s personnel, whose masters have deployed and redeployed them, to their enduring detrimentThis Anzac Day our politicians will again be front and centre of commemorations for Australia’s 62,000-plus first world war dead and those who died in all this country’s other conflicts.That’s the thing about wars. Young (mostly) men get to die in them or endure the physical and mental scars while the (mostly) older men who send them get to commemorate while making old bones. Continue reading...
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