Geoff Upson says he has drawn about 100 penises around potholes in a bid to force his local council to fix themA New Zealand man who began drawing very large penises around the potholes in his home city of Auckland in 2018 in the hopes of attracting the attention of his local council has been threatened with police action.In a video, road safety campaigner Geoff Upson made after the most recent addition to his oeuvre, saying: “I’m about sick of calling Auckland transport.” Continue reading...
Embassy officials first visited Robert Pether on day 26 of his detention in Baghdad, his wife saysAn Australian citizen has still not been told what charge he is facing, has only just been seen by Australian officials and is yet to meet his lawyer, despite spending 30 days behind bars in Baghdad.Australian officials visited Robert Pether for the first time on Monday, day 26 of his detention, and are now asking if he can get a meeting with his lawyer. Continue reading...
Other small nations also feel vulnerable to Chinese aggression but it hasn’t stopped them speaking out over the Uyghur genocideAfter the Christchurch terror attacks, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern donned a hijab as she comforted the relatives of the 51 Muslims who were killed simply for practising their faith. The image spread across the world and she was lavished with international praise.Yet her apparent turning away from the active erasure of China’s Uyghur Muslim minority population may undo that reputation. On Wednesday, New Zealand’s parliament backed away from calling what is happening in Xinjiang a “genocide,” opting instead for the watered-down language of “human rights breaches”. Continue reading...
When we fail to see those who don’t fit the Aussie stereotype as Australian, it’s all the easier to abandon them when they need help“You don’t look Australian,” someone once said to me in a bar overseas, elaborating when quizzed that the typical Aussie look was of “blond surfers”.I couldn’t fault this man for forming that perception. I haven’t looked Australian my entire life. Because there is a look that is distinctly Australian, one we have long internalised as well as projected to the world. I was taught that in the schoolyard. The “Aussies” were the kids with white skin with easy-to-sound Anglo names that could be transformed into slang like “Jonno”. Continue reading...
Navy rescues man, who was injured in one arm, after coastguard fired on his boat off the coast of Misrata in SicilyItaly’s navy has rescued an Italian fisher who was wounded after the Libyan coastguard reportedly fired on his boat.Salvatore Quinci, mayor of the fishing port of Mazaro del Vallo in south-western Sicily, said members of the coastguard shot at the fisherman’s boat off the coast of Misrata, the Italian news agency Agi reported. Continue reading...
James Gibbons, 34, died soon after he was attacked near his home in Laindon, police sayA 16-year-old boy has been charged with the murder of James Gibbons, who was stabbed to death in Laindon, Essex.Police said that the 34-year-old father of four died soon after he was attacked in the street where he lived, at about 9.30pm on Sunday. Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll, Jon Henley and Daniel Boffey on (#5HGYA)
France moves to calm diplomatic waters but Brussels says Britain has breached terms of Brexit trade dealThe European Union accused the UK of breaching the terms of the post-Brexit trade deal on Thursday as tensions over fishing rights in the Channel Islands were de-escalated after a dramatic 24 hours, with Royal Navy boats ordered to retreat from Jersey shores.Brussels’ claim that London had flouted the rules came on a day in which 60 vessels blockaded Jersey’s harbour, a French boat rammed a British fishing vessel and Boris Johnson declared his unequivocal support for the Channel island in the battle with its nearest neighbours. Continue reading...
Fall follows peak of 852,000 in January, with some firms repaying sums taken earlier in the pandemicThe number of companies claiming furlough dropped between January and February but more than 840,000 still depend on state support to pay staff.Revised figures published by HM Revenue and Customs showed that nearly 12,000 fewer companies claimed in February under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme than did so in January. Continue reading...
As many as 37 people have died and at least 89 reported missing since protests began on 28 AprilColombia has entered its second week of violent unrest as riot police continued a brutal crackdown on nationwide protests against poverty and inequality exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.Related: ‘No food and no fuel’: Colombia torn by protests and violent crackdown Continue reading...
Up to 19 of its 20 of its water plans may be withdrawn as First Nations’ groups criticise state government for inadequate consultationNew South Wales has been told to revise almost all of its detailed 20 water resource plans (WRP) after they failed to pass muster with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and were criticised for failing to include input from Indigenous groups.The NSW plans are a critical building block in the overall Murray-Darling Basin plan covering many of the important tributaries and 100km of the Darling. They were originally due in February 2019, but were only submitted in June 2020. They set out detailed rules about who has rights to water, the licensing regime, when water can be extracted by agriculture, measures to protect water for the environment and rights to cultural water for indigenous people. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#5HH8V)
‘Stay put’ advice was relied upon despite fires at other towers requiring evacuations, inquiry toldThe Grenfell Tower landlord did not create escape plans for disabled residents and instead relied on telling people to “stay put” despite recent fires in two of its other towers requiring evacuations, the inquiry into the 2017 disaster has heard.Teresa Brown, the director of housing at the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMP) from 2014 to 2018, was close to tears when she admitted that the landlord had not considered personal evacuation plans to get the most vulnerable people out. Continue reading...
Gunboat diplomacy in a fishing dispute is wrong when we need to work together to tackle a pandemic, writes Rev Kenneth Cross, while John Richards says this is not worth losing a life over and Peter Hepworth blames Brexit for the tensionsAnything that even remotely looks like military involvement in a dispute between the UK and our ally and neighbour France is a matter of grave concern (UK sends navy vessels to Jersey amid post-Brexit fishing row with France, 5 May). It is a sign that relations have been profoundly eroded, and this in turn is a deep failure of diplomacy and mutual understanding. No doubt there are faults on both sides, but we can only deal with our own.There has been peace between our two countries for over 200 years, and the peace was hard-won in Europe when we stood together in the middle of the last century amid the most terrible divisions, lies and terrors. No one is seriously saying that we are at war with France today – although such language as an “act of war” has been foolishly invoked. But that there are British armed boats near Jersey at the moment is still profoundly sad and dangerous. It is an indictment of failed politics. Continue reading...
William Byaruhanga, Uganda’s attorney general, says the country’s justice system is capable and independentAs Uganda is a signatory to the international criminal court, citizens have every right to lodge cases before it (Ugandan president’s son named in ICC complaint over abductions and abuse, 3 May).Yet the ICC is a court of last resort for countries that, whether for capacity or politicisation, cannot be expected to deliver legal redress. This is not needed in Uganda when the justice system is demonstrably capable and independent. In recent months, its beneficiaries include the leader of the opposition, who successfully petitioned the courts to quash an attempt to deregister his political party. Neither is favour shown to governing party politicians who, rightly, have been prosecuted for breaking Covid restrictions during our recent election campaign. Continue reading...
Tannab Raslan show, accused of terrifying guests and making audience relive Isis rule, said it celebrated security forces’ heroismIraq’s media regulator has canceled a TV prank show that lured guests into simulated ambushes by militants, forcing participants and viewers to relive some of the terror and fear that were widespread under the rule of the Islamic State group.The show, Tannab Raslan, was aired as a special during the holy month of Ramadan until Iraq’s Communication and Media Commission this week ordered it off the air amid widespread outrage from viewers. Continue reading...
The 82-year-old US folk singer talks through her teenage years, from mental health struggles to wondrous romance in the Rocky mountainsI’d been playing the piano since I was five, and by the time I was 15 I was memorising Rachmaninov concertos. But Barbara Allen, recorded by Jo Stafford, turned me towards the music that was becoming the rebirth of folk music in the US. I knew Stafford’s voice very well – her My Funny Valentine was one of our favourites. She was such a magnificent singer, and her version of Barbara Allen was just stunning. That and The Gypsy Rover were songs that plunged me into a new life. I often say, though, that I was born knowing the lyrics to Danny Boy because my father sang all kinds of things – I would have heard that in the womb. Continue reading...
Celia Stubbs campaigned for years for truth of Blair Peach’s death – almost certainly at hands of officer in 1979Scotland Yard spied for more than two decades on the partner of an anti-racist protester who police accept was almost certainly killed by one of their officers at a demonstration, a public inquiry has been told.Celia Stubbs campaigned for years to uncover the truth of how her boyfriend, Blair Peach, died at the demonstration in what was one of the most controversial cover-ups in modern policing history. Continue reading...
by Jason Burke, Africa correspondent, and Samuel Okir on (#5HGRX)
Former child soldier Dominic Ongwen committed crimes against humanity as commander in cultThe international criminal court has sentenced a former militia leader and child soldier from Uganda to 25 years in prison after he was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in a landmark judgment.The presiding judge, Bertram Schmitt, said the panel of judges had considered sentencing Dominic Ongwen to life imprisonment, the court’s harshest punishment, but had sided against it due to the defendant’s own personal suffering. Continue reading...
The charismatic leftwing founder of Podemos ended Spain’s stale party political duopoly but failed to halt a resurgent rightSeven years after revolutionising Spanish politics by founding Podemos and inspiring imitators around Europe, the unabashed leftwing populist Pablo Iglesias resigned from all his posts on Tuesday night. Does this spell the end of the Podemos dream?Having stood down as deputy prime minister in order to lead his party into Tuesday’s Madrid regional elections, where Podemos faced a wipeout, Iglesias decided that the results obliged him to go. His party won just 7% of the vote, less than far-right Vox. “It’s the best thing for Podemos now,” he said. Continue reading...
British naval patrol vessels arrived in the waters around Jersey on Thursday as scores of French boats gathered at the port in St Helier to protest against post-Brexit fishing rights.It followed French threats to cut off electricity to Jersey, a self-governing dependency of the UK off the tip of northern France. French fishers are protesting over new licences issued on Friday that restrict for the first time the number of days they can operate in shared waters
With her new film My New York Year released on 21 May, plus Ghostbusters: Afterlife and endless new Avatars in the offing, we sift through the career of Hollywood’s imperious, stylish powerhouseWilliam Friedkin directed this broad, knockabout comedy about arms dealing without much flair and it is really only a vehicle for that lost legend of 80s screen comedy, Chevy Chase. He is a small-time arms dealer and Sigourney Weaver plays the haughty and enraged widow of a corporate defence contractor, Wallace Shawn, blaming Chase for her husband’s untimely death in the fictional South American state of San Miguel, where both men had been touting for business. United by greed, and maybe a spark of something more, Weaver joins Chase on a mission to close the arms deal of the century. This doesn’t do justice to Weaver’s class and style. Continue reading...
South Australia coroner will hear from seven guards who were in a prison transport van with the Aboriginal man who died after being held on remandA South Australian coroner has rejected a bid from prison officers to avoid answering some questions at an inquest into the death in custody of Aboriginal man Wayne Fella Morrison.Lawyers for seven prison officers had applied to allow all of them to give evidence on the same day and be asked basic questions to make it easier for the group to claim legal protection from answering further questions. Continue reading...
I’ve long nursed vague plans of moving back to China for a few years, to solidify my place there. But with each year that passes in the US, such a move gets harder and harder to make
Kurt Campbell says Beijing has been increasing military activities without taking measures to reduce the chance of miscalculationThe Biden administration’s top Asia official has warned about the absence of a crisis-communications channel between the US and China at a time of rising military tensions over Taiwan and the South China Sea.Military and leadership hotlines have been established at various points in the fraught history of the relationship, but Kurt Campbell, the White House Asia “tsar” responsible for coordinating policy across the administration, said Beijing had shown no interest in using them, out of a preference for uncertainty. The hotline simply rings out in “empty rooms”, he said. Continue reading...
Critics say state’s relaxed approach to restrictions has caused surge in prairie province averse to perceived government overreachIn an open field outside the prairie town of Bowden, Alberta, hundreds of people braved chilly winds and the threat of spring rain to attend their first rodeo in more than a year.For the unmasked attendees cheering on as riders clung into bucking horses, the gathering this weekend must have seemed like a long-awaited return to normality. Continue reading...
Factions within royal family allege poisoning and forgery after death of queenThe traditional ruler of South Africa’s Zulu nation has been buried amid an increasingly acrimonious succession battle involving allegations of poisoning and forgery.Queen Shiyiwe Mantfombi Dlamini Zulu, died aged 65 last week, only a month after she took the role following the death of her husband, King Goodwill Zwelithini. Continue reading...
Downing Street dispatches armed boats to ‘monitor situation’ amid row over post-Brexit rules on fishing rightsTwo British naval patrol vessels have arrived off the coast of Jersey as about 80 French boats also gathered at the port in St Helier in protest over post-Brexit rules on fishing rights.HMS Severn and HMS Tamar were deployed a mile off the coast of Jersey while observing the French flotilla amassing at about 6am south of the Channel Island’s capital before it headed into the port just before 7am. Continue reading...
Fifteen questions on general knowledge and topical news trivia every Thursday lunchtime – how will you fare?It is Thursday lunchtime, and so it must be time for the second edition of our exciting new weekly quiz. You’ll face 15 questions on general knowledge and topical news trivia and possibly a couple of terrible jokes in the answer text. It is just for fun and there are no prizes, but do let us know how you get on in the comments below.The weekly Guardian quiz, No 2 Continue reading...
We would like to hear from people living in Jersey about how they feel about the situation. Share your views and experiencesAround 80 French boats have been met by two British naval gunboats off the coast of Jersey, as French fishers protest over post-Brexit fishing rights.The French boats gathered at the port in St Helier and are protesting over new licences that restrict the number of days they can operate in shared waters for the first time. Continue reading...
The former attorney general is suing the public broadcaster and is trying to stop parts of its defence being made publicChristian Porter has moved to strike out major sections of the ABC’s defence of his defamation claim, and prevent them from becoming public, accusing the public broadcaster of abusing the court process.The ABC filed its defence on Tuesday, prompting an interlocutory application from Porter for an order to make confidential and strike out sections of the document on the basis they contain material that is either scandalous, frivolous, vexatious, evasive or ambiguous or “are otherwise an abuse of the process of the court”. Continue reading...
by Elias Visontay (now) and Nino Bucci and Matilda Bo on (#5HG1F)
Mask-wearing mandatory for all indoor public venues, including public transport, as authorities brace for more infections; five blood-clot cases ‘likely’ linked to AstraZeneca in past week. Follow the latest updates
This documentary about Sean Penn’s response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti may be self-congratulatory, but the actor has had an undeniable impactActor, director, screenwriter and now novelist Sean Penn has had some mixed notices for his non-showbiz activities and his dramatic interventions in various international situations – including his defiant declaration of faith in the late Hugo Chávez and his successor as Venezuelan president, the now-notorious Nicolás Maduro. And the naysayers and the eye-rollers may not be entirely mollified by this documentary about Sean Penn’s charity work in Haiti, which does come across in some ways as a 93-minute self-administered high-five.It begins with a carefully curated montage of TV news footage tacitly admitting what a paparazzo-punching brat he once was – but there is no clip of his puppet appearance in Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s comedy Team America: World Police as an archetypal whiny liberal. Well, Sean Penn is entitled to praise. In 2010, he responded to the news about the Haiti earthquake by mobilising contacts already amassed during his experience helping out during Hurricane Katrina, and he got on to Chávez, and asked him to supply hundreds of thousands of vials of Venezuelan morphine for Haiti’s field hospitals. (Penn had been out to Venezuela to meet Chávez the year before in the sceptical company of Christopher Hitchens, who had called him an “oil-rich clown”.) Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent on (#5HFK4)
Don Thompson says response from France is ‘like something you would see from Iran or Russia’France’s response to post-Brexit fishing restrictions around the island of Jersey has been described as “pretty close to an act of war” by fishing community leaders in St Helier. They say they have been told 100 boats are being lined up in France for a 6am blockade at the main Channel Island port on Thursday, threatening food and energy supplies.“It was inevitable that the French would kick off,” said the head of the Jersey Fishermen’s Association, Don Thompson. “But the reaction we’re seeing from France is almost like something you would see from Iran or Russia. They’re not just saying they can cut off the electricity supply, French fishermen are saying that they’re coming tomorrow [Thursday] to blockade the harbour in time to stop the ferries from coming in so there’ll be no food supply and no fuel coming into the island either. So it comes pretty close to an act of war, this.” Continue reading...
Activist Joshua Wong separately sentenced over Tiananmen vigil protest in 2020A court in Hong Kong has sentenced three people to years in jail on riot convictions, despite no evidence they were actually involved in rioting. In a separate case, the activist Joshua Wong and three others were also given jail terms over a Tiananmen massacre vigil held in breach of Covid restrictions.The three protesters, all in their 20s, were jailed by the district court judge En-nest Lin on Wednesday, for terms of up to four years and three months. Lin said even though there was no evidence the trio were involved in any rioting, their presence at the rally in October 2019 encouraged other protesters, RTHK reported. Continue reading...
The comedian’s 2018 show Dr Cosmos addressed mental health, midlife and Brexit – little knowing a crisis lurked around the corner. Now it’s being streamed, might no mention of Covid be a selling point?Dr Cosmos will see you now – or will he? Dylan Moran is Zooming from his Edinburgh home before his show of that name streams this weekend. “Can I ask you to move an inch the other way?” he asks. I adjust in my seat, but he’s still not happy. “My photo is right on your face and I don’t know how to take it off-screen.” For five minutes he fusses with his camera, obscuring his face, so I find myself interrogating an indistinct patch of grey. “I’m so ignorant of tech,” he grumbles.This won’t surprise followers of the Irishman’s career, which includes his role as grouchy bookshop owner Bernard in the sitcom Black Books. In his standup, he’s long traded in curmudgeonliness, albeit elevated by philosophical insight and lyricism. The blend was never more potent than in Dr Cosmos, which premiered at Edinburgh three years ago. Like all Moran’s stage work since he won the career-making Perrier award in 1996, it had no theme, give or take Moran’s promise to offer “all the answers” to the problem of life. But it had potency, and big laughs, as a newly teetotal Moran addressed mental health, midlife and Brexit, and considered modernity in light of the simpler world in which he grew up. Continue reading...
Investing in midwifery could prevent two-thirds of maternal and newborn deaths, but investment and training are urgently neededThe world is facing a shortage of 900,000 midwives, with more than half the shortfall in Africa, where nearly two-thirds of maternal deaths occur, according to a new survey.Insufficient resources and a failure to recognise the importance of the role mean there has been little progress since the last study in 2014, according to the State of the World’s Midwifery report, which looked at 194 countries. Continue reading...
In 1938, there was a surge of classified ads in this newspaper as parents – including my grandparents – scrambled to get their children out of the Reich. What became of the families?On Wednesday 3 August 1938, a short advertisement appeared on the second page of the Manchester Guardian, under the title “Tuition”.“I seek a kind person who will educate my intelligent Boy, aged 11, Viennese of good family,” the advert said, under the name Borger, giving the address of an apartment on Hintzerstrasse, in Vienna’s third district. Continue reading...
From Billie Eilish to Beyoncé, the Mugler outfit has become the natural successor to Madonna’s bustierPop music has a new uniform. The feline, figure-hugging Mugler bodysuit, with its generous cutouts, has become ubiquitous with the biggest female singers. Billie Eilish wore one for her recent Vogue cover shoot, Beyoncé was in one on the cover of the same magazine’s December issue, as was Dua Lipa at the MTV Europe music awards, while Miley Cyrus wore hers accessorised with silver jewellery at the I Heart Festival and Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion wore versions in, respectively, lime green and purple for one of the many costume changes in the WAP video.“The bodysuit and what it represents is powerful,” says Casey Cadwallader, who has been the creative director at Mugler since 2017. “People see how relevant it is – being really open-minded, embracing diversity, embracing different expressions of gender.” Continue reading...
The Brummie reggae stars are back, but in two rival groups. They talk about clocking up 39 hits, partying hard and the bitter splitUB40 are remembering the days when they were dangerous. “MI5 were tapping our phones, watching our houses, all sorts,” says drummer Jimmy Brown. “We thought, ‘Haven’t they got criminals to catch?’ We were just a bunch of potheads, smoking weed and playing music. We weren’t planning the revolution, but if the revolution happened, we knew what side we were going to be on.”The band are back this year – in duplicate. In contrast to the longstanding and bitter rift that divides the two factions, more of which later, the Brummie eight-piece once presented a united, staunchly uncompromising front. For those who remember UB40 primarily for lilting lite-reggae covers of Red Red Wine and (I Can’t Help) Falling in Love With You, the fact that they were considered a grave threat to national security might seem absurd. Look closer at the origins story of the band, however, and the concerns of the spooks – later confirmed by MI5 whistleblower David Shayler – make a certain kind of sense. Continue reading...
Tourism minister says overcrowded sites such as Milford Sound-Piopiotahi ‘cannot return to its pre-Covid state’The days of allowing tourist hordes to some of New Zealand’s best-known natural attractions are over, the government has signalled, as it unveiled new plans to protect the environment and reconsider the role of tourism in its economy.The tourism minister, Stuart Nash, outlined on Tuesday plans to “reset” tourism for a post-Covid world – planning for fewer international visitors and attempting to diversify the economies of tourism-dependent towns. Continue reading...
National leader’s warning about greater Māori self-governance are designed to deflect from her unpopularityIn October I wrote in praise of the Māori party’s Mana Motuhake policy, a 25-year plan to improve Māori outcomes based on Māori asserting their right to exercise tino rangatiratanga – roughly translated as self-management, self-determination and self-governance – over all their domains. I predicted that whether the Māori party made it back into parliament in 2020 or not (it did), this call was only going to get louder.After a speech last Saturday by the National party opposition leader, Judith Collins, this issue has been catapulted to the middle of the political agenda. Collins’ speech drew attention to a report named He Puapua, written by an expert working group charged by the Labour-led coalition cabinet in 2019 to develop a plan and engagement process to realise the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP), which the John Key-led National coalition government signed up to in 2010. Continue reading...