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Move could result in half of the country entering full lockdown conditions from Monday

Some semblance of normal life will return in Wales from Saturday, after the country’s first minister, Mark Drakeford, announced more lenient ‘stay local’ requirements.The relaxation of rules will allow people from rural areas to travel greater distances than those who live in urban towns and cities. Hairdressers and barbers can reopen for appointments from Monday, the same day that all primary school pupils and those in qualification years can return to schools.Non-essential retail will remain shut until 12 April.

Covid-hit ski resort of Gressoney-Saint-Jean lifted by House of Gucci filmset, says local mayorFor a few days this week, a tiny mountain village in the Aosta Valley sprung back to life as it became abuzz with Hollywood stars.Gressoney-Saint-Jean, which lies at the bottom of Monte Rosa, was the first location in Italy for the filming of Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, based on the true story of the killing of the former chief of the fashion house, Maurizio Gucci, by his ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani. Continue reading...

Inquest jurors identify police and ambulance failings before 39-year-old’s death in Luton in 2013The way in which police officers restrained a man with drug-induced psychosis “more than minimally” contributed to his death in Luton in 2013, an inquest jury in Milton Keynes has found by unanimous verdict.Leon Briggs, a 39-year-old father of two, of mixed ethnic background, was a lorry driver and also taught computer skills to older people. His family described him as “a loving brother and father, caring and genuine”. Continue reading...

A recent panic over ‘Islamo-leftism’ has exposed a culture war that is sweeping France’s politics and academiaAmid the crises of the last year, certain members of Emmanuel Macron’s government have managed to identify a new threat to French society: “Islamo-leftism”. During a recent interview, the French minister of higher education, Frédérique Vidal, declared that “Islamo-leftism corrupts all of society, and universities are not impervious”. She criticised “radical” academics for always “looking at everything through the prism of their will to divide”, and announced that she would be requesting an investigation into university research on these subjects. While the meaning of the term is elusive, the political intent behind Vidal’s statement was clear. “Islamo-leftism”, which Vidal has associated with research on race, gender and social class, is indicative of a broader culture war that is sweeping both the political and academic establishment in France.Vidal is not the only politician in Macron’s government to have recently used the term. In a radio interview about the tragic beheading of a high-school teacher who had shown his class the Charlie Hebdo cartoons ridiculing the Prophet, Jean-Michel Blanquer, the minister of education, declared that “Islamo-leftism wreaks havoc in universities”, and blamed France’s oldest national student union for being “the intellectual perpetrator of the assassination”. Continue reading...

Spotlight is on the power behind the royals as much as on the Queen, Charles and WilliamFour days after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex eviscerated the “the firm” with the sharp blade of “their truth”, Prince William had still not spoken to his brother. “But they just do not communicate in the way other families do,” said one veteran royal watcher. “You wonder if anyone has rung Harry.”According to one report, the Queen plans to personally offer an olive branch to the couple. She said in a statement this week that the extraordinarily damaging allegations from the Sussexes – of racism and of emotional neglect that Meghan said had left her feeling suicidal – would be dealt with privately. Continue reading...

Blessed with sunny weather, diverse locations and a ready-made film industry, Sydney and the Gold Coast have become movie powerhousesOn a warmish Wednesday evening early in the year, Paul Mescal was celebrating his birthday and everybody seemed to know. The Irish actor, famous for his neckchain and his leading role in Normal People, was in Sydney, Australia, for a new film, and the word was spreading. He was photographed running in Centennial Park. He was sighted at Tamarama Beach. He popped into an inner-city pub.But on the list of stars now working in Australia, Mescal – in Sydney for a musical film adaptation of Carmen – is comfortably mid-level. Thanks to its relative freedom from Covid-19 and associated restrictions, Australia – blessed with diverse locations, sunny weather and a ready-made film infrastructure – has become Hollywood Down Under. Continue reading...

Yazidi elders disown former slaves of Islamic State, forcing them to choose between their children and their communityBundled up in oversized scarves and coats, and squirming over lounge chairs, the 12 young children seemed startled as nine strange women with outstretched arms hurried towards them.Some of the women sobbed as they embraced the bemused toddlers, who stared at them blankly not recognising their mothers, or understanding what the fuss was about. One mother stood motionless with her head in her hands, while another stared intently into her tiny daughter’s eyes. Continue reading...

Pragmatic state premier with flat-top ahead in polls as CDU faces defeat in country’s south-west

Hayne tells the jury steamy messages from the woman were promising signs they would have sex but he did not assume it would happenThe former NRL star Jarryd Hayne has told a jury a woman’s steamy messages and photos were promising signs they would have sex but he did not assume this would happen when he visited her.“The best-case scenario was having sex with her. The worse-case scenario was I get to introduce myself and that was it,” he said in his recorded evidence played at his retrial in Sydney’s district court on Friday. Continue reading...

The streaming giant has come knocking, but a lack of infrastructure and government support continues to hinder the continent telling its own storiesIt was the sight of donkeys carrying camera equipment that reminded Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese he was shooting in Lesotho. The director was filming This Is Not a Burial, It Is a Resurrection in a remote part of his tiny home nation, which has no cinemas and – unsurprisingly – zero film infrastructure. “It’s a bit daring to take a crew there and shoot because there’s no electricity,” Mosese says from his home in Berlin. “Especially when we go to the mountains – we had to rely on the donkeys because at some point we just couldn’t carry the equipment.”The shoot ran on petrol-powered generators. Villagers pitched in as ad-hoc crew members. Many fingers were crossed. “We had to build everything from scratch,” he says. That approach didn’t harm the film. Critically lauded, the stylish mood piece about grief, community and egregious land development has been entered in the Oscars as the country’s 2021 candidate. Continue reading...

Detained UK-Iranian dual national has been victim of torture, says psychiatrists’ reportNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe “is in urgent need of psychiatric support” and has been the victim of torture, a report prepared by psychiatrists has found after examining her mental health.The detained British Iranian dual-national’s healing “can be only provided in the UK in the presence of her family after reunification”, the report says. Continue reading...

Revisit tortured first loves, explore a deserted town and make your daily plod around the park more exciting with Pokémon GoGiven that we are all sitting at home staring at our phones anyway, it’s a good time to take a break from the doomscrolling to broaden your phone game palette. Nobody has really bettered this Escher-esque puzzler about guiding a wee girl through levels full of optical illusions and cool perspective changes. The calming colours and minimalist style offset the fiendishness of its architectural conundrums. Continue reading...

Unconfirmed attacks would suggest opening of new front in semi-covert conflict between arch-foesIsrael has bombed at least a dozen ships en route to Syria during the past two years, most of which have been carrying Iranian oil, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing US and regional officials.The attacks, which the article said included water mines in the Red Sea and other areas of the region, would, if confirmed, suggest a new front in the semi-covert conflict between arch-foes Israel and Iran. Continue reading...

Low-cost flights have enticed travelers, but relaxed restrictions have led to large gatherings, fights and Covid rule-breakingAt the Condado Vanderbilt Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Christian Correa clocked in to work the night-shift as a doorman and braced for the worst.Correa, who is also a bellman at the hotel, has seen a surge in tourists coming to the US territory in the last three months and the hotel has been busy. Although he used to enjoy high season before the pandemic, recently, many tourists arriving to Puerto Rico have enraged local residents and hospitality workers as the island eases its Covid-19 restrictions. Continue reading...

News Corp photographer condemns ‘toxic’ sexism at its newspapers; government won’t halt AstraZeneca rollout despite EU concerns; no clear winner in OECD race. This blog is now closed

Fall of 40.7% comes as UK economy in January shrinks by most since first wave of Covid pandemic

Demands for justice for Manuela, who died of cancer during 30-year sentence, taken to international court in country firstWhen Manuela, a 33-year-old mother of two from rural El Salvador, had a miscarriage in 2008, she did what most women would do: she went to hospital.There she was handcuffed to her hospital bed, accused of having an abortion, and charged with aggravated homicide. Continue reading...

After 12 die in one of the bloodiest days since the military takeover, UN expert says junta’s crackdown amounts to ‘crimes against humanity’The British government has urged its citizens to flee Myanmar after one of the bloodiest days since February’s coup left at least 12 people dead amid an increasingly violent crackdown by the military regime.The UK Foreign Office released advice on Friday for British nationals to leave the troubled south-east Asian country if they could, warning that “political tension and unrest are widespread since the military takeover and levels of violence are rising”. Continue reading...

The actor and comic on making her female pronouns permanent, shouting down abuse, enduring a marathon-a-day – and running for LabourEddie Izzard doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. In December, it was reported that the standup comic/actor/campaigner/endurance runner had adopted the pronouns “she” and “her” and wanted to be “based in girl mode” from now on. Well, it hardly came out of the blue, she says today. Izzard had spent the past 35 years building up to it, and when she did finally make the announcement it happened by chance.A few months earlier, Izzard had been a guest on the Sky Arts series Portrait Artist Of the Year, and was asked, for the first time, which pronouns she preferred. She replied “she and her” and never gave it another thought. By the time the programme was broadcast, Izzard had forgotten about the conversation. And suddenly she was headline news. Continue reading...

Plunge in global olive oil prices means hard decisions for Spanish olive oil producersCentury-old olive trees are being chopped up to use as firewood or sold off as garden ornaments as some in Spain’s olive oil industry turn to younger, more productive trees in hope of lowering costs.In recent years the sector in Spain has been left reeling; a plunge in global olive oil prices was followed by a punishing 25% tariff levied by the US on Spanish olive oil. After prices sank to levels that left many struggling to break even, the industry has slowly recovered, though prices remain shy of 2018 levels. Continue reading...

Defence minister ‘unreservedly apologises’ and acknowledges ‘the hurt and distress’ suffered by her ex-stafferThe defence minister, Linda Reynolds, has apologised to Brittany Higgins for calling her “a lying cow” and agreed to pay legal costs and make a donation to a sexual assault charity as part of a confidential settlement with her former staffer.Reynolds, who remains on sick leave, was reported to have described Higgins as “a lying cow” in her office on 15 February this year, the day Higgins went public with her claim she had been raped in the minister’s office by another staffer in early 2019. Continue reading...

Marcella Brassett is one of many women organisers of #March4Justice. Listen to her, Jane Caro, Julia Zemiro, Sarah Hanson-Young and others explain why they will be marching on 15 March against gendered violence.Join the campaign: post your own 30-second video on why you are standing up against gendered violence.#WhyIMarch #EnoughisEnough #March4Justice Continue reading...

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has endured a five-year nightmare after being arrested and jailed in Iran while on holiday. But now as her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour explain, having served her sentence she is being threatened with further chargesNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was on holiday in Iran in 2016 visiting her parents with her 22-month-old daughter when she was arrested at Tehran airport and held on what she was eventually told were national security charges. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, tells Anushka Asthana that it was then that the five-year nightmare began. And very soon he suspected that his wife was not merely a prisoner, but a pawn in a geopolitical struggle dating back to the 1970s and an unpaid debt owed by Britain to Iran.The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, has reported extensively on the story and describes the deal the UK had struck with the shah of Iran for a consignment of British-made tanks shortly before his downfall. Iran had paid for them but the delivery was cancelled amid the Iranian revolution that installed an Islamic theocracy in place of the shah. Following decades of poor relations and demands for the debt to be repaid, Nazanin was arrested and charged with crimes that the regime presented no evidence for and never explained to her. Continue reading...

The military rulers have resorted to brutal suppression after appearing to severely underestimate public hostility towards their takeoverAt first, sheets of paper featuring the face of Min Aung Hlaing were fixed on to the streets with sticky tape, ready to be stamped on by angry protesters in Myanmar’s main city, Yangon. Troops promptly removed the pages, only for resourceful demonstrators to return with stencils to paint the junta leader’s image on to the concrete.The protest tactic offered some protection against charging soldiers, who were apparently forbidden from treading on an image of their commander-in-chief. It was also a chance for the public to express their deep disdain for the man who stole their democracy. Continue reading...

There will always be idiots who shoot their mouths off – but in a democratic society we need to learn to live togetherHateful words can lead to hateful actions. They can also stir up others to do things we may or may not have intended to happen.Following the terrorist attack on Christchurch mosques on 15 March 2019 and the royal commission of inquiry that reported in November 2020, the New Zealand government intends to tighten up the law on hate speech. That may be a part solution to a complex social problem. Or it may be no solution at all, depending on what we mean by “hate speech” and how any legislation is drafted, enacted and enforced. Continue reading...

Digital collage by Beeple was offered with a non-fungible token to guarantee authenticity and paid for in cryptocurrency

Photographers told to provide images of attractive women and avoid ‘pigs in lipstick’

Critics say decision to downgrade alert levels should have been announced earlier to let bars and restaurants get ready as PM’s husband weighs in

Friday 13 March 2020 was a grim day for sport as events across the world were called off. Here’s how it felt then, and has done since, for those on the insideOn Friday 13 March 2020 as the Covid-19 crisis gripped, the sporting calendar collapsed. This is the story of that day, and what happened next, in the words of leading players and officials.Formula One teams gathered in Melbourne for the opening grand prix of the season. On Thursday 12 March, a member of the McLaren team tested positive for Covid-19. Continue reading...

Ex-cartel leader says he bribed Juan Orlando Hernández with $250,000 in exchange for government contracts and protectionA convicted drug trafficker and former cartel leader has testified in a New York court that he bribed the Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, with $250,000 in exchange for government contracts as well as protection from capture and extradition to the United States.“It was for protection so neither the military nor preventative police would arrest me or my brother in Honduras and so we would not be extradited to the United States,” Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, a leader of the Honduran drug clan Los Cachiros, testified in the trial of alleged drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez. Continue reading...

Friday: government walks back on plan to get all Australians vaccinated by October. Plus: Prince William defends family against racism claimGood morning, it’s Imogen Dewey on Friday 12 March with an update on Australia’s vaccine rollout, more grim news about Indigenous deaths in custody, and concerns from several quarters about China’s surveillance policies.Aboriginal justice advocates have expressed their devastation following a third Indigenous death in custody in a week and demanded the Australian prime minister urgently meet with bereaved families to progress reforms. Victorian Greens senator Lidia Thorpe has described the justice system as “deeply racist”. Continue reading...

Analysis: Sarah Everard’s disappearance sparks furious demands to address misogyny in UKWomen feared this was coming. They waited, messaging each other in WhatsApp groups and on social media. They talked about their own attempts to stay safe, discussed their near misses.When the news came on Wednesday evening – that police investigating the disappearance of Sarah Everard had found the remains of a body – a wave of grief crashed over them, followed quickly by anger. Continue reading...

Force facing investigation into handling of incident days before woman’s disappearance

Relatives of 33-year-old speak of pain after police said they had found human remainsRelatives of Sarah Everard have spoken of their pain after officers searching for the missing 33-year-old said they had found human remains.The marketing executive’s family paid tribute to the “bright and beautiful” woman on Thursday and appealed for anyone with information about her disappearance to come forward. Continue reading...

Campaigners say refusal to delay June deadline risks ‘second Windrush on much bigger scale’The high court has rejected a legal bid for an extension to the EU settlement scheme (EUSS), dismissing campaigners’ concerns that those EU residents who fail to apply to remain in the UK before July could face “devastating” consequences, similar to those experienced by the Windrush generation.Legal action mounted by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants called for the Home Office to extend the deadline to ensure that those who miss the 30 June cut-off date do not become undocumented and liable to detention and removal. Continue reading...

Editorial in state-run Global Times said Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor would likely stand trial in coming weeksTwo Canadian men detained in China are likely to stand trial in the coming weeks, according to a state-backed newspaper, dimming hopes that a diplomatic deal could secure their release.Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been held without bail for more than 820 days, since they were detained soon after the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested on a US warrant in Vancouver. Continue reading...

Move seen as a symbolic protest against discriminatory policies promoted in Poland and HungaryMEPs have voted to declare the EU an “LGBTIQ freedom zone” in a symbolic protest against discriminatory policies promoted in Poland and Hungary where regions have set themselves against the “ideology” of equality.Two years after the first local authority in Poland declared itself an ‘‘LGBTIQ-free zone”, the European parliament adopted its resolution by 492 votes in favour, 141 against and 46 abstentions. Continue reading...

Police officer arrested on suspicion of murder over disappearance of 33-year-old hospitalised with head injury while in custodyPolice scrambled to reassure the public after an officer from an elite unit was arrested for the alleged kidnap and murder of a woman who vanished on her way home, and investigators searching for her found human remains.Hope faded in the search for Sarah Everard, 33, after the Metropolitan police commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, announced that police had made the discovery in woodland in Kent. Continue reading...

Covid vaccination policy review urged after study finds 12-week gap leaves patients vulnerable

Transparency International says a fundamental failing of the draft legislation is its differing treatment of politicians and law enforcementThe federal government’s draft anti-corruption commission legislation lacks any credibility, and would create a weak, ineffective body that would actually degrade part of Australia’s existing integrity framework, Transparency International has warned.The government is currently consulting with key stakeholders on draft legislation for its proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission, after years of delay and missed deadlines. Continue reading...

Human Rights Watch says its research has found there is ‘a very deep fear of being watched, of being reported on’Chinese students in Australia are afraid to speak out on politically sensitive issues because of potential repercussions for relatives back home, a parliamentary inquiry has been told.Human Rights Watch has said its ongoing research into academic freedom in Australia had found anxiety and loneliness among Chinese students, with some engaging in self-censorship to avoid a backlash from Beijing. Continue reading...

From the Godfathers of Arabic rap to the father of Ethio-jazz, Grammy-winning producer Ian Brennan guides a tour through global music’s greatest

Denmark, Norway and Iceland suspend jabs while Italy and other countries hold off one batch

Final vote due on Thursday after move to add sex to list of protected characteristics is turned downScotland’s controversial hate crime bill is set to pass later on Thursday amid anger about its current exclusion of women and assurances that the legislation will not criminalise those whose views are considered by some to be transphobic.Leading the final debate in the Scottish parliament on Thursday, Scotland’s justice secretary, Humza Yousaf, assured MSPs that the legislation balanced protections for victims of hate crime with safeguarding freedom of expression, stating that the rigorous consideration of the bill had “shown the very best of parliament”. Continue reading...

Politicians and Olympics chief back Lara Lugli, who was fired and is now being sued after requesting back payAn Italian volleyball player who is being sued by her club for allegedly breaking her contract after becoming pregnant said she was being treated as if she had done something “illicit and malicious”.In a case that has provoked outrage among politicians and sports chiefs, Volley Maniago Pordenone claimed Lara Lugli, 41, failed to tell them she was planning to have a baby when she signed a contract to play for the club during the 2018-19 volleyball season. Continue reading...

Jab has 97% efficacy against disease and death and 94% against infection without symptomsThe Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine appears to give high protection against asymptomatic Covid-19, according to data from Israel – a finding that will boost hopes that mass vaccination can stop the spread of the virus.The top line of the real-world results, issued by the Israeli ministry of health and the companies but not yet peer-reviewed by scientists, is efficacy of 97% against disease and death and 94% against infection without symptoms. Continue reading...