The isolating, app-based Channel 4 show feels eerily relevant to the past 12 months. Former and current contestants discuss the experience – and the struggle of readjusting to normal lifeIt is September 2019 and Richard Madeley is twerking alone in a high-security flat in Salford. The presenter is taking part in the second season of the Channel 4 reality show The Circle, on which he is catfishing as a 27-year-old PR girl called Judy. Dressed in a motion-capture suit, he is gyrating seductively, his lips pursed in concentration. The other contestants, who are oblivious to Madeley’s true identity, are watching an anonymous rendering of his movements on their screens. “Oh my God, that’s twerking isn’t it?” screams one. “That’s twerking!”The Circle is not a typical reality TV show. Part popularity contest, part social experiment, part dystopian drama, its premise feels eerily relevant to the past 12 months. Contestants are moved into a refurbished block of flats, where they are confined to their own space and isolated from each other. The only way they can communicate is through a bespoke, text-based social media app called The Circle. Continue reading...

The prime minister says the attorney general, who has denied a rape allegation, will not be back at work when parliament returns next weekScott Morrison has revealed he didn’t seek legal advice from the government’s most senior independent lawyer before rejecting calls for an independent inquiry into the sexual assault allegation against Christian Porter.Morrison confirmed on Tuesday he had not consulted the solicitor general before he and ministers claimed that an independent inquiry would usurp a criminal investigation, which has now closed, and undermine the rule of law. Continue reading...

Protester’s angry that López Obrador has supported politician accused of sexual assault are calling for greater protections for womenWomen marching on International Women’s Day have clashed with police at barricades surrounding the National Palace in Mexico City, where officers fired pepper spray after the protesters attempted to tear down a metal wall.The Mexico City government, however, “categorically denied” using any kind of gas against protesters. Sixty-two officers and 19 civilians were injured during the incidents, said Marcela Figueroa, an official of the city’s police agency. Continue reading...

Multiple women at Natchi Apparels have reported abuse weeks after 21-year-old worker was allegedly killed by her supervisorWomen in India making children’s clothes for H&M have spoken out about widespread sexual violence they claim to have faced at one of the company’s suppliers in India.The allegations come just weeks after the body of Jeyasre Kathiravel, a 21-year-old Dalit garment worker, was found in a field close to her family home after she failed to return from her shift at the Natchi Apparels factory in Tamil Nadu. Continue reading...

Independent group will advise on all aspects of pandemic, including communication with public and planning for virus, amid ongoing outbreaks

Measures first imposed in Italy a year ago seemed shocking at first but soon became the new normal across the continent

Miscalculated landing ends in undignified scrambling to get back on its feet in front of chick – and camerasAn ignoble landing by a royal albatross has been captured on cameras in New Zealand, catapulting the somersaulting bird to dubious fame.The video begins with a fluffy four-week-old chick looking out over the sea. Soon, to the left of the frame, an adult descends, making its landing feet first, wings back. But when the large webbed appendages hit the ground the bird tumbles forward, face first and flips on to its back. It flails around as its legs pedal furiously in the air before righting itself, staring for a moment into the distance and then shuffling out of frame. Continue reading...

The outlets have reported extensively on protests over the coup over recent weeks, as well as the brutal response by the security forcesMyanmar’s military junta has revoked the licences of five media outlets as it seeks to clampdown on independent coverage of anti-coup protests, a major blow to press freedom in the country.Mizzima, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), Khit Thit Media, Myanmar Now and 7Day News have each been ordered to close, according to an announcement on state broadcaster MRTV. It said the companies were “no longer allowed to broadcast or write or give information by using any kind of media platform or using any media technology.” Continue reading...

Sir Jonathan Porritt says there is ‘no going back’ to tourism as it was pre-Covid and that flying is a privilege not a rightAir New Zealand’s chief environmental adviser has said he is in favour of increasing the price of flights to New Zealand and “putting off some people coming” as the country considers a new approach to tourism post-Covid.In an interview with Newsroom published on Tuesday, the airline’s chief environmental adviser, Sir Jonathon Porritt, said he supported hiking the price of international flights to pay for the greenhouse gas emissions they generated. Continue reading...

Palace crisis is splashed across the front pages, with several papers asking what racism accusations will mean for the royal familyThe fallout following the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s explosive television interview with Oprah Winfrey dominates Britain’s front pages. After the initial shock over the damning content of the interview, focus has moved to what the accusations of racism and animosity mean for the royal family.The Guardian leads with “Palace in crisis following devastating racism claim”. Meghan said that Harry had been asked questions by family about how dark their son Archie’s skin might be when he was born. The couple would not reveal which family member asked the question, but Oprah on Monday said that it was neither the Queen nor Prince Philip. Continue reading...

Mai was 12 when she died in one of the most harrowing stories to emerge from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunamiTen years after a tsunami killed more than 18,000 people on the north-east coast of Japan, Noriyuki Suzuki returned to the spot where his daughter was swept to her death.Mai was 12 when she died in one of the most harrowing stories to emerge from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. She was at Okawa primary school on the day of what became known as the triple disaster. Instead of leading children up a nearby hill away from danger, teachers decided it was safe to stay.

Tashnuva Anan Shishir survived assault, bullying and suicide attempts to become a trailblazer for the LGBT communityTo cheers from colleagues, Bangladesh’s first transgender news presenter broke down in tears , but only after her word-perfect debut was beamed to the nation and the cameras were off.Bangladesh is home to an estimated 1.5 million transgender people, who face rampant discrimination and violence and are often forced to live by begging, the sex trade or crime. Continue reading...

Study led by former minister concludes dangers of closer collaboration are poorly understoodThe former universities minister Jo Johnson has warned of the “poorly understood” risks of increasingly close collaboration between UK universities and China.A study led by Johnson identified a significant increase in funding from China and collaboration with Chinese researchers over the past two decades, including in sensitive areas for national security and economic competition – such as automation, telecommunications and materials science – or in disciplines where collaboration may threaten freedom of speech. Continue reading...

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex interview Oprah Winfrey is broadcast by ITV in the UK. This blog has now closed.

‘Hand grenade’ Oprah interview shakes royal family to its foundations and leaves members open to suspicion

Tuesday: Duke and Duchess of Sussex say racism pushed them out of UK. Plus: Julie Bishop criticises handling of rape allegationsGood morning! If you haven’t been refreshing your news feed all night for the latest Harry and Meghan revelations – never fear, we’ve got you covered. There are more pressing concerns for many Australians though, including cuts to welfare payments and concern about the handling of rape allegations in Canberra, with Julie Bishop now weighing in. But it’s not all doom, gloom and threats to the monarchy, there’s been quite the sluggish discovery worth a look. Continue reading...

Hundreds of protesters rallied outside the Minneapolis courthouse demanding racial justice and the conviction of a former police officer accused of murdering George Floyd on Monday.Derek Chauvin, who is white, was fired and charged with murder after he knelt on Floyd’s neck when the Black man had been forced to the ground during an attempted arrest last May

‘Fundamental failures of leadership and planning’ identified after visits to Napier and Penally facilities

Duke of Sussex says racism was ‘large part of’ decision for couple to leave UK in new clip from interview with Oprah Winfrey

There’s a touch of Hollywood in this dramatised account of the 50 workers who stayed at Fukushima Daiichi in an attempt to avert catastropheDangerously high concentrations of politeness are observed in this dramatisation of the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Not only do most of the heroic “50” left behind to avert nuclear catastrophe constantly apologise for underperforming in acts of barely believable self-sacrifice, at one point a manager begs forgiveness for refusing to allow two employees to re-enter the radioactive zone after a failed first attempt. To the feckless western mind more likely to view Homer Simpson as the standard-issue nuclear power-plant employee, it’s a relief when – just for a second – a few Fukushima workers contemplate running away.It is possible director Setsurō Wakamatsu has taken the Hollywood route in portraying the staff as so infallibly courageous – though Fukushima 50 is adapted from journalist Ryusho Kadota’s book, which investigated the response to the earthquake and tsunami in more than 90 interviews. Possibly to avoid lawsuits from Tokyo Electric Power Company executives portrayed here as selfish and shamefully caught on a back foot, everyone in the film is fictionalised – except for prime minister Naoto Kan, though he is never referred to by name, and plant manager Masao Yoshida. Yoshida crucially defies orders and allows the reactors to be cooled with seawater – which prevented meltdown and the possible devastation of Japan’s entire eastern seaboard. The reactors also must be “vented” for pressure manually by workers agonisingly selected for the task. Played by Ken Watanabe as a man having the ultimate bad day at work, the simmering Yoshida looks in need of a similar intervention. Continue reading...

In London’s orchestras alone, there are more men called David with jobs in percussion than there are women. Why are back rows still so male?In 1913, Sir Henry Wood hired six female violinists to play in his Queen’s Hall Orchestra, the first women in the world to join a professional orchestra playing alongside men. “I do not like ladies playing the trombone or double bass, but they can play the violin, and they do,” said the conductor magnanimously. Since then, we have seen a steady increase of women joining professional orchestras and bringing us closer to gender parity, indeed, some ladies have even proved they can play the trombone and the double bass. But what is happening in the percussion section?In 1992, Dame Evelyn Glennie took to the Royal Albert Hall stage as the first solo percussionist to play a concerto at the Proms. Glennie brought solo percussion into the mainstream and singlehandedly changed the perception of percussion, showing the world that women could play it too. Two years later, the BBC added the percussion category to its Young Musician of the Year competition. Continue reading...

From magic mirrors at Versailles to Dalí-inspired humour, both houses found dramatic potential in lockdown limitationsParis fashion week is as theatrical as ever, even while playing to an empty house. Instead of their customary stadium-sized catwalk show, Dior filmed a dark fairytale in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, for an audience mostly watching on their phones.The opulent venue was Dior’s answer to the challenge of how to make an event out of a show which is, in reality, not an event. Continue reading...

Oprah Winfrey said on Monday Harry stressed ‘it was not his grandmother or grandfather who were part of those conversations’

Calls for recovery plans to address unequal burden of looking after children to advance equality and ‘because it makes fiscal sense’The childcare crisis is at a “tipping point”, threatening to reverse decades of women’s economic progress, according to a new report published on Monday.The report warned that the female-dominated childcare sector risked collapse, as coronavirus lockdowns and rising poverty levels had led to a “steep drop” in demand for formal and informal services. Continue reading...

‘Fox turned down the first draft because I didn’t put any murders in it. People watch mob shows because they like to see murders’I was still writing the pilot episode when Steven Van Zandt – who would go on to play strip-club owner and second-in-command Silvio Dante – came to read for the part of Tony Soprano. I thought: “With Steven, it could be more like The Simpsons: more comedy, less nasty bits, more absurd.” But once we hired Jim Gandolfini for Tony, it all went back to where it started. Continue reading...

A fictional standup confronts his limits in this intriguing time capsule of 1980s Soviet historyIt’s 1984: the USSR is on the verge of collapse, and so is Boris Arkadiev (Aleksey Agranovich), a fictional standup who has enormous mainstream success but crumbles under bouts of insecurities. A failed novelist, Boris now tours the country with a banal routine about … a naughty monkey. The KGB approves and the audience roars with laughter, but Boris merely simmers with apathy.Boris’s problems lie in his political spinelessness. His friends chastise him: Simon (Semyon Steinberg), an outspoken writer, mourns Boris’ idealistic literary past; Max (Yuri Kolokolnikov), an actor enamoured with American culture, concludes that the comedian should defect. Adding to the horrors, Boris’ teenage son writes anti-communist rock tunes in a bedroom plastered with posters of David Bowie and T Rex. This failure to communicate reaches a surreal peak when Boris is summoned to perform his routine to a Russian astronaut in space. In one long restless take, Boris paces around a sparsely furnished bunker and breathlessly tells the same old jokes, only for the astronaut to tell him to stop. He has had enough. Boris has, too. Continue reading...

Police target media outlet after hospitals stormed on Sunday night amid call for strike in protest at coupMyanmar security forces have raided the Yangon offices of a local media outlet as the ruling junta widens its efforts to suppress opposition to the coup it carried out more than a month ago.Soldiers and police on Monday evening raided the headquarters of Myanmar Now, a news outlet that regularly scrutinises the Tatmadaw, or military, seizing computers, part of the newsroom’s data server and other equipment, a representative of the outlet said. Continue reading...

Supporters of Ousmane Sonko have taken to streets after he was arrested last week accused of rapeA prominent Senegalese opposition figure has been released on bail pending a rape trial in a case that has ignited mass outrage at President Macky Sall’s government and led to the worst unrest in a decade.Ousmane Sonko, a charismatic 46-year-old opposition leader and MP who finished third in the 2019 presidential election, was arrested last Wednesday after an employee of a beauty salon accused him of raping her. Continue reading...

Killings turn people away from cause, says former hardline leader Des Dalton

Healthcare is focus of event to mark International Women’s Day, as organisers say pandemic has led to setbacks in rightsA march during the time of Covid is a difficult thing to plan safely. For Pakistan’s women, determined to have their “Aurat March” today, there are other risks – to their physical safety as well as of online abuse and trolling.Noor is an organiser for this year’s masked nationwide rallies. She said she could not give her surname for fear of reprisals over her work. Continue reading...

Prince Harry denied he had ‘blindside’ his grandmother, saying he had too much respect for her

Caught between a hate-filled media and a terrified royal family, the surprise is not that the couple struck out on their own. It’s that they didn’t escape much soonerA seldom remembered fact about the royal family is that, before the death of Princess Diana, it was not normal to be interested in them. Tabloids were fascinated, but it was more of a convention than news – like a splash about tomatoes causing cancer, it was the out-of-office auto reply of the industry, a fallback. The family (I seriously dislike the affectation of calling them “the Firm”) survived while there was nothing to see. They were caught between two irreconcilable forces – their own culture of discretion, on one side, and intense, 24-hour scrutiny on the other – and they navigated that with a studied blandness. What did they actually care about? Manners, duty, causes, the Commonwealth. Whatever curiosity surrounded them, they simply did not reward it, and the regular response to that, after a few centuries and whatnot, was to not be terribly curious.You may recall David Blaine, the magician who lived in a glass box above the Thames for 44 days in 2003: people really wanted to know what he was doing, even though we could see what he was doing – and that was mainly nothing. There grew a peculiar resentment of gawping at something that was only interesting because it was untouchable. But we could see for ourselves that it was not interesting – and then everyone got annoyed and some of us (not me) threw eggs. Eventually, hawkers started selling eggs. That pretty much sums up the experience of the royals pre-1997. Continue reading...

Ex-Foreign Office head says painful saga of British-Iranian national may be reaching ‘endgame’The saga to get Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe back to the UK is nearing its endgame, the recently retired head of the Foreign Office (FCDO) has said.Lord McDonald, permanent undersecretary at the FCDO until the summer, said for the first time the UK had been looking at repaying a historic £400m debt to Iran through humanitarian payments that would not be subject to sanctions on the country. Continue reading...

Academics reject J Mark Ramseyer’s claim women were not forced into sexual slavery during second world warA Harvard University professor has sparked outrage among fellow academics and campaigners after claiming that women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military had chosen to work in wartime brothels.J Mark Ramseyer, a professor of Japanese legal studies at Harvard Law School, challenged the accepted narrative that as many as 200,000 “comfort women” – mostly Koreans, but also Chinese, south-east Asians and a small number of Japanese and Europeans – were coerced or tricked into working in military brothels between 1932 and Japan’s defeat in 1945. Continue reading...

The ex-deputy Liberal leader says if someone came to her with a sexual assault allegation ‘I would have felt a duty ... to inform the police’Julie Bishop has criticised how senior Morrison government ministers have handled the sexual assault allegation raised by Brittany Higgins and the historical rape allegation against attorney general Christian Porter.Porter has denied the allegation stating “it didn’t happen”. Continue reading...

Trio denied bail as government steps up legal fight against protest movement

Charles and Yidi Outhier, 54 and 47, met on a train in the US before Christmas in 2003. They live in the suburbs of Philadelphia with their pet tortoiseCharles Outhier was travelling from Austin, Texas to Tucson, Arizona to see his grandparents for Christmas at the end of 2003. “I had seen the film The Station Agent, and I thought the idea of taking a train sounded appealing,” he says. “But in San Antonio, the train car I was in had separated and all the passengers continuing on were herded into two cars that would connect with an incoming train.” He spent a miserable night trying to sleep on the crowded train with no air-conditioning and, once the trains connected in the morning, he went to the empty cafe car with sightseeing windows.He was soon joined by Yidi Shen, who sat down near him. “I had left China to study in Germany, and I was on an exchange programme in Wisconsin,” she says. “I got a train pass to travel the country and wanted to make the most of my opportunity in the US.” She had previously been travelling with friends, but had separated from them in Orlando, Florida, to go west towards California. Continue reading...

Striking visuals ignite a fragmented yet politically astute film, which follows a man who escaped a cult by killing its leaderThis challenging Colombian parable feels like it could have been made in the 1970s, what with its cryptic storytelling, spiritual musings and vivid imagery, all shot on grainy 16mm. Rejecting conventional narrative structures, its story takes some decoding, and may well defy comprehension, but its striking visual language, with vibrant colours, sparse compositions and free-associative editing, casts quite a spell.Our protagonist is a bearded, long-haired young vagrant named Pinky (Luis Felipe Lozano), whom we first find shooting a man, stealing a motorbike, then getting high in an abandoned warehouse. It transpires he has recently left a cult and has killed its leader. We never see the cult in question, but in voiceover we learn of the hold its leader had on Pinky and other outcasts: “We had been miraculously saved from a world that had always seen us as worthless.” Continue reading...

Some say the explicit medieval carvings were fertility symbols; others that the figures were meant to ward off evil. Now a group of Irish feminists are bringing them back – as a reminder of women’s strugglesCarved into stone, these women squat, naked, sometimes cackling, pulling open their enlarged labia: it’s no wonder Victorian clergymen attempted to destroy or hide the glorious, mysterious figures known as sheela na gigs.The carvings are found on medieval churches, castles and even gateposts in Ireland, the UK and much of mainland Europe. They seem to have their origins in the 11th century; the oldest discovered in the British Isles so far dates back to the 12th century, the youngest to the 16th. Yet their beginnings are an enigma. Early theories from art historians claimed they were grotesque hag figures to warn against the sins of lust – a way of keeping the minds of churchgoers and monks pure. Others suggest they are a talisman against evil: the act of women flashing their genitals has been believed to scare off demons as far back as the ancient Greeks. More recently, researchers have leaned towards the idea that the sheela is a pre-Christian folk goddess and her exaggerated vulva a sign of life-giving powers and fertility. Even her name is an enigma – although one theory is that “sheela” could mean an old woman or crone, and “gig” was slang for genitals. Continue reading...

Czech MPs to debate compensation bill for women as state refuses to acknowledge ‘attempted genocide’Elena Gorolová was 21 when she gave birth to her second son. “The doctor told me I would need to deliver via a C-section otherwise I would be risking the health of me and the baby.”In the delivery room, a nurse gave her papers to sign. “I was in so much pain … I was in no state to think about what I was signing,” says the social workerfrom the Czech Republic. She had unknowingly signed an agreement to be sterilised. Continue reading...

Elizabeth Broderick says parliament’s culture ‘not necessarily built on dignity and respect’. This blog is now closed

Extraordinary exchange paints picture of rift with family as couple says royals questioned how dark Archie’s skin would be

The story of how the US failed in its mission to eradicate chemical weapons in Syria, which descended into civil war 10 years ago, is bleak but engrossingOn 21 August 2013, at least 1,400 Syrians, including hundreds of children, were killed in Ghouta, east of Damascus. It was two-and-half years since the Arab spring uprising had begun against Bashar al-Assad. Regime forces used sarin, an internationally banned nerve agent, to target an opposition stronghold. And thereby hangs quite a tale.Barack Obama had already called on Assad “to step aside” and warned in 2012 that the use of chemical weapons would be crossing a “red line” – which would warrant military intervention. But the Democrat in the White House failed to carry out his threat, which was initially supported by allies, including Britain. Obama ended up welcoming an offer from Vladimir Putin to deal with this problem. Continue reading...

Our Turkey and Middle East correspondent reflects on a violent, tangled conflict that touches even the youngest livesYemen, and very dear Yemeni friends, hold a special place in my heart. But every visit is a bittersweet experience; even memories of the nicest afternoon can end up enveloped in sadness.During a 2019 trip, I was waiting for permission from the Houthi rebels to travel to the north, and got stuck in a desert town called Marib for a few days. I was tired from nonstop travel, the heat, eating badly, and trying to get any decent reporting done. Nothing happens very quickly in Yemen, if it happens at all. Continue reading...

Eddie Murphy’s much-anticipated sequel to the 1988 comedy is archaic in its portrayal of both black Africans and Americans as well as being devoid of humourThe shortcomings of the much-anticipated comedy sequel Coming 2 America are too many to list. But they all begin and end with the unfortunate yet predictable truth that the film simply didn’t need to be made. Inundated with tired tropes and stereotypes of black people on both sides of the vast Atlantic, it is difficult to grasp the objectives of the movie, parse through its dubious humour and imagine who its intended audience is.Related: Coming 2 America review – Eddie Murphy comes up gasping for heir Continue reading...

Surveys of attitudes in five countries finds women still experiencing stigma in the workplaceA third of women who have suffered symptoms of the menopause say they hid them at work, and many think there remains a stigma around talking about the subject, according to a survey of workers in five countries.More than 5,000 women in the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and South Africa were interviewed about their experiences of the menopause and work in research for the mobile phone provider Vodafone. Continue reading...

To mark International Women’s Day, explore beyond the stereotypes with Masuma Ahuja’s book Girlhood, a collection of diary entries from girls around the worldMasuma Ahuja was tired of seeing the same stories told about teenage girls. They were either victimised or sexualised, even if an “exceptional girl” such as Greta Thunberg or Malala Yousafzai was occasionally held up as a role model for fighting back.“We have very little understanding of the day-to-day life of girls and what life looks like for them,” says Ahuja. “I wanted to create a small portrait of what girlhood looks like in different places, and something that girls can pick up and feel seen by … and seen by girls elsewhere who share their own experiences.” Continue reading...

Exclusive: impact of pandemic has fallen unequally on women, leading to calls for strategy to restore balanceWomen across the UK have issued a “desperate cry for help”, with more than half believing that women’s equality is in danger of going back to the 1970s at work, at home and in society, according to an exclusive survey.After a year that has seen women more likely to be furloughed, lose their jobs, carry the burden of home schooling and domestic drudgery, women are increasingly fearful about their futures, with almost half of those surveyed in a Mumsnet poll for International Women’s Day expecting gender equality to go into reverse over the next few years. Continue reading...

Prime minister was already under fire for her recent handling of the Auckland Covid outbreakNew Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has cancelled one of her highest-profile regular media appearances, surprising commentators and fuelling criticism that she is dodging tough questions.Newstalk ZB’s morning show host Mike Hosking on Monday announced that Ardern would no longer be appearing for a weekly interview: a regular segment observed by New Zealand’s prime ministers for more than 30 years. Continue reading...