Respondents say their trust in both Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond dented by Holyrood inquiry

Murder investigation launched into death of Wenjing Xu as family pays tribute to ‘a very gentle soul’The family of a 16-year-old girl killed in south Wales have paid tribute to “a very gentle soul” as police launched a murder investigation.South Wales police named Wenjing Xu as the victim of an attack in the town of Treorchy, which also left two men in their 30s with injuries. Continue reading...

Bennylyn Burke, 25, from Gloucestershire, and her daughter last seen on 17 FebruaryThe disappearances of Bennylyn Burke and her two-year-old daughter, Jellica, are now being treated as a murder investigation, Police Scotland said. A 50-year-old man from Dundee has been arrested and charged in connection with the deaths of Burke and her daughter. Officers are still searching for their bodies.The 25-year-old mother and her two children were reported missing from their south Gloucestershire home on Monday 1 March, having been last seen on 17 February. Burke’s other child has been found and is being supported, according to police. Continue reading...

Vehement reactions to upcoming TV exclusive suggest royals still have power to inflame opinion

Cabinet Office used ‘unverifiable data’ to rebut a Road Haulage Association survey showing export volumes dropped by 68%The Cabinet Office run by Michael Gove has been officially reprimanded by the UK Statistics Authority for using unpublished and unverifiable data in an attempt to deny that Brexit had caused a massive fall in volumes of trade through British ports.The criticism follows a story in the Observer on 7 February that cited a survey by the Road Haulage Association (RHA) of its international members showing export volumes had dropped by a staggering 68% in January through British ports and the Channel Tunnel. Continue reading...

Andrés Manuel López Obrado claims the measure is only intended to avoid provocation

Gavin Hillier died after being injured at Castlemartin Range in Pembrokeshire on Thursday eveningThe Ministry of Defence has named a soldier in the Welsh Guards who died after being injured in a live firing exercise as Sgt Gavin Hillier.A spokesperson for the MoD said: “It is with great sadness we can confirm Sgt Gavin Hillier from the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards died on 4 March, 2021. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this tragic time. Continue reading...

A fatwa pronounces both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines as halal for MuslimsWhenever imam Alaa Alzokum comes across conspiracy theories – whether in person or online – he bridles at their poor sourcing.“It[’s] always from people who say ‘people say this, people say that’, but never from an actual expert,” he says. Continue reading...

Released from years of detention without explanation, dozens of asylum seekers have abruptly been left to fend for themselves in an unfamiliar landThe last time Ebrahim Obeiszadeh had a job was in 2013, when he was working at a sugar factory in southern Iran.It was the first and only job he had before he embarked on a dangerous journey to Australia, where he hoped to be granted protection from the political persecution he says he suffered in his homeland. Continue reading...

Orthodox Christians brandish crosses outside country’s state broadcaster over song called El DiabloDozens of Orthodox Christian faithful held wooden crosses and sang hymns outside Cyprus’ state broadcaster on Saturday to demand the withdrawal of the country’s controversial entry for the Eurovision song contest – titled El Diablo – that they say promotes satanic worship.Some of the protesters, including families, held placards reading in Greek, “We’re protesting peacefully, no to El Diablo,” “Repent and return to Christ” and “Christ saves, Diablo kills.” Continue reading...

The Pulitzer-winning author on difficult second novel syndrome, using humour to explore trauma, and the return to a ‘more efficient version of American imperialism’The Vietnamese-American author Viet Thanh Nguyen’s second novel, The Committed, is the sequel to his celebrated debut, The Sympathizer, a spy thriller set against the backdrop of the Vietnam war that was both a New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2016 Pulitzer prize for fiction. The Sympathizer established Nguyen as both a literary star and an advocate for displaced people around the world. In The Committed, his unnamed protagonist arrives, as a refugee, in 1970s Paris, looking to shore up his identity on a diet of drug-dealing gangsterism and poststructuralist theory. Nguyen is a professor of English, American studies and ethnicity, and comparative literature at the University of Southern California as well as a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times.You’ve written about the ease of writing your first novel. How was it sitting down to write your second with a Pulitzer under your belt?

The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, said impact of vaccines was being seen in hospitals, but people should continue to follow restrictions

In a video statement for International Women’s Day, the German chancellor said women were disproportionately affected

Catholic and Shia leaders strengthen dialogue between their faiths on first ever papal visit to the countryTwo of the most influential faith leaders in the world reached across a religious divide on Saturday to promote peace and unity in a historic meeting.Pope Francis, 84, the head of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, 90, the spiritual leader of most of the world’s Shia Muslims, talked for almost an hour during the first ever papal visit to Iraq, the pontiff’s first trip abroad since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...

Christine Schraner Burgener says UN must put junta ‘on notice’ and stand with people of MyanmarMyanmar security forces used teargas and stun grenades to break up protests in Yangon on Saturday as a meeting of the UN security council was urged to take action to stop the killing of civilians.Myanmar has been plunged into turmoil since the military overthrew and detained the country’s elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi on 1 February, with daily protests against the coup and strikes that have choked business and paralysed administration. Continue reading...

BMA, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Midwives and Unison say pay recommendation ‘fails the test of honesty’The government is under mounting pressure to reconsider its proposed 1% pay rise for NHS staff in England, with four trade unions writing a joint letter to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to express their “dismay” and calling for a fair pay deal.The British Medical Association (BMA), the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Nursing and Unison said the pay deal “fails the test of honesty and fails to provide staff who have been on the very frontline of the pandemic the fair pay deal they need”. Continue reading...

Internal reports show projected cuts including 59% in South Sudan, 60% in Somalia and 67% in SyriaSome of the poorest and most conflict-ridden countries in the world will have their UK aid programmes cut by more than half, according to a leaked report of discussions held in the last three weeks among Foreign Office officials.The cuts include slashing the aid programme to Somalia by 60% and to South Sudan by 59%. The planned cut for Syria is reported at 67% and for Libya it is 63%. Nigeria’s aid programme would be cut by 58%. Continue reading...

The conversation, expected to draw millions of viewers, could mark the transition from royalty to Hollywood eliteIt may be an American coronation of sorts.When Oprah Winfrey’s highly anticipated and potentially explosive interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex airs in its primetime spot on Sunday evening, millions across the US are expected to watch. It will be the couple’s first interview since since stepping back from their royal duties in early 2020, but it could also mark the moment that the Sussexes evolve from British royalty to Hollywood elite. Continue reading...

Completing survey is vital to ensure access to health and care services, says Race and Health ObservatoryAn independent NHS body is urging black and minority ethnic communities to complete this year’s national census survey to help capture a more accurate picture of the overall health condition of households across England.The independent NHS Race and Health Observatory has called on minority ethnic communities to complete the online survey sent by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) by Sunday 21 March, or shortly after. Continue reading...

Aid groups warn of collapsed health system as traumatised people displaced by Islamist insurgency in Cabo Delgado seek helpThe insurgency in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province is causing a mental health crisis, with a quarter of the region’s population now displaced.People are struggling with untreated trauma after witnessing extreme violence, including mass beheadings, said humanitarian groups concerned about the strain on those who have sheltered dozens of displaced people in their homes. Continue reading...

Pontiff, 84, continues visit amid tight security and concerns about rising Covid infection ratesPope Francis has had a symbolic meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of the most senior clerics in Shia Islam, in Iraq’s holy city of Najaf.The historic meeting in Sistani’s home was months in the making, with every detail painstakingly discussed and negotiated between the ayatollah’s office and the Vatican. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Document produced by university cited agency as secret funder of researchFor an agency devoted to secrecy and surveillance, it is an embarrassing slip-up. An inadvertent disclosure on a university document has revealed that MI5 is partly behind what was meant to be a covert bug and drone research project.Ostensibly, Imperial College’s research was to create a quadcopter system for charging remote agricultural sensors – but MI5’s participation has emerged because somebody involved stated it was the secret second funder of the programme. Continue reading...

Published here exclusively in English, the Dutch writer responds to the controversy over their decision to resign as Amanda Gorman’s translatorNever lost that resistance, that primal jostling with sorrow and joy,

Exclusive: in Everything inhabitable, published in the Guardian, the Dutch writer responds to controversy over the decision to appoint a white translator to the black poet’s bookThe International Booker winner Marieke Lucas Rijneveld has written a poem responding to the controversy that broke out after they withdrew from the job of translating Amanda Gorman’s poetry into Dutch, writing that they took the decision because they were “able to grasp when it / isn’t your place”.Related: Everything inhabitable: a poem by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld Continue reading...

Robyn, 32, credit controller, meets Danny, 36, radio presenter/DJWhat were you hoping for?

Male suspect, 23, taken into custody after 48-year-old was pronounced dead at sceneA 23-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder in North Yorkshire.Officers were called to Mayfield Grove, Harrogate, just after 10pm on Friday and found the suspect in the street, North Yorkshire police said. Continue reading...

Tourism industry could not wait for clarity from Brussels about Covid-19 immunity certificates

Nationals MP says attorney general should seek independent inquiry into rape allegations

Two teenagers thrown out of cart, one woman run over and a man injured in accident at Lockhart Showground in RiverinaFour people have been taken to hospital after a horse drawing a cart bolted in a “freak accident” at a showground in regional New South Wales.Emergency services were called to the Lockhart Showground in the NSW Riverina region just after 11.30am on Saturday. Continue reading...

Another 30 injured in ‘cruel attack’ and death toll could riseTen people have been killed after a rickshaw loaded with explosives was detonated by al-Shabaab Islamists at a popular restaurant in Mogadishu.The three-wheeler rickshaw, fitted to carry a load on the back, had been packed with explosives when it hit the restaurant near the capital’s port, said Somali police spokesman Sadik Dudishe. Continue reading...

NSW police suspend search for Caddick’s remains in waters around her Dover Heights neighbourhood

Italy warns of rapid spread of new cases; WHO chief warns of third and fourth surges if curbs eased too fast

Nurses leaders set up industrial action fund as Tory MPs fear another U-turn by the governmentMinisters are on a collision course with millions of NHS staff as they insisted the country could not afford a more than 1% pay rise for health workers even as nurses leaders raised the prospect of strike action.The health secretary, Matt Hancock, on Friday insisted the decision to recommend such a small increase was due to an assessment of “what’s affordable as a nation” after the economic toll taken by the coronavirus crisis. Continue reading...

Welsh Guards sergeant fatally wounded at Castlemartin training area in PembrokeshireA sergeant in the Welsh Guards has died after being injured in a live firing exercise in south-west Wales.It is understood the incident, first reported by the Sun newspaper, occurred at the Castlemartin training area in Pembrokeshire. Continue reading...

MinterEllison’s chief, Annette Kimmitt, reportedly sent an all-staff email in which she apologised for ‘pain’ caused by representing attorney generalThe chief executive of the law firm representing Christian Porter is under fire after reportedly sending an all-staff email critical of the lawyer who took the case.On Friday the Australian Financial Review reported that Annette Kimmitt, the chief executive of Australia’s largest law firm, MinterEllison, had sent an email to the firm’s more than 2,500 staff saying she was sorry for any “pain” caused by the decision to take the attorney general as a client. Continue reading...

A person who tested positive for the Brazilian variant of Covid has been tracked down to Croydon and appears not to have infected anyone else, the health secretary said. Matt Hancock said the effort took a team of 40 people and was launched in an attempt to prevent the mutation, which is believed to be more transmissible and have greater resistance to vaccines, from spreading

After a turbulent two weeks in parliament, Katharine Murphy talks to Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young about her experiences in fighting toxic cultures in the workplace. They discuss the ways women in the spotlight can be supported, and whether the domino-like effect will continue Continue reading...

Rex Patrick calls on the government to reassess all social security debts ‘calculated unlawfully using averaging of payslips’The independent senator Rex Patrick has called for a sweeping review of Centrelink welfare debts, after the federal government was again rebuked at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal over its methods.The AAT, which reviews social security decisions, recently ruled in two decisions that debts imposed on two welfare recipients by Centrelink could not be upheld. Continue reading...

In this book extract, Steve Braunias describes a visit to the New Zealand home of the German internet entrepreneur who is fighting extradition to the USThis is the way the world ends: in a candy store. When I asked Kim Dotcom for his address in Queenstown so I could sit with him a while and interview him about his views on how to survive the coming apocalypse, he replied that he would send someone to collect me on a Thursday at 4pm at the Remarkables Sweet Shop on the main street in nearby Arrowtown. I got there early. It was a cold, fresh winter’s day, with black ice and low snow, and birds shivered in the trees above the pretty Arrow River. Tourists filled the candy store. I stood there lurking among the trays of Aniseed Twists and Cola Fizzballs. As soon as I stepped onto the pavement, a big black Mercedes pulled up. It was four o’clock on the dot.The rendezvous had come about because Dotcom got in touch after reading a story I wrote for The New Zealand Herald about preparing for Doomsday. “The end of the world as we know it is coming,” he emailed. “We are close, I think.” I thought so, too. I wrote a year-long series of stories about end days; the subject occupied my mind day and night, I was sleepless, worried, a wreck, but I fancied that I was also practical and methodical, and kept busy by laying down provisions and supplies to protect my family when the world spiralled towards Hell in a fiery and terrifying hat. Continue reading...

Cases could plateau at a point equivalent to summer 2020 peak, while vaccines have reached relatively few peoplePublic health experts encouraged Americans to continue social distancing and wearing masks at a potentially critical inflection point in the pandemic – one in which highly effective vaccines could provide relief, but fervor to reopen public life could unintentionally spread new Covid-19 variants.The warnings come the same week Texas and Mississippi flung open the doors to normal social life in their states. Continue reading...

Resurgence in gravity-defying dos follows Black Lives Matter movementThe intricate art of sculpted hair celebrating black identity is front and centre of British Vogue’s April issue. Made up of four different covers around the theme of “joy”, each edition features different models (Achenrin Madit, Precious Lee, Mona Tougaard and Janaye Furman) with their hair moulded into spherical, coloured balls.But the trend is not new. “In the 60s and 70s hair sculpture became part of the black consciousness movement,” says Prof Carol Tulloch, the author of The Birth of Cool: Style Narratives of the African ciaspora. “Gravity-defying hair creations contributed to the black is beautiful [ideology] and revelled in the beauty of black hair.” Continue reading...

Number of online ads surges after nationwide protests against jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei NavalnyRussia’s riot police have launched an online recruitment campaign in the weeks since nationwide protests erupted over the jailing of the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.Police forcefully dispersed tens of thousands of people who took part in three protests in January and early February, when Navalny returned to the country from Germany and was later jailed for two and half years. Continue reading...

Decline wipes billions off Elon Musk’s fortune as investors fear firm is vastly overvaluedA sharp decline in Tesla’s share price has wiped more than $250bn (£193bn) off the value of the electric car company, and dragged down the value of an Edinburgh-based investment fund that is one of Tesla’s biggest backers.The shares dropped by 7.5% in early trading in the US on Friday to $575 – setting them on course to close down 16% this week and 35% below their record peak of $883 on 26 January. Continue reading...

Keith McLeay suggests the first minister’s successes are deserving of more recognition, John Warburton says the Scottish government is spending Scottish money, Adam Rennie argues that accountable parliamentary democracy is alive and well, and Liam Stewart addresses the use of ‘yous’Martin Kettle’s article on Rishi Sunak and Nicola Sturgeon (Nicola Sturgeon and Rishi Sunak were both playing for Scotland’s future, 3 March) was thoughtful, but he reinforces the oft-repeated UK media narrative that Sturgeon’s popularity during the pandemic is solely due to her presentational skills, in referring to “Sturgeon’s successful presentation of herself as Scotland’s national crisis manager”.Clearly she is a consummate performer, probably the best in the UK currently. However, given that England has a Covid-19 death rate that is significantly higher than Scotland’s, it is clear that Sturgeon has achieved a better outcome and saved many Scottish lives over the course of the pandemic. Continue reading...

Signs of pollution detected at burial sites but no water contamination, says environmental agency

In 2015, Nathalie Warmerdam was killed by an ex-partner. Now her brother Joshua Hopkins has teamed up with the author to write a song cycle highlighting such everyday atrocitiesFive years ago, Nathalie Warmerdam was murdered by her ex-partner in one of the worst cases of domestic violence in Canadian history. The 48-year-old was Basil Borutski’s third victim that day; he also killed two other former partners, Anastasia Kuzyk and Carol Culleton. Boruktski was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in 2017.Warmerdam’s brother Joshua Hopkins, an acclaimed baritone, was rehearsing in Ottawa when he received the call. Continue reading...

Only ‘patriots’ will be allowed to stand for election and democratic representation will be reducedChina’s top lawmaking body has formally unveiled plans to ensure only “patriots” can govern Hong Kong, as Beijing tightens its grip on the city with electoral changes including a vetting process for all parliamentary candidates.In an annual “work report” delivered on Friday to Beijing’s most important political meeting, Premier Li Keqiang swore to “resolutely guard against and deter” interference by external forces, amid growing international alarm at Beijing’s attacks on pro-democracy voices. Continue reading...

High court makes ruling after Duchess of Sussex’s victory in copyright claim against paperThe Mail On Sunday must publish a front-page statement about the Duchess of Sussex’s victory in her copyright claim against the newspaper over its publication of a letter to her estranged father, the high court has ruled.Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of The Mail On Sunday and MailOnline, has also been ordered to print a notice on page three of the paper stating it “infringed her copyright” by publishing parts of the letter sent to Thomas Markle. Continue reading...