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Hundreds of government workers marched against the coup one day after officers used water cannon, rubber bullets and live roundsProtesters returned to the streets of Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw on Wednesday after the most violent day yet in demonstrations against a military coup that removed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.On Tuesday, tens of thousands marched in major cities and smaller towns across the country in defiance of a ban on gatherings in some areas, with police using water cannon, rubber bullets and live rounds against them. Continue reading...

Father and son sought refuge after protests but are becoming a diplomatic issue for SwedenTwo Belarusians who sought refuge in the Swedish embassy in Minsk in September are still there five months later, Sweden’s foreign ministry has announced, in a case turning into a diplomatic headache.A father and son, Vitaly and Vladislav Kuznechiki, tried to enter the Swedish embassy in the capital of Belarus on 11 September to seek asylum in the midst of widespread protests disputing the election of President Alexander Lukashenko. Continue reading...

Democrat senator Jamie Raskin fought back tears as he recounted his experience of the Capitol breach which happened the day after the death of his son.'This cannot be our future': Raskin's 24-year-old daughter and his son-in-law were hiding in his office during the attack.

Sadiq Khan’s landmark panel aims to inspire all parts of society and better reflect the capital’s diverse populationLondon’s commission on diversity in the public realm is not about tearing statues down, but addressing the dearth of monuments to people of colour and “instilling hope”, its youngest member has said.London mayor Sadiq Khan has announced the 15 panellists selected to be members of the new Landmark Commission to improve diversity in the capital’s public spaces. Continue reading...

Readers respond to the Guardian’s revelations about the monarch’s efforts to conceal the extent of her personal wealthAdam Tucker (The Queen has more power over British law than we ever thought, 8 February) argues that there is no place in a modern democracy for the convention of Queen’s consent to legislation before it is agreed by parliament. He has a point. But, as I argued in a report for the UCL Constitution Unit published last autumn, the parliamentary convention muddles up two quite separate issues – interference in the prerogative powers of the crown and effects on the private interests of the current sovereign and heir.There is an argument for enabling the sovereign and heir to comment on proposed laws affecting their private interests. They have no vote or voice in parliament – as is necessary to preserve their constitutional position. Queen’s consent is a somewhat heavy-handed way of achieving this, and can give rise to the kind of concerns expressed by Tucker. But while they may have influence, and some may think it undue, it is misleading to describe it as a veto. If consent were refused, parliament would be free to carry on legislating without it, if it chose to. The rule is self-imposed – parliament is free to ignore it. Continue reading...

The generation gap is growing into a chasm because of the refusal to listen to young people about their experiencesName: Melis LayikAge: 21Writing about your life experiences on the internet is always bound to elicit some distasteful responses. The comments sections on social media posts can teem with bigotry and chaos. Despite knowing all this, I was taken aback by the scorn and contempt levelled at me in some of the responses to my diaries in this series. Continue reading...

Temperatures drop to lowest levels since 2010 as police issue warnings not to travel

Royals used secretive procedure to approve laws that gave special exemptions to Duchy of Cornwall

Cathy Yan’s sprawling drama uses a real-life discovery of 16,000 porcine corpses to pick away at Chinese commercialismA breezily westernised style of Chinese movie is on offer in this 2018 debut feature from Chinese-American film-maker Cathy Yan, who two years later went to Hollywood to direct Birds of Prey, starring Margot Robbie. Dead Pigs is an ensemble dramedy set in Shanghai that satirises – in a distinctly lenient way – the commercialism eating away at China’s heart. It is inspired by a real-life incident in which thousands of dead pigs were found in the city’s Huangpu river, dumped by poverty-stricken farmers who couldn’t pay the disposal fees; the pig symbolism reminded me a tiny bit of Alan Bennett’s A Private Function.Related: 52 perfect comfort films – to watch again and again Continue reading...

Teargas and water cannon also deployed on fourth day of protests against last week’s coupPolice in Myanmar have responded with increasing violence to protests against last week’s military coup, using water cannons, rubber bullets and live ammunition in a crackdown that left a woman in a critical condition on Tuesday.Tens of thousands of people marched in towns and cities across the country in defiance of a ban on gatherings in some areas to voice their opposition to the military takeover of the government. Continue reading...

Leonid Volkov calls on people to gather near homes and post photos on social mediaAn ally of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has urged Russians to gather near their homes for a brief Valentine’s Day protest on Sunday, shining their mobile phone torches and lighting candles in heart shapes to flood social media.Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest against the incarceration of Navalny, a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin Continue reading...

Analysis: Start of long process by Wuhan team junks Trump allies’ claim that coronavirus escaped from a laboratory

The head of the World Health Organization-led team looking into how Covid-19 originated said on Tuesday its investigation had uncovered new information but had not dramatically changed the picture of the outbreak.Virus expert Peter Ben Embarek said the origin of the coronavirus pointed to a natural reservoir in bats. He said the hypothesis that it leaked from a lab in Wuhan was extremely unlikely and would not be part of any further study for his team

The co-founder of the Motown group was overshadowed by Diana Ross but won her battle to protect the group’s integrity• Mary Wilson: Supremes co-founder dies age 76In November 1969, Diana Ross announced her departure from the Supremes. It was not an entirely unexpected turn of events for anyone who knew about the internal workings of Motown Records. From the moment in 1963 when label boss Berry Gordy began taking an interest in the trio – whose seven singles to date had met with such commercial indifference they’d become known around Hitsville USA as the No-Hit Supremes – it was obvious who he thought the group’s star was. First Ross became the de facto lead singer on all their singles, with her fellow members Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard relegated to occasional leads on album tracks or on stage.It was clearly unfair – Ballard and Wilson were fine singers, the latter’s soft-toned version of Come and Get These Memories from The Supremes A’ Go-Go (1966) is delightful – but you couldn’t argue with the commercial results: they had five No 1 singles in 12 months. In 1967, the band’s name was changed to Diana Ross and the Supremes, precipitating the departure of the increasingly troubled Ballard. From that point on, the Supremes were a Diana Ross solo vehicle in all but name: subsequent singles, including Love Child and I’m Living in Shame, featured Ross backed by session singers. Continue reading...

The Māori party co-leader Rawiri Waititi has defied an order to wear a tie in the New Zealand parliament’s debating chamber – and was promptly ejected by the Speaker of the House. ‘It’s not about ties it’s about cultural identity,’ Waititi said as he left the chamber.Earlier, exchanges over the dress code between Waititi and the Speaker, Trevor Mallard, had grown heated, with Waititi saying he had chosen to wear cultural dress – ‘Māori business attire’ – to the chamber, with a pounamu, or greenstone necklace, in place of a necktie

Campaigners accuse ministers of ‘putting profit before Yemeni lives’ as figures revealedBritish officials authorised the export of almost £1.4bn of weapons to Saudi Arabia in the quarter after the UK resumed sales of weapons that could be used in the war in Yemen.Campaigners accused ministers of “putting profit before Yemeni lives” and said the figures highlighted the discrepancy between the UK and the US, which under President Joe Biden halted similar arms sales to Riyadh last week. Continue reading...

Hailed as France’s finest screenwriter, Carrière won many awards in a six-decade movie career – and for the stage penned a memorable Mahabharata for Peter BrookCelebrated French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, who penned some of the most memorable movies of the past half-century, including The Tin Drum and Cyrano de Bergerac, has died at the age of 89. Carrière, best known for his work with Luis Buñuel and Miloš Forman, died in his sleep late Monday at his home in Paris, his daughter, Kiara Carrière, told AFP.Related: Jean-Claude Carrière: 'If you want fame, don't be a screenwriter' Continue reading...

Company refused government request to remove more than 1,000 accounts linked to farmer protestsTwitter has expressed concern for the safety of its employees in India after the company’s refusal to comply with a demand from the Indian government to remove more than 1,000 accounts connected to the farmer protests in the country.In a statement, Twitter said it had reached out to the Indian government for a “formal dialogue” after the ministry of information and technology requested the removal of 1,178 listed Twitter handles it alleged were illicitly connected to Pakistan or the Sikh separatist Khalistan movement and spreading propaganda and misinformation. Continue reading...

Singer with Motown band whose hits included Where Did Our Love Go? dies in Las VegasMary Wilson, the co-founder of the Motown band the Supremes, has died age 76. Wilson’s publicist said she died suddenly at her Las Vegas home. No cause of death was given.The Motown founder, Berry Gordy, said he was “extremely shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of a major member of the Motown family”. Continue reading...

Harry Thomas Little has pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving after his patrol car smashed into a grandmother’s MercedesA Sydney police officer was allegedly driving at 135km/h in a 70km/h zone without his siren or coloured lights on just before he crashed into a grandmother’s car, leaving her with a severe brain injury, his trial has heard.Harry Thomas Little, 42, has pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm after his highway patrol car slammed into the driver’s side of Sydney woman Gai Vieira’s Mercedes in September 2018. Continue reading...

It wasn’t long ago that kink was so forbidden as to go largely unmentioned. We hope our book will help in the work of destigmatizing kink by making it more visibleIt started in the fall of 2017. I was staying at an artists’ residency in New Hampshire, and I was thinking about what it can mean to be afraid of one’s own desires, to feel ashamed of what the body wants.I had just published a story in Playboy, Safeword, about a couple arranging a first-time session with a professional dominatrix. By then, I’d published short fiction for almost a decade, but the story was by far the most sexually explicit piece of fiction I’d written, and I’d tried to brace myself for the odd, hostile notes I would surely receive from titillated strangers. As it turned out, I did hear from a lot of readers, but the notes weren’t hostile – instead, for the most part, people thanked me. The story had helped them feel less alone, they said. Continue reading...

Two more cases linked to the Melbourne airport Holiday Inn quarantine hotel were recorded on Tuesday afternoonTwo more people connected to Melbourne’s Holiday Inn quarantine hotel have tested positive for Covid with authorities saying it appears the virus has been transmitted on one floor of the hotel.A food and beverage worker at the Melbourne airport hotel tested positive on Tuesday afternoon just hours after a guest – who completed her 14-day quarantine at the hotel on Saturday – also tested positive. Continue reading...

Anthony Kalulu, a farmer in Uganda, says he has reason to doubt will to help the world’s poorest after the pandemicBeing poor, black and from sub-Saharan Africa is the hardest thing you can ever be. But that is what I am.Before Covid-19 came, extreme poverty had largely become a problem of only one part of the world – sub-Saharan Africa. According to the World Bank in 2018, the region was projected to host more than 90% of the world’s extreme poor by 2030. Continue reading...

In the late 19th century, French colonialists embarked on a madcap project to dig a channel eight times longer than the Panama Canal. These days it’s a wild and weird home for the birdsDuring this strange, cloistered year, I’ve been finishing off a book on Madagascar. With no view and no space, my mind has often wandered back to that island’s gigantic landscapes.At nearly 1,000 miles long, the island has left me with a rich cache of memories: cactus deserts, long pale beaches, vast cathedral-like limestone formations (tsingys in Malagasy), and forests that plunge from 1,000 metres down to the sea. Continue reading...

Company says adapting recruitment processes for neurodiverse groups disproportionately affected by unemployment has led to increased innovationTalking to people can be difficult for Rishabh Birla, but his last job demanded he did a lot of it. He has autism and finds making eye contact uncomfortable. For Birla, the rules of conversation are puzzling and he sometimes veers off course, alarming the other person.A 25-year-old postgraduate, Birla had been working at a cosmetics startup in Thane, not far from Mumbai. “The job involved communicating with different clients to keep track of their orders. It was exhausting to interact with so people every day,” he says. Continue reading...

Watchdog pressed to release further information about man who died after release from custodyThe police watchdog is facing growing pressure to disclose further information about the arrest of a man who died suddenly after being released from custody, after it was revealed that he came into contact with more than 50 police officers during the final hours of his life.Lawyers have demanded that the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which is investigating the contact South Wales police had with Mohamud Hassan, during his arrest and time in custody on the evening of 8 January, share evidence with his grieving family. Continue reading...

No artist is more celebrated for their compassion and empathy. So why has the Dutch master’s work been included in a shocking new show linking art and the slave trade?The title of the show is simple and stark: Slavery. Due to open this spring at the mighty Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, this bold exhibition documents the importance of this abhorrent trade in the rise and wealth of the Netherlands, by juxtaposing shackles and slave inventories with works of art. There is a metal ring that has been in the Rijksmuseum since the 19th century. Previously catalogued as a dog collar, it is now thought to have been used on a human. There are other similarly chilling exhibits in this disturbing show – and at the heart of them all hang two renowned paintings by Rembrandt.Their inclusion is shocking. After all, there is no artist more overflowing with compassion and empathy than Rembrandt. Yet this exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, home to so many of his masterpieces, reveals a side of the painter’s career that sits badly with our view of him as an artist with an expansive vision of what it means to be human. Continue reading...

The BBL is the fastest growing cosmetic surgery in the world, despite the mounting number of deaths resulting from the procedure. What is driving its astonishing rise?

They have been friends for 50 years. With theatres closed, they reflect on the joy – and hidden drama – of a life in actingTheatres around the UK have been kept dark by Covid, and it could be months before they are able to open. So we’re celebrating the stage by bringing together some of our greatest actors to share highs and lows from their careers, what they have learned from performing and how they feel about theatre’s precarious future. Vanessa Redgrave and Miriam Margolyes, mates for 50-odd years, start the series off with a chat about nerves, Chekhov and Barbara Windsor. The Guardian’s stage editor, Chris Wiegand, listens in.Miriam Margolyes: I’m in Italy, doing a lot of voice work. I’ve rigged up a little studio, in the back stable of my farmhouse, using Ikea curtain rails covered with duvets. I crouch in the middle with a microphone and computer. Continue reading...

One in five admitted to hospital but with no ventilation had symptoms such as flashbacks, study finds

Engineers for the national carrier, which is majority-owned by the government, worked on engines and a power turbine for the Royal Saudi NavyPrime minister Jacinda Ardern has asked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to investigate after it was revealed an Air New Zealand company worked on the engine of a Saudi Arabian navy ship.The national carrier for New Zealand, which is majority-owned by the government, is facing mounting questions after a TVNZ investigation revealed some of its specialist engineers worked on two engines and one power turbine for the royal navy of Saudi Arabia though a third-party company in 2019. Continue reading...

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Court filings show Juan Orlando Hernández, president since 2014, targeted by US prosecutors in case of alleged drug traffickerUS prosecutors are investigating the Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, according to a new court filing, piling pressure on a leader who prosecutors have already accused in court of participation in the nation’s bloody narcotics trade.In a court document filed on Friday night in the southern district of New York in the case of Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez, an alleged Honduran drug trafficker, federal prosecutors said Hernández himself was the target of an investigation, along with other “high-ranking officials”. Continue reading...

Policing minister, Kit Malthouse, reveals figures a month after data blunder was first revealed

The health secretary tries to stay upbeat despite the bad news about the South African variant

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam has said that people should not be concerned about reports that early results suggest the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has only 10% efficacy against the South African variant of coronavirus. Speaking at the Downing Street press conference on Monday, England's deputy chief medical officer said UK case numbers of the variant are 'very small', meaning it is unlikely to become dominant in the UK, and urged people to get vaccinated.

Less than 100,000 new cases reported on Sunday while researchers found B117 variant to be doubling in roughly over one weekThe US has reported fewer new Covid-19 cases and fewer people hospitalized than at any time since November, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Fewer than 100,000 new cases were reported on Sunday.Related: Disease experts warn of surge in deaths from Covid variants as US lags in tracking Continue reading...

China Matters thinktank says decision makers need to prepare for ‘all means short of war’ scenarioAustralia should plan with allies how to jointly push back if Beijing intensifies pressure on Taiwan, amid fears Xi Jinping could deploy “all means short of war” to seek unification, a leading analyst has argued.Linda Jakobson, the founding director of the Australia-based China Matters thinktank, said Australia should care about the future of Taiwan as it was the “kind of vibrant, free and democratic society that Australia wants to see flourish across the Indo-Pacific”. Continue reading...

German state worried at Austrian region’s plan to relax lockdown despite rise of South African variant

Anyone can make pizza from scratch, but these expert tips will make an everyday dish outstandingA lot has changed in the past year. What has not is Britain’s love of pizza. From the spike in sales of wood-fired ovens to Pizza Express’s new home pizza kits, the nation’s appetite for hot crust continues to develop like 48-hour fermented sourdough.According to cookware retailer Lakeland, 33% of people in the UK have made their own pizza from scratch. More than one-fifth of those who had done so own a pizza oven. There exists a coterie of foodies who, armed with portable Ooni or small clay pizza oven (both renowned for hitting the 500C required for Neapolitan-style pizza), are geekily absorbed in Italian flour grades and kiln-dried fuel options: fast-burning, hot birch wood for pizza; ash for lower, slower roasting. Continue reading...

Road safety, heritage and private land leasing were all subject of pressure from palace, records show

Pair cannot be punished as mission was launched from German-flagged ship, court rulesA Swedish court has acquitted two documentary film-makers of desecration after underwater footage they shot of the wreck of the Estonia ferry raised new questions about the cause of Europe’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.Henrik Evertsson and Linus Andersson sent a remote-operated submersible down to the vessel, which sank in the Baltic Sea in September 1994 with the loss of 852 lives and was designated a graveyard by Finland, Sweden and Estonia a year later. Continue reading...

Small-scale trial of vaccine shows it offers very little protection against mild to moderate infection

PM alleged to have accepted gifts from billionaires and traded favours with media and telecoms moguls

US social media platform that allows users to discuss sensitive subjects falls foul of China’s censorsChinese authorities have blocked domestic access to the audio-only social media app Clubhouse after it attracted untold numbers of Chinese people to uncensored, cross-border discussions on political and human rights subjects.The invitation-only US app, which only works on iPhones and was released in April 2020, allows users to listen in to discussions and interviews in quasi conference-call style online rooms. It suddenly became popular last week – particularly in China, where people seized the opportunity to discuss taboo topics including Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the persecution of Uighurs. Continue reading...

Pompous political history is rewritten in surreal style under the rule of avant garde director Matthew RankinMatthew Rankin is an experimental Canadian film-maker now presenting his debut feature, and the director he most obviously resembles is the silent-movie pasticheur Guy Maddin – a comparison some will find intriguing and others heart-sinking. For me, it’s somehow both. But there are interesting signs that Rankin has something Maddin does not: a sense of humour. We get one or two actual laughs.Related: 52 perfect comfort films – to watch again and again Continue reading...

Visitors urged to stay away after man sustains life-changing injuries trying to reach hikers

Continuing our series on the musicians that shaped them, Simon Hattenstone recalls the sweat and glitter his parents went through just so he could get closer to his glam-rock hero Roy Wood

Met Office warnings suggest there could be widespread disruption and power cuts in south-east England

Gregory Campbell said edition of TV show featuring only black people was the ‘BBC at its BLM worst’A Democratic Unionist party MP has sparked condemnation after describing an edition of Songs of Praise that featured only black people as the “BBC at its BLM worst”.Politicians in Northern Ireland and anti-racism campaigners urged Gregory Campbell to apologise and called on the DUP to sanction him. Sinn Féin said it had reported his comments to the House of Commons standards commissioner. Continue reading...