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Case brought in wake of rightwing government criminalising blame of Polish nation for Nazi crimes could have implications for further research

Art of Jeff Johns, aka Big Jeff, reflects love of live music and struggles with anxietyHe is a familiar and beloved figure on the Bristol music scene, a wild-haired, heavily bearded fan who can be spotted down the front at most gigs in the city rocking out to the upbeat numbers and swaying to the slower ones.But another side of Jeff Johns, aka Big Jeff, is being showcased at one of the cities most prestigious venues, the Bristol Beacon, formerly Colston Hall. Continue reading...

Brutal crackdown on protesters by riot police follows opposition leader’s 32-month prison sentenceThe Kremlin has attempted to play down the jailing of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, saying that his 32-month imprisonment would have not have “significant influence” on Russian politics or lead to a mass protest movement similar to the one in neighbouring Belarus.Meanwhile, protesters detained at recent rallies in support of Navalny have complained of inhumane conditions as police hold them in overcrowded jails or on buses in subzero temperatures days after their arrest. Continue reading...

Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono’s song denouncing “looting” in Mnangagwa’s regime has inspired a host of follow up versionsZimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin’ono has taken his fight against corruption to the ears of thousands around the world via reggae with a new song entitled “Dem Loot”.The reporter, who has been arrested three times in six months for his work challenging the current government, released a short video on Twitter singing against what he says is an endemic rot in Zimbabwe – and it has sparked a flurry of follow up versions under the hashtag #demlootchallenge. Continue reading...

It’s far more versatile than you think – it can transform potatoes, rolls and even a cocktail into something truly specialI used to think you could gauge a nation’s respect for mustard by considering which varieties were made available in the little packets on cafe tables. I later decided that all mustards have their charms, even that oddly dark one that passes for French mustard outside France. I also maintain a fondness for super-yellow American. It is not my favourite, but sometimes nothing else will do. The only bad mustard countries, I think, are the ones where you have to ask for it.There are as many recipes for mustard as there are variations of the stuff. I am going to include just one, for homemade dijon mustard, so you can get your head around what a thankless pain in the backside it is. Everyone should try making mustard once – and only once. Here is a video showing exactly how proper mustard should be made – in a giant factory by machines. Should you get another urge to produce mustard from scratch, watch this. Continue reading...

Here are some of your tributes to the second world war veteran who raised £38.9m for the NHS

Jho Low, wanted in connection with $4.5bn theft, tried to buy off-the-shelf citizenship from Cyprus, report statesA Malaysian fugitive wanted in connection with one of the biggest frauds in history attempted to buy a “golden passport” that would have granted him unrestricted access to the EU, according to a report.Jho Low, who is sought by law enforcement for his alleged role in the theft of more than $4.5bn (£3.3bn) from the government and people of Malaysia, sought the help of a passport brokerage called Henley & Partners to help him buy off-the-shelf citizenship from Cyprus, the report states. Continue reading...

Alison Carey describes Mariah as ‘heartless, vicious’ in lawsuit following pop star’s publication of The Meaning of Mariah Carey in 2020Mariah Carey is being sued by her older sister for “emotional distress” stemming from the singer’s 2020 memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey.Alison Carey’s lawsuit was filed with the New York County supreme court last Monday, and calls for at least $1.25m (£1.1m) in damages. Alison accuses Mariah of “heartless, vicious, vindictive, despicable and totally unnecessary public humiliation” via the book. Continue reading...

Ten-year government contracts to Clearsprings Ready Homes come into focus after complaints over living conditionsA company that runs the army barracks at the centre of a row over living conditions faced by asylum seekers stands to earn up to £1bn over 10 years for its government work, delivering multimillion-pound benefits for its owner.Clearsprings Ready Homes, owned by Essex businessman Graham King, runs Napier barracks in Kent, where hundreds of asylum seekers have told of poor conditions and going without heating and drinking water after a fire. Continue reading...

Ninety years ago, two groundbreaking horror movies were made: Lugosi’s official chiller and a covert version – which might just be its superiorThey came under the shadow of darkness – quite literally. Just as Dracula star Bela Lugosi was no doubt being tucked up for the night, director George Melford, cast and crew made their way on to the Universal studio lot in 1931 to shoot a Spanish-language version of the Bram Stoker 1897 horror novel, filmed using the same sets and costumes as the much more familiar Tod Browning masterwork.Melford’s production of Dracula was what is known as a multiple-language version – AKA MLV – which was one method by which the recently developed sound “talkie” aimed to reach non-English speaking audiences. Initiated by the 1927 release of The Jazz Singer – which featured 15-minutes of synchronised singing and talking – producers created prints in which dialogue was replaced with music and foreign inter-titles – the “international sound version” – but this became quickly obsolete and close to extinction by 1931. Instead, producers began to make entirely new versions of the same film: Paramount Pictures’ Paramount on Parade, directed by Edmund Goulding and released in 1930, saw 13 different releases, with Czech, French, Dutch, Hungarian, German, Italian, Japanese, Romanian, Polish, Serbian, Swedish and Spanish as well as English. But the MLV was expensive, and could rarely escape the perception that they were lesser productions. Continue reading...

Deliveries of items given to charities for sale on the continent have fallen foul of rules of origin requirementsA mountain of used goods is building up in the north-east of England as one of the biggest exporters of second-hand clothing to the EU has suffered a breakdown in trade caused by Brexit.Since January, exports to the EU from ECS Textiles in North Shields have ground to a halt due to border delays, piles of paperwork and confusion over post-Brexit rules, costing charities thousands of pounds in lost donations each week. Continue reading...

Kelly, who has been championing hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, had confrontation with Tanya Plibersek which was captured by camerasAfter weeks of controversy, Scott Morrison has publicly distanced himself from Craig Kelly, telling parliament the backbencher’s advocacy for unproven Covid therapies did not “align with my views, or the views and the advice that has been provided to me by the chief medical officer”.With Labor using the resumption of federal parliament to ratchet up political pressure on Morrison to publicly rebuke Kelly, fellow conservatives, including George Christensen and Matt Canavan, rallied for the member for Hughes, declaring he should not be silenced. Continue reading...

A new photo project revives 70s advertisements for beauty products yet recasts them with racially diverse and LGBTQ modelsLong before makeup moguls like Jeffree Star and Kylie Jenner were selling lip kits and mystery boxes on Instagram, there was the old-fashioned way of selling beauty products – in the pages of women’s magazines.Thin white women posed alongside phrases like “Lashes” or “Great look, great body, great mascara!” while donning blue eyeshadow and bright bursts of pink blush. Continue reading...

Analysis: The pandemic, combined with the climate crisis and crippling debt burdens, has led to an ‘unprecedented increase’ in poverty, experts warn

Economists say impact of leaving UK’s common market would hit two to three times as hard as leaving EUScotland’s economy would shrink by at least £11bn a year if it became independent, more than doubling the damaging impacts of Brexit, a team of economists has forecast.The report from the London School of Economics and City University of Hong Kong found that quitting the UK’s common market would hit the Scottish economy two to three times as hard as leaving the EU, just counting the impact on trade alone. Continue reading...

Senator Jordon Steele-John says plan to change NDIS Act is ‘cynical, misleading and offensive’Advocates have hit back at the NDIS minister, Stuart Robert, over a “cynical” and “offensive” plan to change the NDIS Act to deny people with disability access to sex worker services through the scheme.The Guardian reported in May a landmark federal court ruling that found it was possible for scheme participants to use NDIS funds to access specialised sex worker services if it was deemed “reasonable and necessary”. Continue reading...

Former prime minister says chancellor is paying bills for Covid ‘off the backs of the poor’The former prime minister Gordon Brown has launched a scathing attack on the unprecedented cuts to UK aid, saying they put at risk tens of thousands of children’s lives while millions more face losing an education.Writing in the Guardian, Brown said the planned cuts of 30% – £5bn – which come into force at the end of next month meant that the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was “paying the bills for Covid off the backs of the poor – at home and abroad”. Continue reading...

Court locks up Putin’s foe despite threat of protests and international condemnationA Moscow court has sentenced Alexei Navalny to two years and eight months in a prison colony in a landmark decision for Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on the country’s leading opposition figure.The move triggered marches in Moscow and the arrest of more than 1,000 protesters. Continue reading...

The fall of the Berlin Wall was greeted with jubilation – but it also unleashed chaos and fear. As the cold war TV spy saga reaches 1989, its writers and stars recall those tumultuous daysWhen Joerg Winger did his military service in West Germany, he was given the job of snooping on Russian troops stationed in the GDR, or East Germany, the authoritarian regime on the other side of the iron curtain. “It was the 80s,” Joerg says. “I was a radio signaller. And one Christmas, I remember the Russians wishing our officers seasons greetings – using their names. So we knew we must have a mole. That was the origin of the story.”Joerg is talking about his tense, thrilling and superbly wardrobed Deutschland TV series, which returns this month for its third and final outing. He created it with his wife, Anna, who had the idea of telling the story from the perspective of the mole. Enter our long-suffering young protagonist Martin Rauch, who goes undercover in the west and never seems more than five seconds away from being exposed. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Sadiq Khan review into ‘discriminatory’ police matrix found 38% on list posed little or no riskOne thousand young, black men have been removed from an allegedly discriminatory gangs database used by police in London, after a review found they posed no or little risk of committing violence, the Guardian has learned.The Metropolitan police’s gang violence matrix contains the names and details of thousands of people who police say pose a risk of committing gang violence. It then gives them a score showing how likely they are to commit gang violence. Continue reading...

Knightsbridge Circle offer is first evidence of Covid-19 vaccine being used to attract tourists

The team led by Peter Ben Embarek entered the heavily guarded building saying they were looking forward to a ‘productive day’

Initial batches expected to arrive by end of March, with frontline workers and those most at risk to go firstThe Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has been provisionally approved for use in New Zealand, where the government will begin vaccinating frontline healthcare and border workers in the coming months.Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, said the approval was a positive step in the country’s fight against Covid-19, of which there have been fewer than 2,000 cases nationally. Continue reading...

Thierry Santa’s multi-party government collapses a few months after narrow referendum vote to remain within French republicEven as Tropical Cyclone Lucas bears down on New Caledonia, the French Pacific dependency also faces a political storm, with the collapse of the multi-party government led by President Thierry Santa.Five members of the government, representing the pro-independence groups UC-FLNKS and the Union nationale pour l’indépendance (UNI) resigned on 2 February. Both groups are members of the Front de libération nationale kanak et socialiste (FLNKS), which campaigns for independence from France. Continue reading...

German chancellor defends EU approach to vaccinations; Poland confirms decision not to give AstraZeneca vaccine to elderly

Media speculations suggest former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi could become prime ministerItaly’s president, Sergio Mattarella, has said he would seek a “high profile” government, as speculation grew that it may be led by the former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi.Mattarella made the announcement after ruling coalition partners failed to form a majority following Giuseppe Conte’s resignation as prime minister last week. Continue reading...

Only 94,000 properties built in first nine months of 2020, well below the 300,000 a year promisedCovid-19 has knocked the government further off course from its housebuilding targets, a study has revealed, with only 94,000 new homes built during the first nine months of 2020.The first wave of coronavirus led to the temporary closure of construction sites last spring, leaving output well below the 300,000 new homes a year which the Conservatives pledged in their manifesto, according to research by the Resolution Foundation thinktank. Continue reading...

National League for Democracy urges military to acknowledge 2020 election resultThe party of Aung San Suu Kyi has called for her immediate release and for Myanmar’s 2020 election results to be acknowledged by the military, which took power in a coup on Monday.The country’s elected leader, who was among dozens of political figures picked up by the army, reportedly remains under house arrest. Continue reading...

WA fire commissioner says the out-of-control blaze has destroyed at least 71 houses with a wind change expected Wednesday afternoon

The second world war veteran, who raised almost £39m for NHS charities, has died after testing positive for Covid-19. Moore walked 100 laps around his garden to raise money, earning him his first of two Guinness World Records. He broke his second one when he became the oldest person to reach number one in the UK charts with the single You'll Never Walk Alone, which he recorded with Michael Ball and The NHS Voices of Care Choir. In July, he was knighted by the Queen

Regulations for the specialist ‘live bivalve molluscs’ market have hit exports from Britain post-Brexit

The Queen leads tributes to second world war veteran who was knighted after raising £38.9m for NHS

Parliament votes to try Inger Støjberg over 2016 order aimed at separating asylum-seeking couplesDenmark’s parliament has overwhelmingly voted to try a former immigration minister at the rarely used court of impeachment over a 2016 order aimed at separating asylum-seeking couples where one partner is under 18.The 179-member Folketing voted 139-30 to try Inger Støjberg, who served in the previous government from June 2015 to 2019. The court will convene for the first time in 26 years. Continue reading...

Felicity Laurence gives a stark warning with regard to the UK’s asylum policy, while Vivien and Charles Rowe urge everyone to sign a petition to close down places such as Napier barracksJack Shenker’s devastating article on the Napier barracks (Locked in a barracks with Covid running rampant. Is this any way to treat asylum seekers?, 27 January) lays out fundamental questions of who we really are as a people and our limits of cruelty towards the “other”, who so inconveniently and persistently keep coming here to seek sanctuary.He calls out the “dystopian vision” of asylum policy, as made explicit in the barracks. But we have glimpsed this already: remember the terrifying 2019 TV series Years and Years, where people were coming on boats across the Channel, crammed into decaying ex-army barracks in the middle of a lethal pandemic and abandoned there to let nature take its course? And remember, too, the high barbed-wire fences and gates around the estates where poor people lived? Continue reading...

Man’s neighbor notified police of his death in November, but found in January that no one had come to collect his bodyFor two months, Vienna’s funeral services “forgot” to pick up the body of an elderly man who had died in his apartment, according to a city official.The 66-year-old man had been living alone and had been ill for a long time, and was found dead in his flat on 11 November by a neighbour who had been helping him. Continue reading...

Hugh Kerr Bradley Roberts reportedly found tied to vessel that sank near Souda, where it was usually moored

UK historian prepares online lesson for 1.5m children on population survey’s role in tracing the past and looking to futureAs a child growing up on a council estate in Gateshead, the historian David Olusoga remembers his mother filling in a lengthy form about their family: ages, occupations, how they travelled to work, birthplace, language, religion, whether they owned or rented their home. “I wanted to know what this thing was,” he says.Now, he describes the census as “a snapshot taken every 10 years. It’s like somebody suddenly turns on the light – and you can see everybody, where they are.” Continue reading...

Decision came after council withdrew 12 staff at Larne following reports of ‘menacing behaviour’Brexit checks on animal and food products arriving into Belfast and Larne ports have been suspended amid fears over the safety of staff, Northern Ireland’s agriculture ministry has said.The decision came after Mid and East Antrim borough council agreed on Monday night to remove 12 of its staff at Larne port with immediate effect, following an “upsurge in sinister and menacing behaviour in recent weeks”.

An amber weather warning for snow is in force across much of South Yorkshire and parts of Derbyshire, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester until 1pm on Wednesday. Between 3cm and 8cm of snow is likely, with 10cm to 15cm possible in areas above 200 metres

Patrick Murfet says he tried to import bees via Northern Ireland but was told they would be destroyed

Activists are urging a traditional show of solidarity amid wary anger over the military’s coupIn Myanmar, if you want to drive evil from your home, you bang pots and pans. Yangon’s streets were filled with the din of clashing metal in 2007, when monks called for an end to military rule, and before that, in 1988 when the former president Sein Lwin, or the “butcher of Rangoon”, ordered troops to shoot pro-democracy protesters. Activists have called for pots and pans again.Evil has returned, they say; Gen Min Aung Hlaing has led a military coup against the democratically elected government and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, whose immense popularity within the country helped her National League for Democracy (NLD) win a landslide victory in 2020. The military’s electoral proxy secured fewer than 7% of available seats, leading it, and the military, to claim widespread electoral “fraud” without evidence. Continue reading...

19-year-old Joseph Flavill from Staffordshire was hit by a car last year and has caught Covid twice

Coronavirus vaccine appointments in parts of North Yorkshire to be rescheduled after heavy snowParts of northern England have had heavy snowfall overnight and the Met Office has warned rural communities are at risk of being cut off and widespread travel disruption is likely.The warning came as the the Met Office said last month was the coldest January in the UK since 2010 with an average temperature of 2.2C. It was also been the coldest calendar month since March 2013, which also recorded an average temperature of 2.2C. The coldest January on record was 1963 with a mean temperature of minus 1.9C. Continue reading...

The physiological changes that take place around a woman’s period can affect her training. Experts assess when to take it easy – and when you should go hard

Amid lockdowns, their daily activities have been put on hold – and their owners fear they won’t recover from itThe daily life of a working guide dog is filled with dynamic combinations of people, smells, sights and sounds. Their job – to navigate this cacophony on behalf of their visually impaired handlers – is intense and important. When Covid-19 hit, these dogs couldn’t open up a laptop and continue working from home. Now, their owners are grappling with the pandemic’s long-term effects on their guides and guardians.“One of my very first thoughts when I heard that my city was shutting down was ‘OK, what am I going to do with my dog?’” says Marie Villaneda, 19, of Bloomington, Indiana. She got her guide, a five-year-old Bernese mountain dog and black lab mix named Milot, at 15. Pre-pandemic, the duo walked 10 miles a day, so “it became clear very, very quickly that Milot was bored”. For guide dogs, “guiding is like writing a doctorate dissertation. It takes a lot of the dog’s brain power and physical energy,” she says, “and there’s just nothing equivalent that I can simulate at home.” Continue reading...

Babis Makridis takes to the sky with an experimental and sometimes difficult to watch manifesto inspired by Aristophanes’s play The BirdsTwo-thirds of the way into this experimental Greek docu-fiction, one of the wandering souls featured – apparently watching footage from the film – loses his rag. “This is not about birds. It’s about us being crazy as loons. Come on Babis, I’m a customer here, too, I need to understand.” With director Babis Makridis showing all the confrontational strangeness of the Greek new wave here, the exasperation is understandable.What Makridis has cobbled together is a poetic and initially utopian manifesto for self-liberation inspired by Aristophanes’ play The Birds, in which a king transforms into a hoopoe. In nine chapters with titles such as “Find your voice” and “Take off, land”, Makridis quizzes the characters in poker-faced interview setups about their hopes of becoming birds, and observes these avian wannabes as they make strange fluttering calls on urban streets and roam stark landscapes in search of their inspiration, “Mr Hoopoe” – all intercut with performance excerpts from Aristophanes. The precise significance of all this remains up in the clouds with the aerobatic planes he marvels at; although the assemblage starts to drum up an almost shamanistic mania as people perfect their bespoke bird caws and incant against a lightning-blasted cityscape. Perhaps the lack of easy graspability is trying to jar us into a similar consciousness shift, to get modern society soaring above its current disillusionment. Continue reading...

Canadian casino executive and his wife sneaked into remote town to get injections meant for older populationOn a chilly morning in late January, three planes landed on the lone airstrip of a remote community in northern Canada.The first two carried members of a mobile team from the Yukon territory’s health department who were there to give Covid-19 vaccines to the residents of Beaver Creek. The tiny settlement of about 100 inhabitants had been prioritised because of its older population, many of whom belong to the White River First Nation. Continue reading...

Canberra is understood to fear that isolating country risks driving junta into China’s embrace

Australia may not be a post-truth Covid hellscape – but the Coalition can no longer be a safe harbour for fringe viewsIf you’ve been imbibing Craig’s Kelly’s Covid monologues over the summer and wondering why Scott Morrison lets one of his own MPs regularly contradict the official public health advice without rebuke, let me try to answer your question.Given that this is politics, we can start with politics. Let me draw your attention to what I’ll call Project Representation. Continue reading...

Study of pregnant women travelling to health facilities found journeys took up to four times longer than online maps suggestedThe heavy traffic and bad roads of Lagos have been baffling online mapping tools with potential “life and death implications” for people trying to reach the city’s hospitals, research has found.Researchers looked at cases of pregnant women trying to reach hospital in the Nigerian capital, infamous for its roads, and found they faced a journey of up to four times longer than computers and satellites suggest, which mean the models for access to healthcare facilities are also out of kilter. Continue reading...