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Fifty years ago, a hit album proved whales “sing” – and led to one of the great environmental success stories. But soon it could all be for nothingIn June 1975, a small group of activists set off from the coast of California in an 85ft boat. They were headed for the Dalniy Vostok factory ship, which was at sea conducting business as usual: harpooning sperm whales.The activists were members of Greenpeace, an organisation that had only recently been founded, in Vancouver in 1971, and they were setting out to meet the Russian whaling ship under the banner of what would become one of the most famous slogans of the environmental movement, Save the Whales. Continue reading...

Did I waste one of the great self-improvement opportunities of my life playing video games, getting into craft beer and cleaning the bathroom too much?‘Look at this,” I say to my girlfriend. “Pretty cool, right?” I am slowly rubbing a mildly abrasive product called Bar Keeper’s Friend into the white worktop of our kitchen counter, eradicating an almost invisible stain. “It’s mildly abrasive, I guess,” I continue, when she says nothing. “You remember that coffee ring?” Silence.Seven weeks into the first lockdown, my girlfriend and I have nothing left to say to one another. Every possible human experience that has occurred in this flat over the past two and a half months has been vocalised, analysed and wrung dry. One night before bed, she pleaded: “Say something to me!” and, in desperation, I started talking about a podcast I had listened to earlier in the day, but one I couldn’t remember entirely, so I spent 20 minutes roughly explaining the concept of Nikola Tesla before falling asleep. In comparison, ushering her to the kitchen to watch me almost remove a coffee stain is a vast improvement. “It’ll probably need another going over, but …” I trail off. “How much was it?” she asks. I’m electrified by the chance at having something new to say. “It was two pounds and 99 pence.” Continue reading...

Seven years ago, she was nearly killed in pursuit of the sport she loves, but she defied expert’s predictions and made a stunning comebackIn the photographs of her record-breaking ride, the Brazilian surfer Maya Gabeira is a tiny blade on the water, cutting a line of white spume down the deep ridge of the vast grey wave that climbs behind her. The wave in question measured 22.4 metres (73.5ft), the highest ever surfed by a woman, the first to be measured and verified by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and a couple of feet greater than the one surfed by her nearest rival. It is also the biggest wave measured this year, surfed by man or woman.Gabeira, who broke her own previous Guinness world record of 68ft, attributes her achievement to what she calls “taking a critical line”. In short, she takes her board to the fiercest and tallest part of the wave, “where the most powerful energy is, where it is actually breaking”. This, she says, is how “you put value into your wave”. Continue reading...

Industry leaders warn of invisible chaos as businesses grapple with trading rules and software systems

People in tier 4 areas must stay at home and not meet up with other households

A photographer tells us what she learned from her two young sons while photographing them during the pandemicDecember marks the 10th month of the Covid-19 pandemic. For a child this can feel like their entire life with no end in sight. For my two sons, nine-year-old Joey and eight-year-old Jackson, the initial transformation from normal to “new normal” did not exactly start out smoothly but turned out to be an unexpected gift. Continue reading...

Multi-billion-dollar project is unnecessary and damaging to wildlife, say scientistsAustralia is planning to build Antarctica’s biggest infrastructure project: a new airport and runway that would increase the human footprint in the world’s greatest wilderness by an estimated 40%.The mega-scheme is likely to involve blasting petrel rookeries, disturbing penguin colonies and encasing a stretch of the wilderness in more than 115,000 tonnes of concrete. Continue reading...

Court grants prosecutors’ request to appeal against bail order on media mogulThe Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai has been returned to jail after the city’s highest court ruled in favour of prosecutors’ request for leave to appeal against his already highly restrictive bail order.The decision will keep the 76-year-old in jail until at least February, even though he has not been accused of a violent crime and is not considered a flight risk. Continue reading...

Butterflies with Mariah, Bronski Beat in the Peak District, Snoop Dogg on a food delivery ad … our writers reveal the tracks that made 2020 bearableWhen it came to lockdown comfort listening, there was something particularly appealing about lush symphonic soul made by artists such as Teddy Pendergrass and the Delfonics. But there was one record I reached for repeatedly: Black Moses by Isaac Hayes, and particularly the tracks arranged by Dale Warren. Their version of Burt Bacharach’s (They Long to Be) Close to You is an epic, spinning the original classic into a nine-minute dose of saccharine soul. But their cover of Going in Circles, another Warren exercise in expansion, is their masterpiece, reimagining the Friends of Distinction original as a seven-minute arrangement with stirring strings and beatific backing vocals that builds into a story about lost love that transcends the genre’s usual parameters. A perfect, if slightly meta, balm for the repetitive lockdown blues. Lanre Bakare Continue reading...

As Britain embarks on its solo journey, we celebrate the places put on the map by the UK’s rocky relationship with EuropeIoannina is no Mykonos. A city on the northern Greek mainland near the border with Albania, it is landlocked and rarely on any tourist trail. As far as guidebook mentions go, it’s silverwork, feta cheese and local spring water.But back in spring 1994 it burst on to front pages across Europe, seizing the minds of politicians. Ioannina joined the ranks of little-known European cities to host a European summit and become a household name for a fortnight. Continue reading...

Covid may have made 2020 a year to forget, but amid the gloom there were plenty of positive momentsWhat with one thing and another, 2020 hasn’t been a great 12 months. But the hardest year, perhaps, that many of us will have experienced has also brought some startling achievements, positive consequences and uplifting moments – a few flashes of light in the gloom. Continue reading...

People urged to stay home as investigation continues into source of Croydon cluster in Sydney and cases in Melbourne. This blog is now closed

Coronavirus, conflict and cuts to UN funding are increasing the risks of food insecurity and acute malnutrition in 2021The government has promised £47m in extra emergency aid for 2021 as it becomes clear that the coming year will see a dramatic rise in people struggling for food.The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on Wednesday it will provide more aid for food, water, hygiene and shelter in 11 countries, including £8m to Africa’s Sahel region, where the UN has warned of catastrophic hunger. Continue reading...

Despite court battles, female officers face limited career opportunities and inferior pension rights to male counterpartsNidhi Rao* has 13 years’ experience serving in the communications wing of the Indian army. Now she is looking for work online and doesn’t know where to start. “I am jobless in the middle of a pandemic, with no financial security.”When Rao joined the army, female officers were contracted for five years, after which time they might get an extension of five more years. Unlike men, they were not offered a permanent job. Later, the initial commission period was changed to 10 years, which could be extended a further four years. Continue reading...

Rodin, Bacon and Eileen Agar will be big, but Abramovic’s art attack could eclipse them all. Plus Frank Gehry unleashes a tornado and Helen Levitt shows how street photography should be done Continue reading...

Eastern capitals are set for mostly cloudy weather as more storms hit parts of the countryMuch of eastern Australia can expect a stormy start to 2021, but a heatwave will continue to bake the west.The Bureau of Meteorology was warning of thunderstorm activity from Friday and through the weekend, thanks to tropical moisture from the Coral Sea. Continue reading...

The veteran broadcaster broke her collarbone during her signature song, and will be replaced by an understudy ‘for the time being’The broadcaster Kerri-Anne Kennerley has broken her collarbone and chipped her ankle after falling from a trapeze during Wednesday night’s performance of Pippin at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre.Kennerley plays Pippin’s grandmother Berthe. The final part of her signature song, No Time At All, is performed from the trapeze in this production of the Stephen Schwartz Broadway classic. Continue reading...

Prime minister thanks MPs and peers after Queen gives royal assent to bill redrawing ties with EUHow did your MP vote?Labour frontbenchers quit after defying Starmer on dealBoris Johnson’s post-Brexit trade deal with Brussels has passed into law following a whirlwind 14-hour parliamentary process that has radically redrawn the UK’s ties with Europe.The prime minister thanked MPs and peers for passing the European Union (future relationship) bill in one day, in a statement urging the nation to “seize” the moment when the transition period with the bloc ends at 11pm on Thursday. Continue reading...

Latest updates: police and gendarmes to crack down on illegal parties; some English schools delay return as UK records highest death toll since April

Cases in Colorado and California raise questions about how mutation entered the country and whether its too late to stop itThe US has now reported multiple cases of the new and apparently more contagious variant of the coronavirus first detected in the UK, triggering concerns about how long the mutant version has been here and how widely it has spread.The first known case was reported in Colorado on Tuesday. The person infected was later identified as a National Guardsman who had been sent to help out at a nursing home struggling with an outbreak. Health officials have said a second Guard member may also have it. Continue reading...

Labor’s trade spokesperson attacks Dan Tehan for complacency, saying two-year-old report has been ‘gathering dust’ while exports fell 18.4%Labor has accused the Morrison government of failing to act on a two-year-old blueprint for deepening ties with India, after Australia’s new trade minister vowed to push for a free trade agreement between the two countries.Australian exporters have been scrambling to find other markets after China – the top trading partner – clamped down on a range of imports including wine, barley, coal and seafood over the past year. Continue reading...

Ontario premier Doug Ford under pressure after he admits knowing about Rod Phillips’s trip for weeks

Los Angeles experiencing catastrophic surge as state reports its first case of new UK Covid variantCalifornia has again shattered its record for Covid deaths, with 432 fatalities reported on Wednesday as the state faces its deadliest month in the pandemic and a dire shortage of hospital resources.The state also announced its first known case of the new coronavirus variant first detected in the UK. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said he had just learned of the finding in a Southern California case Wednesday. Continue reading...

More than 20 people are unaccounted for after a landslide hit the town of Gjerdrum in the early hours of 30 December. Several homes were swept away and emergency services are still searching for the missing. About 500 people have had to be evacuated from their homes

Landslide north of Oslo prompts evacuation of 700 residents, with more than 20 people still unaccounted for

The prime minister said now was a ‘critical moment’ to take action and ‘redouble efforts’ to contain the rapid spread of the new variant of coronavirus. Boris Johnson went on to explain that the restrictions would affect the return to schools for students in the worst affected areas, but expressed hope that the situation would be 'much better' in April, if vaccination programmes are successful in coming months

A truncated parliamentary session, less than 48 hours before the end of the transition period, was too little, too lateIn a damning assessment of Wednesday’s token debate on Boris Johnson’s Brexit trade deal, the Hansard Society’s senior researcher dismissed it as “a farce.” As one of the most depressing and shambolic periods in British political history reaches a denouement, perhaps that should have come as no surprise.MPs were allotted five hours to discuss the 1,246-page treaty, agreed last week, which completes Britain’s departure from the European Union. Such a derisory level of scrutiny, said Hansard’s Brigid Fowler, was “an abdication of parliament’s constitutional responsibilities.” Exuding insouciance, the leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, quickly revealed the government’s contempt for such notions. The risibly short session, he told MPs, was merely the “icing on the Christmas cake that the prime minister delivered for the nation”. So much, then, for the restoration of parliamentary sovereignty, the lodestar that supposedly guided the Brexit project. In the absence of any alternative, bar a disastrous no-deal exit on New Year’s Day, the European Union (future relationship) bill was rushed through by a majority of 448. Cognisant of its myriad flaws, Mr Johnson had good grounds for wanting it to be waved through on the fly. Continue reading...

Country inisists all people who die of virus are cremated even if it violates religious beliefs

Crowds reportedly led by Islamic clerics attempt to destroy ancient shrine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regionA violent religious mob has set fire to a Hindu temple in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region and attempted to tear it to the ground.Crowds of thousands, reportedly led by Islamic clerics, descended on the Hindu temple in the village of Teri, in Karak district, on Wednesday and began to rip bricks from the walls and set it on fire. Continue reading...

The European Union (future relationship) bill now heads to the Lords and needs to become law before the post-Brexit transition ends tomorrow night

Figure of 981 deaths is a 175% increase on previous 24 hours, and 50,023 new cases are recorded

Staff at Wockhardt in Wrexham buzzing at news of approval after working over ChristmasMost of the sprawling industrial estate on the edge of Wrexham was quiet. There was little sign of activity at the engineering firms or in the self-storage units or the greasy spoon cafes.But behind the wire fence of the Wockhardt UK plant, the laboratories and production lines were buzzing as scores of staff worked on the final part of the manufacture of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. Continue reading...

Prosecutors reject Italy’s finding that Egyptian security officials were behind kidnap and torture

Explosions struck after plane carrying the Yemen prime minister and cabinet politicians landedAt least 26 people have been killed and more than 60 injured after an attack on the airport in the Yemeni city of Aden that appeared to be targeted at a plane carrying members of the newly formed government.Three loud explosions and gunfire were heard on Wednesday afternoon as members of Yemen’s cabinet disembarked. Clouds of smoke billowed from the terminal building. Initial reports suggested the blasts had been caused by mortar shelling or missiles. Continue reading...

The controversial ‘job-ready graduates’ package and a ban on the export of certain types of unprocessed waste to take effectAustralia is about to mark the end of a year like no other, but some new year rituals endure. One of the enduring traditions is the Australian government setting 1 January as the start date for a range of changes to fees, regulations and benefits. Here are six changes to look out for: Continue reading...

Reports of police using teargas against protesters after news of detention while campaigningThe Ugandan presidential candidate Bobi Wine has been detained for the third time in two months, while campaigning in the country’s central region.Wine, a popular musician whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, was taken to the capital Kampala in a military helicopter. Members of his campaign team were also detained. Continue reading...

Met Office warns of hazardous driving conditions in areas covered by yellow warningsSnow and ice is expected across most of Scotland as well as parts of northern and southern England, Northern Ireland and Wales as 2020 draws to a chilly conclusion.Covid restrictions mean there is less traffic on the roads, but the Met Office has warned of hazardous driving conditions in areas covered by yellow warnings. Continue reading...

I’m still no Jimi Hendrix, but after a year’s solid practice I have just about mastered one R&B trackThis year, my original new year resolution was to be a two-pronged attack on my unhealthy lifestyle in the form of restrictions on booze and food. Sadly, that was waylaid by the unavoidable catastrophe of coronavirus, paired with the wildly avoidable catastrophe of Boris Johnson being prime minister.Given that we have been trapped in our homes, I had to rapidly reimagine my ambitions. Without the assistance of chicken so deep fried it practically becomes a sedative, or the sweet embrace of red wine, I suspect I would not have been able to cope with 2020. Continue reading...

As Zoom fatigue set in, many of you found creative ways to stay in touch with loved onesSome of my friends and I began a lockdown playlist on Spotify, where we would all add one song per day that was either related to how we were feeling or just something we happened to be in the mood for at the time. Music is very emotive: it can create the feeling of your friend’s presence in a way that even a video call or their voice can’t quite manage. We carried on even after the lockdown and did more playlists, where we would take it in turn to think of a theme. Despite physical distance, we were building something together, and it was really nice to be part of it. Ed, Norfolk Continue reading...

This warm documentary about Robin Williams reveals how much he was loved by those who knew himWhen Robin Williams died in 2014 at the age of 63, the tabloids filled in the blanks. The front pages speculated on the return of his well-documented demons: Williams had a history of depression, alcohol addiction and cocaine use. Then came the postmortem, revealing that actually he’d been suffering from an undiagnosed degenerative brain disease, Lewy body dementia. Which explained his symptoms in last 18 or so months of life: Parkinson’s-like tremors, visual hallucinations, paranoid delusions and sleep disturbance. As a neurologist puts it, he must have been terrified.In this sensitive, desperately sad documentary, Williams’s widow, Susan Schneider, along with friends and colleagues, describes his decline. For a while, things just hadn’t seemed right. There’s footage from the set of his final movie, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb; he looks blank and distracted – the alertness and anarchic wit gone. “He was just sort of off,” says a friend. He couldn’t remember his lines. He hadn’t slept for months. There were times he followed Susan around the house. Continue reading...

We don’t know their names, but these scientists have been working tirelessly to fight the pandemic. It’s time to say thank you

A Spanish TV show brought Tavalán’s ‘Evil Angels’ to national attention. It now hopes their restoration will help revive the shrinking rural townFew paths to perdition are quite as pleasant as the one that weaves through the small town of Talaván, passing a 16th century church studded with storks’ nests and skirting lush fields of livestock before ending at a walled garden long abandoned to pokeweed, lovage and the elements.There is no sulphur and no brimstone, only the scent of rain on grass and gravestone; no shrieks of the roasting damned, only the soothing muttering of sheep and goats. Continue reading...

Shirley Regal, 88, had been ill for a while, the host of The Apprentice says

Country becomes only the third in South America to permit elective abortionsArgentina has become the largest Latin American country to legalise abortion after its senate approved the historic law change by 38 votes in favour to 29 against, with one abstention.Elated pro-choice campaigners who had been keeping vigil outside Buenos Aires’s neoclassical congressional palace erupted in celebration as the result was announced at just after 4am on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Here are the current coronavirus hotspots in New South Wales and what to do if you’ve visited them

People in tier 4 areas must stay at home and not meet up with other householdsLarge areas of England have joined London, the south-east and east of England in tier 4, amid a surge in Covid-19 cases and alarm about a new strain of coronavirus spreading rapidly. Continue reading...

Initially refused asylum, a judge on appeal ruled that Arthur Britney Joestar would suffer persecution if sent back to El SalvadorRefugee status has been granted over a person’s non-binary status for the first time in a UK court, following a landmark ruling.The judgment, in the upper tribunal, was decided in the case of Arthur Britney Joestar from El Salvador after concluding that they would face persecution for their identity if they returned to their home country. Continue reading...

NSW reports 18 new cases including in the Blue Mountains, Wollongong and Sydney’s inner west. This blog is now closed

Benjamin Netanyahu welcomes ex-US navy analyst who served 30 years in jail for document leaks to Israel