Six week lockdown agreed in Belfast; French president’s positive test causes European leaders to isolate; Dutch cases increase by almost 13,000

The mid-year federal budget update reveals Mineralogy has requested ‘consultation’ regarding a potential investor-state disputeAustralian taxpayers could be on the hook for compensation following a dispute between the Western Australian government and Clive Palmer’s Mineralogy, federal budget papers reveal.The mid-year economic and fiscal outlook (Myefo), released on Thursday, discloses that the federal budget is at risk from a “prospective investor-state claim against Australia” pertaining to WA’s extraordinary law to prevent Palmer seeking billions of dollars in compensation. Continue reading...

Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth are on trial for the death of Mario Cerciello Rega in RomeThe US student who admitted stabbing a policeman in Rome last year was shaking and crying inside a police station after learning the attack was fatal, his mother has testified at his trial.Finnegan Lee Elder, 20, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 19, face life sentences for the July 2019 death of police officer Mario Cerciello Rega during a botched drug bust in Rome while they were on holiday. Continue reading...

English performer played bounty hunter Boba Fett in original trilogyStar Wars actor Jeremy Bulloch, who played Boba Fett in the original films, has died aged 75.The English actor died in hospital on Thursday from “health complications following his many years living with Parkinson’s disease”, according to his agent. Continue reading...

Katsina state governor reveals rescue in televised interview, after abduction claimed by Boko HaramMore than 300 schoolboys kidnapped in northern Nigeria have been rescued, the Katsina state governor has said.The 344 boys, whose abduction was claimed by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, were on their way back to Katsina, Aminu Masari told the state broadcaster on Thursday. Continue reading...

PM says no deal is ‘very likely’ after speaking to Ursula von der LeyenBoris Johnson claimed the Brexit talks were in a “serious situation” after a call with Ursula von der Leyen, even as the EU’s chief negotiator raised hopes of a weekend Brexit agreement by persuading the European parliament to delay its deal deadline to Sunday.In a statement released after a short stock-take telephone call on Thursday evening with the European commission president, the prime minister repeated his suggestion that it was “very likely” that an agreement would not be reached, with fisheries the standout issue. Continue reading...

Inspectors had expressed ‘serious cause for concern’ after force failed to record a fifth of all reported crimesGreater Manchester police (GMP) are to be placed in special measures after inspectors expressed “serious cause for concern” when the force failed to record a fifth of all reported crimes.Last week Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) criticised GMP for failing to report 80,000 crimes in the year to 30 June. Continue reading...

One in three on Aegean isles have contemplated suicide amid EU containment policies, report revealsYears of entrapment on Aegean islands has resulted in a mental health crisis for thousands of refugees, with one in three contemplating suicide, a report compiled by psychosocial support experts has revealed.Containment policies pursued by the EU have also spurred ever more people to attempt to end their lives, according to the report released by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) on Thursday. Continue reading...

Robert Jenrick says measure necessary after arrests of mayor Joe Anderson and council officersThe government has ordered an emergency inspection of Liverpool city council following the arrest of the mayor, Joe Anderson, and a number of council officers in a corruption inquiry.Robert Jenrick, the communities and local government secretary, said he had ordered the inspection to get “direct, independent assurance that the council is compliant with its best value duty”. Continue reading...

Chancellor says extra time will help cushion economic blow, with budget set for 3 March

Analysis: amid constitutional changes and Navalny poisoning, Russian president strives to maintain powerFor a man who has spent much of 2020 in social isolation, it has been a busy year for Vladimir Putin. He changed Russia’s constitution to allow himself to stay in power potentially until 2036; acted to retain influence over his “near abroad” as protests erupted in Belarus and conflict flared in Nagorno-Karabakh; and, according to a wealth of evidence released this week, ordered the assassination of his leading political opponent with a chemical weapon.As news breaks of one of the biggest and most significant hacks of the US government in history, with Russia the prime suspect, it seems that Putin and his intelligence services may have retained their appetite for audacious, controversial moves, six years after the annexation of Crimea and four years after the alleged interference to aid Donald Trump’s election campaign. Continue reading...

Jean-Luc Brunel taken into custody on suspicion of crimes including rape and trafficking of minorsFrench police are questioning the boss of a modelling agency suspected of supplying underage girls to the late American financier Jeffrey Epstein.Jean-Luc Brunel, 74, was arrested by police at Charles de Gaulle airport before boarding a plane to Dakar on Wednesday, French officials said. Continue reading...

Drinking sherry, bingeing Downton Abbey ... how authors keep up the spirit of the season, even when writing during heatwaves and a nightmarish Christmas

When Sky’s foreign affairs editor had her live broadcast gatecrashed by her four-year-old, an instantly relatable meme was born. But does Charlie now wish he’d asked for more?The look of panic, the embarrassed laugh, the mortified apologies: a young child crashing a work video call has been the peril of lockdown for working parents and many would have instantly recognised Deborah Haynes’s pain. The difference for the Sky News foreign affairs editor was that she was on live television, broadcasting from her spare room – and so was her four-year-old son, Charlie, who had come in to ask if he could have two biscuits. In a grim year, it was one of the lighter moments.We speak over Zoom one morning as Haynes is trying to get everyone ready for school. Charlie, hugely angelic, sits patiently for all of 20 seconds before wandering off. That morning in July, Haynes had been asked to go on air at fairly short notice to talk about the strained relations between the UK and China over Hong Kong. Her two older children were out. “I put Charlie in front of the television and I think I gave him a cake, so I genuinely thought I was covered,” she says. “I had played out in my head what I would do if he came in and never properly established it; I just didn’t think it would really ever happen. So when it did, I genuinely wanted a hole to gobble me up. It was like everything slowed down.” Continue reading...

Analysis: A leaked recording of the movie star yelling at crew on his latest blockbuster is not evidence of tyranny, but the extraordinary strain of keeping the huge undertaking afloatIt is a lonely business, being a Tom Cruise fan in 2020. The heel lifts, the way his arms pump when he runs (nobody runs like Tom Cruise), his Dorian Gray looks: I love Cruise for all of it, and yet I’m aware this is a deeply unfashionable opinion, and one I’m often called on to defend at dinner parties. And so it befalls me, as Cruise’s solitary champion, to step to his aid now, like Ethan Hunt in a tuxedo taking on a posse of earpiece-wearing hitmen, as behind him an orchestra plays Nessun Dorma.Related: Top bun: Tom Cruise's cake-mailing habit proves he's a real Christmas miracle | Stuart Heritage Continue reading...

Amid the chaos of the pandemic and with the future so uncertain, the pop music that resonated was glittery, danceable and comfortingly familiarPop music has the ability to be more reactive to current events than ever. Advances in technology mean that the famously swift musical responses of rock’s past – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s Ohio, in the US Top 20 within weeks of the Kent State massacre that inspired it; the hastily cobbled-together tributes to Elvis Presley and John Lennon that appeared in the charts in the wake of their deaths – should theoretically look tardy. If an artist is so minded and inspired, they could write, record and release a song that reacts to current events overnight.In 2020, there was a torrent of reactive tracks released in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests: YG’s FTP, Lil’ Baby’s The Bigger Picture, Stevie Wonder’s Can’t Put It in the Hands of Fate, HER’s I Can’t Breathe, the two acclaimed double albums released by the mysterious British collective Sault. Even the Killers reworked their 2019 anti-Trump track Land of the Free to reference Floyd’s death. But if anyone was expecting something similar to happen as a result of Covid-19 – a rash of unexpected new releases ruminating on the strangeness and anxieties of life in a pandemic or sternly admonishing politicians for their mishandling of the crisis – 2020 will have proved a crashing disappointment. They didn’t happen in any quantity, unless you count the well-intentioned but musically ghastly burst of charity singles that proliferated during the spring lockdown, or the equally abysmal anti-lockdown tracks released by Van Morrison and Ian Brown, rock’s own tinfoil-hatted Laurel and Hardy. The music that did appear unexpectedly, from artists keen to put the time on their hands to creative use, largely avoided the subject of the pandemic entirely: Taylor Swift’s Folklore and Evermore, Charli XCX’s How I’m Feeling Now, Paul McCartney’s McCartney III. Continue reading...

Peter Wilson to leave Kingspan, which made combustible insulation installed on the towerA director of the company that made combustible insulation used on Grenfell Tower has quit in the wake of evidence the firm used out of date fire tests to market material it knew could burn “like a raging inferno”.Peter Wilson will stand down in a fortnight as managing director of Kingspan’s insulation boards division and as a director of the plc. He is the only board member to leave the Irish company since the disaster on 14 June 2017, which killed 72 people. Continue reading...

Member states blame uncertainty over Brexit as reason for breach of next year’s limitsFish populations will continue to be over-exploited in EU waters, partly as a result of Brexit, after a decision on next year’s fishing quotas among EU countries fell well short of scientific advice.Fishing limits are set to exceed scientific advice for about a third of EU fish stocks, after EU ministers met on Thursday morning, with EU member states citing the uncertainty regarding fishing rights after Brexit as a reason for breaching limits on sustainable catches. Continue reading...

Number of digital subscribers grows 60% in a year, with record 190m page views in one day on 4 NovemberThe Guardian now has more than 1 million subscribers and regular contributors, after support from online readers grew by 43% in a year.Figures released by Guardian News & Media on Thursday show that digital subscriptions alone grew by 60%, with total digital recurring support – a measure counting all those with a regular financial commitment – rising from 632,000 in November 2019 to 900,000 last month. There are also 119,000 print subscribers. Continue reading...

28 June 1928 – 23 September 2020

Residents asked to work from home for three days while others in NSW advised to avoid the area

Russian president denies Bellingcat’s claim Russia dispatched hit squad as he holds end-of-year press event

Release of 18 men seized by Khalifa Haftar’s forces ends standoff between countriesEighteen Italian fishermen, held captive in Libya for more than 100 days, have been freed, ending a political standoff between the two countries over the fate of the men.The prolonged imprisonment of the group had become an embarrassment for Italy’s government, with critics accusing ministers of failing to stand up to Khalifa Haftar, the military commander who holds sway in eastern Libya. Continue reading...

From watermelon to tiramisu and Caribbean pepperpot, here are the festive home menus from Rick Stein, Angela Hartnett and many othersRick Stein, chef and founder of Rick Stein restaurants, nationwide

Police had feared child, who disappeared after trip to McDonald’s with family friend, may have been abducted

The actor reflects on the diverse casting of the Netflix period drama, facing up to British history and how the pandemic has made him find new ways to ‘make my skills useful to other people’“As an artist, you have to constantly ask yourself: ‘Why this story? Why now?’”, says Regé-Jean Page. The 30-year-old actor is video-calling from his apartment in Los Angeles and expounding on his latest role as the rakishly debonair duke of Hastings in the Regency-era romance Bridgerton.A frothy period drama bolstered by a lavish Netflix budget might not seem like the most pressing nor most relevant of artistic choices for Page to be making. Yet, he sees the eight-part series as a subversive act, because of its diverse cast injecting multiculturalism and a boundary-breaking sense of sexual intensity into a traditionally white, staid setting. Continue reading...

Software could be used to identify videos filmed and uploaded by Uighur person, says IVPMThe Chinese tech company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd offered facial recognition software to clients which can identify the face of a Uighur person, according to a new report.The US-based surveillance industry research firm IVPM said on Thursday it had found the detection technology in Alibaba’s Cloud Shield service, which offers content moderation for websites. Continue reading...

Single people invited on free tour with fortune-teller in attempt to boost Covid-stricken travel sector

Developer says it plans to focus on using pig organs for human transplant rather than selling for meatGenetically modified (GM) pigs have been approved for food and medical use in the US, drawing mixed reactions. The pigs are only the second GM animal to be approved for food after GM salmon in 2015.The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week approved the GM pigs, which have been engineered to eliminate alpha-gal, a sugar found in pigs that can cause allergic reactions.

Alongside our countdown of the best films of 2020, our chief film critic selects his favourite movies, directors and performances of the yearAs for everyone and everything else, this has been a traumatising year for cinema. Many new movies have had to be viewed at home, on streaming services, and cinephiles have had to accept this arrangement, rather like gourmets who see their favourite restaurants survive by repurposing themselves as delivery and takeaway centres. And streaming has, arguably, given a new audience to independent and arthouse cinema that might not otherwise have much of a showing in theatres.Lockdown has intensified the debate about the validity of the small-screen experience of cinema – and it’s especially intense for me, when I consider one of my favourite films of the year. Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock is one of the glorious works in McQueen’s superb five-movie Small Axe sequence about the Black British experience. It is gloriously cinematic and was slated to feature at this year’s (cancelled) Cannes film festival. But it was commissioned by the BBC, and so the vast majority of the people enjoying this wonderful film will be doing so on the small screen. That’s why it is being described, understandably, as one the television highlights of the year. Continue reading...

When a young street seller set himself on fire to protest lack of employment opportunities and government corruption, Tunisia became the cradle of the Arab spring revolutions that swept the middle east. Less than a month later, the dictator Ben Ali had to flee the country he had ruled for 23 years. Ten years on, what change has the revolution brought and was the sacrifice of so many worth the price? Continue reading...

In a year that Zimbabwe should have been celebrating its 40th anniversary of independence, the country has battled drought, protests and food insecurity. In response, photographer Hannah Mentz created a project showing the talents and achievements of 40 Zimbabweans, including leading women in their field

Between 1935 and 1965, New York was the epicentre of a revolutionary new style of photography. A new exhibition captures its energy Continue reading...

Women from the mountains of Uttarakhand in India have been guaranteed palanquins so that they can reach vital transportNarendra Kumar is going to become a father in early January. His wife, Kavita, became pregnant two months after they got married in February and since then he has been worrying about getting her to hospital when the time comes.It’s a steep three-kilometre walk along a narrow, unpaved mountain path through oak and rhododendron forests from their village of Gwalakot to the main road where they could pick up a car or ambulance to ferry them to hospital in Nainital. Continue reading...

She published her first book in her 40s and became the biggest selling author of the past decade in any genre – The Gruffalo alone has sold 13m copies. How did this former busker make it so big?The room where the children’s author Julia Donaldson writes – the heart of her vast picture book empire – is down a winding staircase, in the cellar of her grand white house in Steyning, West Sussex. Her desk looks out on the street at knee height. “I’m thinking of writing a book about legs,” Donaldson said, as she showed me around the house this summer. Children from the nearby school often wave in at her as they pass. Donaldson is well known in Steyning, due to her frequent signings at the local bookshop. She and her husband, Malcolm, a retired paediatrician, recently bought the local post office to save it from closure. But elsewhere she can walk the pavement without being recognised. “I got a letter the other day for Jacqueline Wilson,” Donaldson told me. “It said: ‘You’re my favourite author!’”If you are not someone who spends much time with young children, you may only be dimly aware of Donaldson’s work – although you will probably be familiar with her most famous creation, the Gruffalo. If you have children, however, you will know her as a cultural juggernaut whose influence among children is perhaps only surpassed by the works of Disney and CBeebies. Donaldson, who is 72, has written more than 210 books: chiefly picture books, but also poetry, plays, a 60-part phonics reading scheme and a novel for preteens. Many of them – such as Room on the Broom, The Snail and the Whale, and What the Ladybird Heard – are already considered classics. Several have been adapted into stage shows and animated BBC films (the latest, Zog & the Flying Doctors, will air on Christmas Day) and spawned an ever-expanding Donaldson universe of toys, clothing and merchandise. Continue reading...

For the prime minister’s aide, this County Durham town was somewhere to ‘test his eyesight’ during the first lockdown. It is now a place of pilgrimage

Cardinal praises president’s ‘splendid’ supreme court appointments at the launch of his prison journalCardinal George Pell has praised Donald Trump’s “splendid” supreme court appointments, but questioned his effort to sow doubt in the integrity of the US presidential election.“It’s no small thing to weaken trust in great public institutions,” Pell told reporters on Wednesday in launching his book, Prison Journal, about the 404 days he spent in solitary confinement before his sexual abuse conviction was overturned by Australia’s high court. Continue reading...

Move seen as political theatre as talks in Brussels continue, but may not preclude recall of MPs and peersMPs and peers will begin their Christmas break on Thursday evening, the government has announced, amid waning hopes that a Brexit deal will be struck in time to be approved in parliament next week.With talks on trade and security continuing in Brussels amid signs of progress and compromise, ministers had considered stipulating that parliament should sit on Monday and Tuesday to allow legislation implementing a deal to be passed rapidly. Continue reading...

A small number of those still stuck in limbo are finding safe harbour in other countries

Analysis: trade in stolen data is a boon for investigators and a headache for KremlinIn early 2019, the journalist Andrei Zakharov managed to buy his own phone and banking records in a groundbreaking investigation into Russia’s thriving markets in stolen personal data, in which law enforcement and telecoms employees can be contracted anonymously to dip into their systems and pull out sensitive details on anyone.A year and a half later, investigators from Bellingcat and the Insider used some of the same tools and clever analysis to out a secret FSB team that had been tasked with killing Alexei Navalny using a novichok nerve agent. Continue reading...

Defendants found guilty on range of charges from membership of criminal network to complicity in attacksA court in France has convicted 14 people in relation to the January 2015 terror attacks in Paris on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket.A total of 17 people were murdered across three days in a series of attacks that horrified the nation. All three assailants were killed in shootouts with the police, leaving only accomplices to face trial. Continue reading...

Mark Drakeford announces closure of shops and two-household limit on festive gatherings

UN agency will help fund food parcels for those affected by coronavirus crisis in Southwark, south London

The UK prime minister insists he will not change plans to relax Covid rules around Christmas, despite a sharp rise in cases. Johnson instead urges Britons to exercise personal responsibility, minimise social contacts, and consider delaying seeing elderly relatives until they have been vaccinated

Watchdog’s ruling raises question of whether conduct of MI6 and GCHQ was lawfulThe intelligence agencies MI6 and GCHQ may have illegally authorised informants to commit serious crimes in the UK, a security tribunal has heard.The revelation came as a summary was released of a previously closed judgment by the investigatory powers tribunal, which oversees complaints against government surveillance and spy operations. Continue reading...

European food has enriched our lives for so long, I don’t know how we’d cope without itAs we stare at the cliff-edge of a disastrous no-deal Brexit, following a nine-month state of emergency owing to a deadly pandemic, I know that I am not alone in wondering what food, exactly, will make its way to our tables this January.Reports that supermarkets have been told to stockpile in anticipation of food shortages are not reassuring, though we should take comfort in the fact that March’s panic-buying frenzy has limbered us all up somewhat. We are now a nation of preppers. As one shrewd commentator pointed out, you can now repurpose old Soviet jokes: “A man walks into a shop. He asks the clerk, ‘You don’t have any meat?’ The clerk says, ‘No, here we don’t have any fish. The shop that doesn’t have any meat is across the street.’” Continue reading...

Millions of frustrated sports fans began following Andrew Cotter’s ultra-competitive labradors Olive and Mabel in the first lockdown. Has it changed the trio’s lives?Did anyone convey the topsy-turvy world of pandemic life better than two ultra-competitive labradors? When the first lockdown was announced back in March and sports events were cancelled across the country, the Scottish commentator Andrew Cotter found himself staring at a grim year ahead. And so he decided to simply continue commentating … on his dogs.“You can feel the tension,” he said in his soothing soft Scottish accent, over a video of his dogs, Olive and Mabel, racing to empty their bowls. “Olive focused, relentless, tasting absolutely nothing.” Continue reading...

Rayzone appears to have used intermediary in 2018 to lease route into networks from Sure GuernseyThe Israeli private intelligence company Rayzone Group appears to have had access to the global telecommunications network via a mobile operator in the Channel Islands in the first half of 2018, potentially enabling its clients at that time to track the locations of mobile phones across the world.Invoices seen by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism suggest Rayzone, a corporate spy agency that provides its government clients with “geolocation tools”, used an intermediary in 2018 to lease an access point into the telecoms network via Sure Guernsey, a mobile operator in the Channel Islands. Continue reading...

Experts voice concern over growth of ‘deviant’ videos, including foster-child abuse fantasies, on Pornhub and other mainstream sitesGroups working on the frontline in the fight against child abuse in the UK have warned that an increase in abuse-themed pornography is “normalising” child abuse.Children’s charity Barnado’s said it is working with vulnerable children who are being put at risk by “deviant” pornography that fetishises fantasies of sex with children. Continue reading...

Disease control agency records more than 400 virus deaths for more than 11 days running