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UK business minister to take on additional role as NHS prepares for mass deployment

Airline apologises for tweet wishing England good luck in Autumn Nations Cup fixture

First minister tells conference her main focus is Covid-19 but independence is ‘in clear sight’

At 32, I was given a choice: go to hospital every day – or risk a long wait to become an inpatient. Could I face down the demons that had stalked me since I was a child?I throw the bread. It misses the nurse and lands in the metal sink with a pathetic thud. I run out of the kitchen, through a door labelled “quiet room” and kick a beanbag. I kick it again and again, until all I can see is the red fabric and white wall blurring into pink. I want to smash something, I want to break things until I collapse with exhaustion and never wake up.But psychiatric hospitals are built to stop people like me doing that. No door handles or light fittings; no sharp objects or windows that open more than an inch. It is March 2017. I used to have a job, a life. Now, I am a 32-year-old woman who isn’t allowed to be alone with a pair of scissors. Continue reading...

Couples flock to tiny British territory, which requires minimum bureaucracy to tie knot

British tourists, chalet owners and resort staff wait for winter season decisions across EuropeBritish holidaymakers, chalet owners and resort staff are in limbo as countries across Europe decide whether or not this winter’s ski season will go ahead.This week, Britain’s biggest ski operator Crystal Ski Holidays was forced to cancel all its French ski trips in December after President Macron ordered the nation’s resorts to stay shut until the new year. Continue reading...

A new biography, by Richard Greene, insists there was more to the author than ‘sex, books and depression’When Gabriel García Márquez, in the presence of Fidel Castro, asked Graham Greene if it was true that he’d played Russian roulette with a loaded revolver, Greene assured him he had, several times. Castro, one of several world leaders with whom Greene had audiences over the years (Gorbachev, Ho Chi Minh and Pope Paul VI were others), calculated the odds and said he shouldn’t be alive. Greene thought the same. He’d expected to die young (“I’d rather die of a bullet in the head than a cancer of the prostate”) but survived to the age of 86.The Russian roulette story has been disputed; Greene may have played it with blanks or empty chambers. But Richard Greene (no relation) takes it as the central premise of his biography: the novelist as risk-taker and adventurer, with a history of self-harm and an addiction to danger. An early trip to Liberia, to investigate modern slavery, set the tone. Greene knew there were risks – being shot at by soldiers, bitten by snakes or infected by lassa or yellow fever – but they only spurred him on. He was accompanied by his cousin Dorothy, who found him frightening: “If you are in a sticky place he will be so interested in noting your reactions that he will probably forget to rescue you.” Continue reading...

Amid Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong, publisher says joining clubs to discuss free speech and democracy has again become an act of resistanceIn the early 1950s in Taiwan, 19-year-old Tsai Kun-lin was arrested and jailed after joining a book club. The young man spent more than a decade on Green Island, building the prison that held him as a political enemy of the authoritarian rulers who would hold Taiwan under martial law until 1987.Decades later, a 90-year-old Tsai is living in Taiwan’s thriving democracy, but says a book club has once again become an act of resistance. Continue reading...

Newcastle man is facing charges of possessing, soliciting and sharing child abuse material, and bestialityA Newcastle man has become the 15th person arrested after police uncovered a global paedophile ring alleged to have filmed and shared the sexual abuse of almost 50 children in Australia.The 54-year-old was taken into custody on Friday and faces a string of charges, including possessing, soliciting and sharing child abuse material. He is also charged with bestiality. Continue reading...

The singer’s online show had a charming Top of the Pops vibe despite its – often star-studded – shortcomingsOf all the high-profile live streams that have sprung up in lieu of actual gigs in recent months, Dua Lipa’s is, by some considerable distance, the most star-studded. Its list of special guests encompasses everyone from Elton John to FKA twigs to Kylie Minogue: proof, should you need it, of the dominant position the 25-year-old singer currently occupies in pop.By common consent, 2020 has been her year, thanks to her second album, Future Nostalgia, which has earned her six Grammy nominations and spawned a succession of global hit singles: the kind of success that even Madonna wants to get involved in, making an appearance on a remix of the single Levitation. Continue reading...

Mother and her boyfriend charged with manslaughter after three-year-old found dead in carA Townsville woman has been charged over the death of her daughter after the toddler was allegedly left in a car for most of the day amid soaring temperatures.Police were called to the Townsville University Hospital on Friday afternoon after the child’s mother found the three-year-old dead in the car and rushed her to the hospital. Continue reading...

Officers in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario had been alerted to domestic dispute and suspected abductionA one-year-old infant in Canada has been fatally shot in an incident involving police officers who opened fire on a pickup truck while responding to an alleged kidnapping.Investigators have not yet confirmed if police gunfire killed the boy. Continue reading...

Paul Farrell, 55, has pleaded guilty to 58 child sexual abuse offences starting in 1985A former Great Ormond Street hospital porter has admitted sexual offences against six boys aged as young as six over 35 years.Paul Farrell, 55, has pleaded guilty to 58 child sexual abuse offences carried out between 1985 and 2020, including attempted rape, sexual assault of a child under 13 and making indecent photographs of children. Continue reading...

President condemns ‘shameful aggression’ amid growing anger over apparently unprovoked assaultThe French government is scrambling to dampen rising anger over footage showing police beating a black music producer in Paris, the latest in a series of acts of alleged police violence to rock the country.Emmanuel Macron said a video of officers beating Michel Zecler in his studio was “shameful” and said that government would have to find a way to restore public confidence in the police force. Continue reading...

Ana Diamond, who was held for more than six months, says the Australian academic was subject to a ‘sophisticated’ hostage-taking operationBack on Australian soil, and safe in the enforced quiet of Covid quarantine, Kylie Moore-Gilbert faces a long road to recovery, according to another victim of Iran’s practice of seizing foreign nationals as hostages.Ana Diamond was just 19 when she was seized by the country’s Revolutionary Guards in 2016, held for 200 days in solitary confinement and forced to endure a mock execution over baseless allegations she was a foreign spy. Continue reading...

Despite its low case rate, city faces the harshiest restrictions in run-up to Christmas along with rest of Lancashire

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, identified by Israel as director of nuclear weapons programme, ambushed in streetIran has vowed retaliation after the architect of its nuclear programme was assassinated on a highway near Tehran, in a major escalation of tensions that risks placing the Middle East on a new war footing.Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was ambushed with explosives and machine gun fire in the town of Absard, 70km (44 miles) east of Tehran. Continue reading...

Analysis: The Middle East is on edge as the Trump administration enters its final weeksMohsen Fakhrizadeh may be the most senior Iranian nuclear scientist to have been assassinated but he is certainly not the first, joining at least four others during the past decade.In killings Iran said were aimed at sabotaging its nuclear energy ambitions – it does not acknowledge using the technology for weapons – the country has consistently pointed the finger at Israel, its regional arch-foe. Continue reading...

Five British MPs among thousands who escaped after failure of plan to bomb Free Iran event outside ParisAn Iranian diplomat suspected of masterminding a failed bomb attack at a rally outside Paris attended by five British MPs has skipped the first day of his trial, allegedly on the orders of Iran’s foreign minister.Lawyers for Assadollah Assadi, 48, told a court in the Belgian city of Antwerp that their client, who is in custody, was claiming diplomatic immunity. Continue reading...

Film director recalls the long and rocky road to meeting the mercurial subject of his filmFootball is a huge part of my life. I was 14 when Diego Maradona scored the two goals against England – the hand of God and the wonder goal. Despite the first goal, I always thought he was the best player in the world. I’ve always been a fan of outsiders, rebels.Everyone wanted to be Maradona. He was the global phenomenon. The pope wanted to meet him. Fidel Castro would sit and listen to Diego tell a story. Continue reading...

Readers respond after the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, cut international aid by a third in his spending reviewRishi Sunak has said he could not tell the country he was giving 0.7% of gross national income to foreign aid (Foreign Office minister resigns as Sunak cuts aid budget, 25 November). What kind of country does he think he lives in? Can he and the rest of the government not see that so many of the problems in the world come from the gross divide between countries like ours and ones where so many face starvation?Has he not noticed that during the first lockdown, 10 million people volunteered to help people in their community? Did he not notice the thousands who volunteered to trial the vaccine? These are not people who would wish to ignore the rest of the world. Continue reading...

Analysis: engineer was identified by UN report as central figure in work to develop atomic bombs

French government tells EU chief negotiator to remember that UK needs a deal more than the EU

Fans pledge to buy cologne still advertised by actor after court finds he abused ex-wife

Exclusive: Akshata Murty, Sunak’s wife, holds multimillion-pound portfolio making her richer than the QueenThe chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is facing questions over the transparency of his financial affairs after a Guardian investigation established that his wife and her family hold a multimillion-pound portfolio of shareholdings and directorships that are not declared in the official register of ministers’ interests.Akshata Murty, who married Sunak in 2009, is the daughter of one of India’s most successful entrepreneurs. Her father co-founded the technology giant Infosys, and her shares in the company are worth £430m, making her one of the wealthiest women in Britain, with a fortune larger than the Queen’s. Continue reading...

Infections rising in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, exposing failures in strategy and accusations that officials squandered valuable planning opportunities

Jenrick insists some areas can ‘de-escalate’, but scientists say 16 December is too soon to decide

Police told to enforce law against cutting girls passed in July as country says it will adhere to African charter on child rightsSudanese authorities have announced they will end child marriage and enforce the country’s ban on female genital mutilation (FGM), in a major step forward for the rights of women and girls.Police officers were told on Wednesday they must inform local communities that FGM is illegal following new laws passed in July that make it punishable by up to three years in jail. Continue reading...

A woman reportedly arrived at the hospital with the deceased child in the carA three-year-old child has reportedly been found dead in a car outside a north Queensland hospital with a police investigation underway.Police were called to the Townsville University hospital about 3.30pm on Friday, a spokesman told Guardian Australia. Continue reading...

The Londoner has spent years slogging away in hardman movies, but his latest film is a darkly funny exploration of masculinity. He discusses branching out – and the film’s unsimulated sexCraig Fairbrass has made a career from giving a certain type of person exactly what they want. His films have titles such as Deranged and Hijacked and St George’s Day. There are gangsters. There are guns. There are posters that look like a recently divorced dad’s experiments with Photoshop.His characters have nicknames that come in inverted commas, like Freddy “Dead Cert” Frankham and Malcolm “Mental Fists” Wickes. The films are usually released to little fanfare and lapped up by a small but dedicated crowd, unnoticed by the rest of the world.

‘I’ve given up trying to control anything now,’ I announced last Tuesday while breakfasting on a packet of jelly babiesFood has lost much of its meaning for me. Well, its meanings, to be more accurate. A typical late autumn of eating has its rhythms: shortly after decorative gourd season and past toffee apple weekend (both cancelled due to lurgy), many of us move seamlessly into pre-Christmas hoarding and restraint mode. The hoarding begins with a casually snaffled box of stollen slices or a little bag of Lindt chocolate Christmas tree decorations, chucked into the shopping basket “just to get things started”. Then a shufti around Marks & Spencer’s food hall, where the displays of shortbread in commemorative tin boxes (those nice ones your mother used for her sewing kit) always bring a sense of minor panic that holidays are comin’ and I am unprepared. Begin the lists, open the iCal, commence the slightly terse intra-family emails. Panic!I do not have a yuletide shopping delivery slot. That dodgy shelf in my chiller will not survive a fortnight of festive season fridge Jenga, and a better woman than me would have made her own figgy pudding by now. But, as I say, the hoarding won’t happen this year. The big Dent jamboree is cancelled. And the restraint – which runs in parallel from about now to late December – is off, too. About now, I generally have in the diary at least two festive gatherings where I envision myself slinking in wearing some frock that will require me to be a bit hungry for at least 22 days and say things like, “No, I love running five miles pre-dawn dodging flashers – it centres me”, and, “Toast is too filling and carby. I’m so happy with this bircher muesli.” The only thing most of us will be wearing this party season is slightly smarter pyjamas.

Reduction came before this week’s move to slash UK spending on poorer nations to 0.5% of national income, with girls worst affected

Former NRL star, on trial for sexual assault, says that he performed oral sex on the woman but did not bite herFormer NRL star Jarryd Hayne has told a jury he knew a woman didn’t want to have sex with him in her bedroom but he wanted to “please her”.Giving evidence in his defence during his rape trial in Newcastle district court on Friday, Hayne said he had been kissing the woman before she removed her pants and he performed oral sex on her. Continue reading...

Photographer Murdo MacLeod’s project for our lockdown diaries series focuses on outdoor climbingAndy Swann: ‘Many of my favourite pastimes such as community ocean rowing and sea kayaking have been seriously disrupted by the pandemic but outdoor climbing has been mostly possible in one form or another. It has helped protect my sanity during lockdowns and extended periods of restrictions. It has flexibility in that it can be done in nearby quarries, crags or in the mighty mountains’ Continue reading...

Tribunal rules that Ravi Karkara, an adviser to UN Women, was rightfully dismissed for harassing younger men

Annual special – where garish sweaters meet unrestrained children – airs on Friday eveningIt is possibly the most anticipated moment in Ireland’s cultural calendar, a television event that draws huge ratings, unites the diaspora and is parsed as a barometer for the mood of the nation.Expectation builds months in advance, rumours about the theme, leaks about participants, sometimes alarm that the formula may change. Continue reading...

SA premier announces the state will lift its border restrictions with Victoria. This blog is now closed

Visa and health fees likely to be levied on those who started UK courses overseas due to CovidFirst-year EU students who enrolled in UK universities this autumn but have been unable to move to the country due to the pandemic face an £800 Brexit bill shock if they don’t set foot on British soil before 31 December, campaigners have warned.The Home Office said they will not qualify for EU pre-settled status if they arrive after the end of the transition period, even though they have been unable to relocate because of Covid. Continue reading...

Trade minister Simon Birmingham says the penalties for alleged dumping make the market unviable for Australian exportersChina has hit Australian wine with tariffs that will double or triple its price, making the market “unviable” for exporters according to the trade minister, Simon Birmingham.“This is a devastating blow to those businesses who trade with China in the wine industry,” Birmingham said. “It will render unviable for many businesses their wine trade with China. And clearly, we think it’s unjustified, and without evidence to back it up.” Continue reading...

Tears, football chants and tributes ring out for national hero at presidential palace before burial in a small, private ceremony

The once-in-a-decade population survey has enabled same-sex couples to register their statusChina’s LGBTQ+ community has seized a once-in-a-decade chance to be counted with the launch of the nationwide government census.More than seven million workers have been going door to door across China this month, on a mission to capture the demographic changes among its 1.4 billion people. Guangzhou-based LGBTQ+ Rights Advocacy China is calling on same sex couples to declare the status of their relationship. The campaign, under the tag line, “they are not my roommate, they are my partner,” aims to get Chinese policymakers to pay attention to their community. Continue reading...

Anthropological study of metaphor takes 2020 Diagram prize, pulling ahead of Introducing the Medieval Ass in public vote

A report identified failures of care by every organisation that had looked after the childThe government has apologised for a “20-year cover-up” over the death of 11-month-old Elizabeth Dixon, whose parents have fought an unrelenting battle for the truth.A new report into the circumstances of Elizabeth’s December 2001 death from asphyxiation resulting from a blocked tracheostomy tube found “clear evidence that some individuals have been persistently dishonest, both by omission and by commission, and that this extended to formal statements to police and regulatory bodies”. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson said he was sorry that most of England would exit lockdown into tiers 2 or 3 with the toughest restrictions. Johnson said the measures ‘strike a balance’ between limiting the spread of the virus and protecting freedoms. ‘If we ease off now, we risk losing control of this virus,’ Johnson added.Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, urged people to ‘have sense’ over the festive period, and bluntly warned against hugging and kissing elderly relatives at Christmas

PM gives update after large parts of England placed into tier 3 restrictions; Sir Graham Brady says many tiering decisions are ‘heavy-handed’

Analysis: Manchester’s route to the highest Covid restrictions and Liverpool’s entry to tier 2 with mass testing began in October

In the former’s directorial debut, the pair play a father and son facing up to the older man’s dementia. It offers 80-year-old Henriksen the meatiest role of his astonishing career

Government commission calls for sustainable alternative to ease congestion between Cardiff and Severn BridgeA sustainable network of additional rail stations, rapid bus routes and cycle corridors should be built in south-east Wales to replace the scrapped M4 motorway extension, a government commission has said.The measures to relieve extreme congestion between Cardiff and the Severn Bridge could cost just half the price of the abandoned £1.4bn road scheme and would provide commuters with genuine options, according to the commission. Continue reading...

UN calls for urgent focus on HIV/Aids as coronavirus blocks access to drugs and missed targets threaten to derail progressGlobal progress on ending the Aids epidemic by 2030 could be blown off course by coronavirus, a senior UN director has warned.Just a six-month disruption to medical supplies induced by Covid-19 could result in an extra 500,000 Aids-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2021, according to data modelling in the annual report from UNAids. The agency’s executive director, Winnie Byanyima, said the world is already way off target on combating Aids, and the pandemic “has the potential to blow us even further off course”. Continue reading...

From Kolkata to Mexico City, people around the world have paid tribute to the football legend, who has died aged 60 Continue reading...