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

Danish Bond star Mikkelsen to take over the role of dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in the third Harry Potter prequelWarner Bros Pictures has confirmed James Bond star Mads Mikkelsen will take over the role of dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald from Johnny Depp in the third Fantastic Beasts film.Depp stepped down from the role after losing his high-profile libel case against the Sun newspaper over an article that labelled him a “wife beater”. Continue reading...

At the end of a truly difficult year, Christmas lights, trees and decorations are springing up, and even the shuttered shops haven’t slowed the present buying. What’s behind this race to begin the festive season?

Abdalraouf Abdallah believed to have ‘important evidence’ about background to attack

Cho Ju-bin found guilty of tricking 74 women into ‘virtual enslavement’The leader of a huge online sexual abuse ring that shocked South Korea has been sentenced to 40 years in prison.A Seoul court found Cho Ju-bin guilty of targeting at least 74 women, including 16 minors, and tricking them into “virtual enslavement” in a case that led to calls for the government to crack down on sexual offences online. Continue reading...

The director’s thrillingly ingenious tale of mind-invasion technology, starring Andrea Riseborough, barrels towards the most outrageous final twist imaginableWith her recent appearance in Panos Cosmatos’s sepulchral horror Mandy opposite a baying, gurning Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough became the smartest sort of contemporary scream-queen specialist. Now her face looms redly out of this unspeakable nightmare of the near future, a mask of fear and blood. Possessor is the highly unsettling new picture from 40-year-old Canadian film-maker Brandon Cronenberg, and it shows the influences of his father David’s early work, particularly the cranium-splitting revulsion of Scanners. It’s a thoroughly macabre satire of surveillance, corporate management, paranoia and power, with hints of Coppola’s The Conversation and Nolan’s Inception. There were, incidentally, moments when I even heretically wondered if Possessor had a bit more dramatic life and forward movement than Inception.Possessor is, above all, an ultra-violent sci-fi-horror freak-out that will probably have you hiding your face in your hands. (That’s what I did.) Almost the very first shot is of someone inserting a clinical needle deep into their own scalp. But the gore has to be seen in the context of a strangely ingenious and interestingly thought-through story that has the most outrageous and disturbing final twist imaginable. Continue reading...

Scott Morrison won’t confirm Iran’s claims three bombers who tried to kill Israeli diplomats have been freed in return for academicAustralia has refused to be drawn on whether it was involved in a prisoner swap deal to release academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert in exchange for three Iranians involved in a botched attempt to kill Israeli diplomats eight years ago.A British-Australian dual national, Moore-Gilbert was suddenly released from Tehran’s Evin prison on Wednesday after serving a little over two years of a 10-year sentence for espionage. Continue reading...

Paul Farrell faces 84 charges relating to alleged offences committed between 1985 and 2018A former Great Ormond Street hospital porter has been charged with a series of sex offences against children.Paul Farrell, 55, of Camden, north London, faces 84 charges including rape, attempted rape, sexual assault of a child under 13 and indecent assault on a male, the Metropolitan police said. Continue reading...

Almost a dozen officers came into close contact with man Rydges Hotel in South Brisbane on Sunday during a welfare check, police sayAlmost a dozen Queensland police officers have been forced into Covid-19 isolation after they came into close contact with an infected man in hotel quarantine.The incident happened at the Rydges Hotel in South Brisbane on Sunday when police were called to check on a 41-year-old-man’s welfare, police say. Continue reading...

Despite government measures, thousands left struggling during Covid outbreak as companies withhold salaries and benefits, research showsCompanies in Qatar have failed to pay “hundreds of millions of dollars” in salaries and other benefits to low-wage workers since the coronavirus outbreak, according to new research by the human rights group Equidem.In its report, Equidem describes how thousands of workers have been dismissed without notice, put on reduced wages or unpaid leave, denied outstanding salary and end of service payments, or forced to pay for their own flights home. Continue reading...

‘It’s much easier to get funding for children’ says one charity, as 11-country survey finds systematic failings ‘tantamount to neglect’

The former Guardian photographer Denis Thorpe, 88, has been shielding at home in Stockport for most of the year and taking pictures of his garden and its visitors. The images are to be published in a book, Birds in my Lockdown Garden

Chinese president told future counterpart he hoped two countries would ‘uphold sprit of non-conflict, focus on cooperation’The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has congratulated Joe Biden on winning the US election, leaving just a handful of world leaders, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who have not recognised Biden’s win.Chinese state media said that in a phone call Xi told Biden he hoped the two countries would “uphold the spirit of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, [to] focus on cooperation, manage differences, advance the healthy and stable development of China-US ties, and join hands with other countries and the international community to promote the noble cause of world peace and development”. Continue reading...

School student among state’s new infections; Scott Morrison says Kylie Moore-Gilbert’s release from Iranian prison a ‘miracle’. This blog is now closed

Many from the region’s Armenian population have become refugees, as previously displaced Azeris prepare to go homeWeeks of shelling could not force Irina Safaryan’s parents from their bunker in the southern Karabakh town of Hadrut. Only when Azerbaijan’s soldiers reached the settlement’s outskirts did the Armenian family agree to run.“We expected to go back to our houses in three or four days, maximum a week,” Safaryan says. They left behind the family photo albums. Continue reading...

Cuts announced by Rishi Sunak will hit girls and women in poorest countries hardest, with charities predicting hundreds of thousands of deaths

Audit finds figures linked to colonial exploitation honoured in statues, buildings and street namesMore than 200 statues, street names and buildings in Wales have been identified as being connected to the slave trade, and many of the figures represented are shown as role models.An audit commissioned in July by the first minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, following the Black Lives Matter protests, identifies 13 monuments, buildings or street names commemorating people who took part in the African slave trade. Continue reading...

The Islamic Women’s Council of NZ gave more than 1,000 pages of evidence to the royal commission in the hope of a better countryBy the time that you read this, New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, will have received a several-tome report from the royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques, which will provide findings on whether the government authorities could have prevented the horrific event and will offer recommendations to avert any terrorism in the future.As the person charged with government engagement for the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand (IWCNZ), I have a keen interest in reading the commission’s conclusions given that our organisation had warned government authorities several times that our Muslim community was at risk and needed support. Importantly, the report has the potential to transform how the government interacts with all its communities. Harking back to the wise words of New Zealand’s “mother of the nation” Dame Whina Cooper, I hope that this report becomes the seed that plants in the hearts of Kiwis “a vision of Aotearoa where all our people can live together in harmony … and share the wisdom from each culture”. Continue reading...

Officials admit what they thought was 11.5 tonnes of drugs is most likely trisodium phosphate, a food additive and cleaning agentThai authorities have admitted that an 11.5-tonne drug bust may contain an innocent chemical used as a food additive or cleaning agent – and not ketamine, as they believed.Thailand’s anti-narcotics bureau had hailed the seizure of what they said was nearly a billion dollars’ worth of ketamine – an anaesthetic that can also be used as a party drug. Continue reading...

Signs of growing parliamentary rebellion amid fears measures could stay in place until spring

Letter to home secretary raises concerns about sites holding 600 men in Kent and PembrokeshireHealthcare professionals have called for former army barracks being used to house asylum seekers to be closed over concerns about the residents’ wellbeing.Medical staff have written to the home secretary, Priti Patel, with a damning assessment, to raise concerns about the sites at Napier barracks in Kent and Penally barracks in Pembrokeshire, which between them are holding more than 600 men. Continue reading...

Top public health official makes ‘final plea’ on Covid threat as expert warns of potential ‘mother of all super-spreader events’The top US public health official urged Americans today make a “sacrifice now to save lives and illness” by resisting the urge to gather together for Thanksgiving, as the US witnessed more than 2,000 deaths from coronavirus on Tuesday – the first time that grim mark has been surpassed since the spring. Continue reading...

Five-person limit on groups will come in on 1 December with rules easing over Christmas

Maradona was a perfect representation of the human ability to be contradictory, to convey ugly and beautiful at once“A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possesses at least two things besides: gratitude and purity” – Friedrich Nietzsche, on love, perseverance, and moving beyond good v evil.Diego Maradona said that when you’ve been to the moon and back, things get difficult. “You become addicted to the moon and it’s not always possible to come back down.” Continue reading...

Global cases pass 60m, according Johns Hopkins University; The Americas report more than 1.5m cases in the last seven days, says WHO

Actor ordered to pay £630,000 after libel action against Sun over ‘wife beater’ allegationsThe Hollywood actor Johnny Depp has been refused permission to appeal after losing his high stakes libel action against the Sun over its description of him as a “wife beater”.A high court judge also ordered the actor to make an initial payment to the Sun’s publishers, New Group Newspapers (NGN), of almost £630,000 in legal fees. Continue reading...

Loujain al-Hathloul looked weak and unwell after 900 days in jail, said her familySaudi Arabia has moved the trial of activist Loujain al-Hathloul to a special court that handles terrorism cases, a move condemned by human rights campaigners as a heavy-handed attempt to muzzle dissent.Hathloul has been in jail without trial for over 900 days now, and her family said she looked weak and unwell at a rare court appearance on Wednesday, her body shaking and her voice faint. Continue reading...

Appeal judges hear evidence Tony Gauci read prejudicial press articles claiming Megrahi was guiltyThe court that convicted a Libyan intelligence officer for the Lockerbie bombing should have been told a key witness wanted payment for his testimony, appeal judges have been told.Gordon Jackson QC, part of the legal team acting for the family of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, said there was clear evidence that the witness Tony Gauci was interested in compensation for giving evidence, and was frustrated none had emerged. Continue reading...

Choppy waters as clash of ‘newbie dryrobe types’ with ‘hardy’ bathers swells into debate on tribes and snobberyJames Joyce opened Ulysses with a reference to the “scrotum tightening” effect of swimming in Dublin bay, but these days there is a secondary, somewhat more visible effect: dryrobe bashing.A boom in the popularity of sea swimming in Ireland has filled Dublin’s bathing spots with people wrapped in fleece-lined hooded robes – and for some of the old-timers it feels like an invasion. Continue reading...

Bloody offensive aims to eliminate Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which dominated for nearly 30 yearsIn the centre of Mekelle, the highland capital of Tigray, is a complex of memorials and museums. Under the hot sun, old armoured vehicles, jets and helicopters rust quietly. On the city’s wide avenues, statues commemorate the “martyrs” and the victories of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a small band of insurgents who became a guerrilla army, launched a successful rebellion and eventually ruled Africa’s second most populous country for almost 30 years.This week federal Ethiopian forces have closed in on Mekelle in the final stages of a bloody offensive launched earlier this month by Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, with the aim of eliminating the TPLF as a political force. Continue reading...

Freeholders and developers shirk any financial responsibility, writes Lynne HamshawWhile I agree with Owen Jones’s view on the appalling revelations in the Grenfell Tower inquiry (The Grenfell Tower disaster is political. Look at the evidence of the fire test ‘fraud’, 19 November), he misses one key point. Tens of thousands of mostly young leaseholders are stuck in flammable buildings right now, having saved up to buy a flat in order to get on the first rung of the housing ladder. There are thousands of these buildings around the country, with flammable cladding, flammable insulation and other major safety defects, all being revealed in the aftermath of Grenfell.Freeholders and developers shirk any financial responsibility, so it is leaseholders who are now paying for extortionate interim fire safety measures and a fivefold increase in buildings insurance, on top of their mortgages. Their flats are worth zero. Continue reading...

Video footage of two officers at camp in Place de la République shocks interior ministerTwo police officers are being investigated for alleged violent behaviour during an operation to break up a protest migrant camp in Paris.The public prosecutor’s office announced it had ordered inquiries into two specific complaints against officers dispatched to remove a group of mainly Afghan migrants from Place de la République in the centre of Paris on Monday evening. Continue reading...

Aden, one of the first models to wear a hijab, says she is being forced to compromise beliefsThe model Halima Aden has said she is quitting runway shows because working in fashion has forced her to compromise her religious beliefs.Aden, who was hailed as a trailblazer for being one of the first models to wear a hijab and walk for major fashion labels including Kanye West’s Yeezy, posted a series of images on social media that illustrated the times she had lost touch with who she is (from missing prayer times to being draped with pairs of jeans for a head covering). Continue reading...

The poet had been wrongly included among more than 300 figures whose collections were associated with wealth obtained from colonial violence

Officers allegedly bypassing need for search warrants by demanding entry to homes

Roasted, fried or raw, this versatile vegetable is great for salads, curries, steaks and tapas. And don’t forget the always comforting cauliflower cheese

This should be an important first step in a conversation about how speculative finance has affected the right to a homeFor most tenants in the UK – conditioned to the prospect of rising rents, poor living conditions and the ongoing threat of eviction – the very idea of receiving a letter from their landlord outlining a reduction in their monthly rent would be absolutely unthinkable. And yet this is exactly what has happened to thousands of renters in Berlin, as the second stage of the city’s rent cap, or Mietendeckel (literally a “lid” on rents), came into force on Monday.The first stage of the cap was part of a new law passed by the city’s House of Representatives in January 2020. It came into effect on 23 February 2020, after which point landlords were strictly forbidden from charging rent for existing leases that were in excess of any rent that had effectively been agreed by 18 June 2019. According to the second stage, any rents that exceeded the acceptable rent caps by more than 20% – calculated according to residential location and the quality of fittings – had to be reduced. Landlords that did not comply with the new law faced heavy fines. Continue reading...

We’d like to like to hear from people who grew up around Notting Hill between the late 60s and the mid 80s. How has the area changed?Notting Hill and the surrounding areas in West London is at the heart of Steve McQueen’s five part anthology series Small Axe. The series of five films, which takes its title from a proverb about collective struggle (“If you are the big tree, we are the small axe”), features true stories from the late 60s to the mid 80s about London’s West Indian experience.The area, which is home to Notting Hill carnival, has undergone dramatic change over the past few decades. Have you or your family grown up in the area? Does the series hold any sentimental value to you? How has the area changed in your lifetime? Continue reading...

Frances Adamson urges Beijing to reflect on how its increasingly assertive stance is being received by other countriesAustralia’s foreign affairs chief has warned Beijing against resorting to “pressure or coercion”, declaring China would be wrong to assume it was now so powerful it could set the terms of its engagement with the world.Amid heightened tensions between Australia and its largest trading partner, Frances Adamson used a major speech on Wednesday night to urge the Chinese government to reflect on how its increasingly assertive actions would be received by other countries. Continue reading...

Aid agencies say debts should be restructured or cancelled due to the pandemic and warn other countries could followZambia has become the first African country to default on its debts since the pandemic, leading to fears that a “debt tsunami” could engulf the continent’s most heavily indebted nations as the financial impact of coronavirus hits.A hastily-arranged G20 finance minister meeting in Saudi Arabia failed to sort out Zambia’s debt, after the southern African country missed a $42.5m (£32m) coupon payment on its bonds in October. Missing another payment on 14 November meant a technical default. Continue reading...

In the second of our series of lockdown diaries documenting the second full lockdown in the UK, photographer Jonny Weeks takes a look at his local north Cornish coast. ‘At this time of year, the Atlantic is around 10C and the rain often sideways, but every now and then the sun bleeds across the landscape and it feels like an oasis. This shared coastline has provided us each with an invaluable sense of escapism amid the adversity of lockdown.’

The late South African actor was introduced to a whole new audience in Beyoncé’s Black Is King. But it’s her final film – This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection – that could be her best workMary Twala died just a few weeks before Beyoncé’s Black Is King came out. In the film, the 80-year-old embodied the story’s shaman figure, the last part she’d ever play in a six-decade career. The deep lines of her face, white paint over her eyes and red beads covering her head, made a striking impression, introducing the actor to a whole new audience.Among its other virtues, Black Is King opened a portal for western audiences to some of the best talent from the continent – some emerging, others, like Twala, already well established. But for those only just discovering her in the wake of Beyoncé’s visual album release, the best of Twala’s work is arguably still to come. Continue reading...

Chief executive says in annual address the city’s problems driven by ‘external forces’ and pandemicHong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, has defended the crackdown on opposition by her government and Beijing, and praised the widely criticised national security law – while seeking to blame the city’s woes on foreign interference and the pandemic.Lam’s annual policy address – which was postponed from October to allow for further consultation with Beijing – was delivered on Wednesday to a legislative council without its opposition members after the mass resignation of the pro-democracy caucus. Continue reading...

Photojournalist Donna Ferrato talks about women and the Trump presidency, the fight for change and the power of photographyDonna Ferrato, activist, photojournalist and campaigner for women’s rights, is unexpectedly – and only briefly – conciliatory. “The good thing with Trump was that everything was becoming more transparent – we were seeing how the world worked more clearly than under any other president we ever had.” The moment passes and she adds: “But it was also the reason why we had to fight much harder and change things and take back our rights.” Continue reading...

They set out to capture the forgotten France, the everyday architecture of emptied towns and overlooked villages – before their uniqueness is lost for ever. Eric Tabuchi and Nelly Monnier talk us through their vast photographic atlasFrom the industrial north to the sun-baked south, Eric Tabuchi has spent two decades scouring the landscape of France with an obsessive eye. In 2008, the Danish-Japanese-French photographer created a beguiling series called Alphabet Truck by sneaking up on 26 different articulated lorries on the move and photographing the single giant letter adorning each one’s rear, from A to Z. In 2017, he made Atlas of Forms, a 256-page guide to all the shapes, from pyramid to polygon, the world’s buildings are based on. And in 2017, he joined forces with the painter Nelly Monnier, also his partner, to create the Atlas des Régions Naturelles.This sprawling, unwieldy multipart portrait of a nation takes as its foundation the 500-odd régions naturelles, or non-administrative areas (a bit like British counties) into which mainland France is divided. Monnier and Tabuchi are slowly making their way around the country, arriving in each area with a minimum of preconceptions. First impressions are key, the idea being to shoot a few characteristic landscapes, then to work their way up through the area’s vernacular architecture, with everything dictated by local conditions. Continue reading...

Peter Dutton announces revocation in first use of the law; NSW reports four cases in hotel quarantine but no locally acquired infections; Queensland prepares for influx of visitors. Follow updates

Journalist says he has found overt homoeroticism in Polish composer’s lettersFrédéric Chopin’s archivists and biographers have for centuries turned a deliberate blind eye to the composer’s homoerotic letters in order to make the Polish national icon conform to conservative norms, it has been alleged.Chopin’s Men, a two-hour radio programme that aired on Swiss public broadcaster SRF’s arts channel, argues that the composer’s letters have been at times deliberately mistranslated, rumours of affairs with women exaggerated, and hints at an apparent interest in “cottaging”, or looking for sexual partners in public toilets, simply ignored. Continue reading...

The boy band hail the ‘miracle’ of being shortlisted for their single Dynamite alongside artists such as Justin BieberThe South Korean megastars BTS have notched up yet another achievement by becoming the first K-pop act to receive a Grammy nomination.The boy band’s latest hit single, Dynamite, will compete with releases by Justin Bieber and three other nominees in the best pop duo/group performance category when the US music awards are announced at an online ceremony on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Vovan and Lexus strike again, urging Canadian prime minister to introduce them to South Park characters Terrance and PhillipRussian comedians Vovan and Lexus have struck again, this time pranking Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in a phone call during which he believed he was talking to climate change activist Greta Thunberg.Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov, who call themselves Vovan and Lexus, released a recording of the phone call this week, in which they counsel Trudeau about world politics and request a chance to meet some of the characters from South Park – at which point the penny drops. Continue reading...

Women tells court a doctor examined her injury three days after former NRL star allegedly attacked her in her bedroomThe woman who has accused Jarryd Hayne of raping her has testified at his trial that a doctor told her that her vagina injury looked like a bite.A doctor believed a woman had been bitten in an alleged bedroom attack by former NRL star Jarryd Hayne, his rape trial has heard. Continue reading...