Council was set to paint over it because of wartime PM’s V-sign rather than his lingerieA rainbow mural of seven Winston Churchills wearing stockings and suspenders which prompted a complaint from the local council because of the wartime prime minister’s trademark V-sign is to be allowed to remain in place.The artwork, which appeared on the wall of the Sandpiper guest house on one of Brighton’s busiest streets, was the subject of a council complaint over Churchill’s two-fingered victory sign, which he used throughout the 1939-45 war. Continue reading...
by Presented by Rachel Humphreys and reported by Jon on (#5AQ7C)
The beheading of a schoolteacher who had shown his class cartoons of the prophet Muhammad during a lesson on free speech has rekindled a debate in France about secularism and the state’s role in regulating free expressionThe murder of the schoolteacher Samuel Paty has rekindled a long-running debate in France about secularism, free expression and the role of the state. Paty had shown his class two of the cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad that were originally published by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Ten days later, after an online campaign against him, he was killed by Abdullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old of Chechen origin.The Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley, tells Rachel Humphreys that the response to the killing by President Emmanuel Macron was swift and incendiary. His defence of laïcité, French secularism, is now a defining principle of the republic. But Macron’s response has led to furious protests across the Muslim world. Continue reading...
Fears young people from culturally diverse backgrounds are being disproportionately targetedVictorian police say a secretive data tool that tracked youths and predicted the risk they would commit crime is not being widely used, amid fears it leads to young people from culturally diverse backgrounds being disproportionately targeted.The tool, which had been used in Dandenong and surrounding suburbs, was only revealed in interviews with police officers published earlier this year. Continue reading...
Government moves to close gender gap by requiring 30% female membershipGermany’s coalition government will introduce a mandatory quota for the number of women working as senior management in the country’s listed companies, in a move hailed as a “historic” step towards sexual equality in German boardrooms.In a deal agreed on Friday evening by Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their junior partner the Social Democrats, management boards with more than three members must include at least one woman, reversing a voluntary system that critics argue has failed to achieve the required shift towards gender equality. Continue reading...
The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, declined to apologise for PPE contracts given to companies with links to MPs and ministers during the first wave of coronavirus.Appearing on BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show, Sunak was questioned on the government’s purchase of 50 million face masks from Ayanda Capital that were later deemed unusable for NHS workers.
Polls suggest Americans are exhausted after months of restrictions, so we asked experts for advice on how to convince loved ones to stay safe ahead of the holidaysFatigue with pandemic restrictions has hit many Americans at a time when it’s more important than ever that people take the virus seriously and stay home.While the US contends with a huge surge in cases and record hospitalizations, federal inaction has forced local officials to adopt their own rules and messaging, creating a patchwork of confusing regulations that differ across the country, and are constantly changing. Polls suggest Americans are exhausted. Continue reading...
The acclaimed writer and performer on watching cat videos with ‘hot priest’ Andrew Scott, and why Hamilton reminds him of his own fatherLin-Manuel Miranda created and starred in the musical Hamilton, which premiered on Broadway in 2015. The show, about Alexander Hamilton, an American founding father, draws on hip-hop as well as more traditional musical forms, and won many awards, including 11 Tonys and the 2016 Pulitzer prize for drama. Miranda’s songs appear in the Disney animation Moana, he played Jack in Mary Poppins Returns and the balloonist Lee Scoresby in His Dark Materials, which returned to BBC One earlier this month.How does Lee Scoresby’s character change in this series of His Dark Materials?
SNP hopes to emulate Spain’s lucrative paradores in a drive to boost jobs, tourism and heritage preservationJust outside Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, on the side of a steep cliff overlooking the North Sea, sits Dunnottar castle. Once a medieval fortress, the picturesque ruins are open to the public for days out but have not boasted overnight visitors since the likes of Mary Queen of Scots and her son James VI in the 16th century. Now, under new proposals to be debated at the Scottish National party conference next weekend, Dunnottar could become one of a number of Scottish castles to be transformed into high-end but affordable hotels.The plan is based on the model of Spain’s paradores, government-run historically significant buildings such as churches, castles and stately homes, often in areas underserved by tourism. They have existed in Spain since 1928 and include iconic sites such as Parador de Santiago de Compostela, which began life in 1499 as a hospital for pilgrims travelling to Santiago and is considered to be the oldest hotel in the world. Today, Spain has nearly 100 paradores, including fortresses, convents, monasteries and even a former prison and asylum. In 2019, they generated a turnover of €261m (£230m) for the country’s economy. Continue reading...
Lambeth Palace says Justin Welby will study concept of reconciliation during time offThe archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will take a three-month sabbatical next year for “reflection, prayer, and spiritual renewal”, Lambeth Palace has said.During his absence next summer, Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York and currently number two in the Church of England hierarchy, will step up to lead the church. Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London and the third most senior bishop, will assist. Continue reading...
America’s former commander-in-chief shares his character flaws and fears for the presidency in this poetic, introspective account of his childhood and first term in the White HouseLike the best autobiographers, Barack Obama writes about himself in the hope of discovering who or even what he is. It’s a paradoxical project for a man who is universally known and idolised, but this uncertainty or insecurity is his motivating force and his most endearing quality. Born to a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, brought up in Indonesia and Hawaii, educated in California and New York, he has a plural personality. His mother anglicised his given name by calling him Barry, though he liked to pretend that it was a tribal epithet that identified him as a chieftain. As a candidate for the Senate, he admitted that he was “improbable”; campaigning for the presidency, he revised the adjective to “audacious”. Now, in this searchingly introspective account of his first presidential term, he divests himself of the “power and pomp” of office, disassembles the “ill-fitting parts” that make him up and ponders his similarity to “a platypus or some imaginary beast”, unsure of its dwindling habitat.The book, he says, was written by hand, because he mistrusts the smooth gloss of a digital text: he wants to expose “half-baked thoughts”, to scrutinise the first drafts of a person. He mistrusts his own eloquence as an orator, even though it “taps into some collective spirit” and leaves him with a “sugar high”. Hunched at his desk, he has to renounce those winged words and submit to a more reflective self-interrogation. “Is it worth it?”his wife, Michelle, demands as his political ambition upends their placid family life. “When is it going to be enough?” she asks later. Obama, glimpsing himself through her eyes as “this strange guy with a scruffy wardrobe and crazy dreams”, is not sure how to answer. After his election to the Senate, a reporter deferentially inquires: “What do you consider your place in history?”, to which Obama replies with incredulous laughter. Told that he has been awarded the Nobel peace prize, he addresses the question more probingly to himself: “For what?” he says. Continue reading...
Foreign secretary’s decision to withhold documents that could absolve Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi of 1989 terror attack backed by courtScotland’s most senior judges have upheld a secrecy order signed by the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to withhold intelligence documents believed to implicate a Palestinian terror group in the Lockerbie bombing.Lawyers acting for the family of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing, believe the documents are central to a fresh appeal against his conviction which starts on Tuesday and had urged the court to release them. Continue reading...
As our climate changes, unseasonal sightings of migrant birds are on the rise, including one spotted this monthAt first, I assumed it was a starling. But as the bird rose into the cloudy November sky, I realised it was actually a juvenile swallow, fully two months after I would expect to see one here in Somerset.Swallows are the classic spring and summer visitor to our shores; the proverbial sign that winter is over and spring has finally arrived. Having returned here from their homes in Africa in late March or early April, they settle down to raise two or sometimes three broods of young before heading back south in early October. Continue reading...
by Rebecca Ratcliffe & Navaon Siradapuvadol in Ba on (#5APQP)
Thousands of students continue to take to streets of Bangkok to demand reform of monarchy, government and educationOutside one of Bangkok’s busy shopping arcades, crowds of young protesters bounce balloons – coloured grey with patches of molten orange – above their heads.“We will act as a meteorite and hit the outdated ways of the older generations in this country,” the protest organisers explained. “We will talk about all the topics that the dinosaurs don’t want to hear.” Inflatable dinosaurs wobbled in the afternoon heat, representing the Thai government. The symbols are playful, but the message is clear: teenagers want change. Continue reading...
Defence forces say Israel’s air force hit two rocket ammunition manufacturing sitesIsrael says its military struck Hamas targets in Gaza in response to a rocket attack launched from the Palestinian enclave.The Israeli air force struck two rocket ammunition manufacturing sites, a military compound and “underground infrastructures”, the Israel Defence Forces said on Sunday. Continue reading...
Labor supports government plan but says more counsellors should be employed in schoolsAll New South Wales teachers will receive mental health training under a plan to help them identify students who need support.“Our students’ health and education are too important not to have this broad safety net,” NSW education minister Sarah Mitchell said on Sunday. Continue reading...
HM Coastguard scrambles rescue helicopter and lifeboats after receiving distress beacon from fishing vesselOne man has been pulled from the water and two are still missing after a fishing boat sank off the coast of East Sussex. HM Coastguard scrambled a search and rescue helicopter after receiving an EPIRB distress beacon from fishing vessel Joanna C at 6am on Saturday.The rescue helicopter based at Lydd, Kent, was deployed along with two RNLI lifeboats based in Newhaven and Eastbourne to try to find the missing boat. The beacon’s signal put the vessel three nautical miles off the coast of Seaford, near Newhaven. Continue reading...
7,000 demonstrate against health and education cuts amid Covid and hurricane crisesHundreds of protesters broke into Guatemala’s Congress and burned part of the building on Saturday amid growing demonstrations against president Alejandro Giammattei and the legislature for approving a budget that cut educational and health spending.The protest came as about 7,000 people were demonstrating in front of the National Palace in Guatemala City against the budget, which protesters say was negotiated and passed by legislators in secret while the Central American country was distracted by the fallout of back-to-back hurricanes and the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...
Suzanne Harris and Tom McAtee may not agree on politics – but the pair’s pragmatism and ability to talk things out has kept them together for over three decadesNames: Suzanne Harris and Tom McAtee
Now in its 17th year, the Movember movement encourages chaps to grow a moustache and raise funds for men’s health awareness, focusing on mental health and suicide prevention, prostate and testicular cancer. We take a look at some classic football top-lip shrubbery Continue reading...
Archaeologists have unearthed two exceptionally well-preserved victims of the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79The almost perfectly preserved remains of two men have been unearthed in an extraordinary discovery in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.The bodies of what are thought to be a wealthy man and his slave, believed to have died as they were fleeing the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79, were found during excavations at a villa in the outskirts of the city, Pompeii archaeological park officials said yesterday. Continue reading...
Confidential papers warn that, despite talk of success, army faces heavy resistance and regional stability is at riskEthiopian national forces are meeting heavy resistance and face a protracted “war of attrition” in the northern region of Tigray, a confidential United Nations assessment reveals.Though officials in Addis Ababa, the capital, have repeatedly claimed that key towns have been secured, paramilitaries and militia deployed by the army are still struggling to clear and secure territory. Heavily armed regular troops have continued to advance into Tigray as they rush to reach the capital, Mekelle, the assessment says. Continue reading...
João Alberto Silveira Freitas was allegedly attacked by security guards at a Carrefour store in Porto AlegreA black man who died after being beaten by supermarket security guards in the city of Porto Alegre on the eve of Black Consciousness Day has sparked outrage across Brazil after videos of the incident circulated on social media.Footage showed João Alberto Silveira Freitas being punched in the face just outside the doors of a Carrefour supermarket, late on Thursday. Other clips showed Freitas’ being kneeled on. Continue reading...
City’s pilot scheme stops hundreds who have Covid without symptoms from unwittingly spreading the virusRapid testing is detecting large numbers of people in Liverpool with Covid who have no symptoms, the city’s officials have said.Nearly a quarter of positive tests in the past seven days were discovered by the lateral-flow-testing pilot scheme, and Liverpool’s mayor, Joe Anderson, said it had played a role in reducing the spread of the virus. Continue reading...
Several rockets hit residential areas of the Afghan capital in the early rush hour on Saturday, killing at least three civilians and wounding a dozen more, police officials said. The explosions, close to the diplomatic quarter, set embassies' warning sirens blaring two days before a major donor conference for Afghanistan in Geneva
by Chris McGreal in Kansas City, Kenya Evelyn in Milw on (#5AP17)
The virus is on the rise so uniformly across the vast landmass of the US, that records are being shattered dailyThe Disunited States of America are united once more. After a brutal election that exacerbated bitter partisan divisions and left the country feeling as though it had been torn in two, it has at last been thrown back together.For all the wrong reasons. Continue reading...
Lying, paranoia and conspiracy are defining features of a totalitarian society. What hope is there for a brand new era, in the aftermath of an administration that has relied on all three?“I WON THE ELECTION!” Donald Trump tweeted in the early hours of 16 November 2020, 10 days after he lost the election. At the same time, Atlantic magazine announced an interview with Barack Obama, in which he warns that the US is “entering into an epistemological crisis” – a crisis of knowing. “If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false,” Obama explains, “by definition our democracy doesn’t work.” I saw the two assertions juxtaposed on Twitter as I was finishing writing this essay, and together they demonstrate its proposition: that American democracy is facing not merely a crisis in trust, but in knowledge itself, largely because language has become increasingly untethered from reality, as we find ourselves in a swirling maelstrom of lies, disinformation, paranoia and conspiracy theories.The problem is exemplified by Trump’s utterance, which bears only the most tenuous relation to reality: Trump participated in an election, giving his declaration some contextual force, but he had not won the election, rendering the claim farcical to those who reject it. The capital letters make it even funnier, a failed tyrant trying to exert mastery through typography. But it stops being funny when we acknowledge that millions of people accept this lie as a decree. Their sheer volume creates a crisis in knowing, because truth-claims largely depend on consensual agreement. This is why the debates about the US’s alarming political situation have orbited so magnetically around language itself. For months, American political and historical commentators have disputed whether the Trump administration can be properly called “fascist”, whether in refusing to concede he is trying to effect a “coup”. Are these the right words to use to describe reality? Not knowing reflects a crisis of knowledge, which derives in part from a crisis in authority. Continue reading...
Scottish Land Fund raises concerns about split in local support for Wanlockhead bidA community attempt to buy land surrounding Scotland’s highest village, Wanlockhead, has suffered a serious setback after its £1.5m funding bid was rejected.The Scottish Land Fund told the buyout campaigners earlier this week it had turned down their application for public funding, saying it was worried about the levels of local support and insufficient community consultation. Continue reading...
Explosions come ahead of separate scheduled meetings between Mike Pompeo, Taliban and Afghan government officials in DohaAt least three people have been killed in a series of loud explosions that shook central Kabul, including several rockets that landed near the heavily fortified Green Zone where many embassies and international firms are based, officials said.Saturday’s explosions occurred in densely populated parts of the Afghan capital, marking the latest attack in an ongoing wave of violence sweeping Kabul. Continue reading...
The aftermath of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Rudy Giuliani at that press conference, the continuing conflict in Idlib and the enduring impact of Covid-19: the most striking images from around the world Continue reading...
As secretary to the great resistance leader, Jean Moulin, he helped organise fight against Nazi occupationOne of France’s last remaining French resistance heroes Daniel Cordier, has died aged 100.One of only two remaining Compagnons de la Libération, an honour awarded by France’s exiled wartime leader, Charles de Gaulle, to those who risked their lives to liberate France from Nazi occupation, Emmanuel Macron said there would be a national ceremony to honour his memory. Continue reading...
Widespread disendorsement after the former TV chef posted a neo-Nazi symbol on Instagram won’t necessarily doom his brandTen days ago Pete Evans let his 279,000 Instagram followers in on what he called an “amazing opportunity”.“Buy oils and build a beautiful business,” a post on his account read. Continue reading...
Three food delivery riders recently died on the job, and their families are left with uncertain futures, and many questionsChow Khai Shien died three days before the Melbourne lockdown lifted, holding someone else’s food.He had been in Australia for five years, having arrived from Malaysia at the age of 31. First he was a student, then a chef, working part-time in a restaurant inside a casino. When the pandemic descended, like many other people around the world, he turned to food delivery – ferrying burgers and chips, burritos, and pizzas, across the city on a small motorised scooter. The car hit him on the corner of King and La Trobe streets at 7pm on a Saturday night. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Beijing ministers won’t speak to counterparts until Canberra discards ‘cold war mentality’, embassy saysChinese government ministers won’t start answering phone calls from their Australian counterparts unless Canberra stops treating Beijing as a strategic threat, a senior embassy official has warned.China is urging the Morrison government to make a clear decision on whether it sees Beijing as a “threat” or an “opportunity”, setting this up as a key precondition for resuming ministerial-level talks, which have been frozen since early this year. Continue reading...
Galleries are closed due to Covid – so a group of artists have taken to displaying their work from their houses for passersby. Our writer takes to the streetsIt is not a good time for art lovers. The second lockdown has closed galleries once more – I’m imagining portraits waiting moodily in the National Gallery in London to be admired again; Van Gogh’s sunflowers wilting further – and so it is not a good time for artists.Artists Walk is an initiative that aims to improve that state of affairs. It’s a simple idea for an art trail that began as a joint endeavour between printmaker and painter Rosha Nutt, and her art marketing consultant friend Holly Collier. Those who in normal times would be exhibiting in galleries or community spaces can now place their work in the windows or surroundings of their homes for passers-by to admire. Kind of like “how much is that doggy in the window?” Except that it might be that Picasso sketch of his dachshund. Continue reading...
Judge rules Instagram post could be read as an allegation and not meant as ‘reasonable grounds to suspect’Coleen Rooney’s Instagram post about the suspected source of leaks of private information in the so-called “Wagatha Christie” row “clearly identified” Rebekah Vardy as having “secretly informed the Sun newspaper of Ms Rooney’s private posts and stories”, a judge ruled on Friday.In a victory for Vardy that sets the parameters for her libel action, Mr Justice Warby rejected the contention that the post – which concluded “It’s ……………. Rebekah Vardy’s account” – merely meant that there were “reasonable grounds to suspect” her, as Rooney’s lawyers had argued. Continue reading...
Doctors allowed to put sedative in patient’s food or drink if they might become agitatedDoctors euthanising a patient with severe dementia may slip a sedative into their food or drink if there are concerns they will become “disturbed, agitated or aggressive”, under a change to the codes of practice in the Netherlands.The review committee for cases of euthanasia refreshed its guidance in response to the case of a former nursing home doctor, Marinou Arends, who was prosecuted for murder and cleared after putting a sedative in her 74-year-old patient’s coffee before giving a lethal injection. Continue reading...
The former teen star on why she’s not jealous of her more famous sister, and the strain that legal battles have placed on the Spears familyJamie Lynn Spears was sitting in a car, surrounded by screaming fans, when it finally hit her. Of course, she knew her sister Britney was successful – she had seen her swap family singalongs for pop stardom – but this was next-level. “Something clicked in my head on that car ride,” she recalls, “like, my sister is famous: Mariah Carey famous. She’d created so much power for herself. At that moment I knew I wanted it, too.”Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...
I don’t consider myself a thief but an activist. I believe these objects should be given back to the African people they were taken fromI am a pan-African activist, campaigning for reparations for the crimes against African people committed during colonialism. Recently, I have taken matters into my own hands: I go to museums that exhibit African artefacts; I tell the truth about how these items were looted and stolen from Africa – and then I take them.I have been deeply political for as long as I can remember. I was born in 1978 in Kinshasa, the capital of what was then Zaire and is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My father was a revolutionary, and led the 1968 coup d’état that overthrew the Congolese government. When I was a child, my mother would tell me stories of Patrice Lumumba, the father of Congolese independence. Continue reading...
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission wants UK to follow Australian inquiryThe UK government should establish an independent inquiry to review and investigate any allegation of unlawful killings by British special forces in Afghanistan, the country’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has said.The commission made the call after extraordinary allegations of murder and torture of Afghans were uncovered by an exhaustive four-year inquiry into Australian special forces operations in Afghanistan. Continue reading...
With no contracts and cheap releases from the likes of Fugazi and Minor Threat, Ian MacKaye and comrades rejected booze, drugs and riches to give US punk a conscience. They look back on 40 years of righteous noise“Do you know what I call an un-played record?” asks Ian MacKaye. “A piece of fucking trash. It’s paper and plastic. So if I make something, I want to make sure it adds value.”Thankfully, as the co-founder and co-owner of Dischord Records, MacKaye has made the very opposite of landfill indie. The Washington DC label turns 40 next month, having created one of the world’s great punk discographies by staying fiercely egalitarian. They do not sell merch, only music, and at low prices, too: a socialist and ascetic stance in a corporate US. MacKaye once told malcontent slamdancers, regarding the lack of security at a gig by his band Fugazi: “It’s more fun to look out for each other than to pay people to look out for us,” summing up his entire socioeconomic ethos. “We started and continue to exist on the fringe,” he says now. Continue reading...
World news | The Guardian