Many people pushed into financial difficulties by Home Office errors are still waiting for compensationApplicants to the Windrush compensation scheme have spoken about the difficulties they have experienced in securing payouts. Some are concerned by the long delays between applying and being awarded damages, others have expressed unhappiness about the amount they have been offered.Their testimony comes after the Guardian revealed that the most senior black Home Office employee in the team responsible for the scheme resigned earlier this year, describing it as systemically racist and unfit for purpose. Continue reading...
President tells Apec the major regional trade pact signed on Sunday, which excludes the US, will drive global growthPresident Xi Jinping has pegged China as the pivot point for global free trade, vowing to keep his “super-sized” economy open and warning against protectionism in a global economy eviscerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.Buoyed by the signing of the world’s largest trade pact over the weekend, Xi said the Asia-Pacific is the “forerunner driving global growth” in a world hit by “multiple challenges”, including coronavirus. Continue reading...
The comic has dazzled viewers with his dancing skills. He explains how he has used lockdown to learn exotic musical instruments, how the arts are being devastated by the pandemic, and why we’re all sick of ‘jackanape’ politiciansBill Bailey is not sitting comfortably for today’s interview. “Dancing is like playing a piece of music,” says the 55-year-old comedian and unlikely star of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing, “only with dancing your whole body is the instrument. And if you’re doing that all day, you just ache generally.”He is Zooming in from his conservatory, lush greenery unfurling behind him. Chatting to Bailey is a bit like being slowly hypnotised: he has piercing blue eyes and even his most dazzling array of animal facts (did you know, for instance, that wolves have perfect pitch? Or that the grey squirrel has a scampering speed of 12mph?) are delivered with a calm and steady manner. He has already cast a spell over any Strictly viewers who might have assumed he was this year’s novelty pick; in fact, Bailey has spent the opening weeks moving from the position of underdog to favourite to win the whole thing: a dazzling quickstep featuring a CGI elephant barely missed a beat, while his paso doble to Ennio Morricone’s theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly drew a whopping 26 points from the three judges, from the maximum possible 30. Continue reading...
When the Colombian army defeated the Farc guerrillas, ending decades of conflict, General Mario Montoya was hailed a national hero. But then it was revealed that thousands of ‘insurgents’ executed by the army were in fact innocent menOn a chilly October afternoon in 2008, Jacqueline Castillo found herself staring down into a mass grave in Colombia’s northern region of Santander. Five bodies, naked and dirty, were squeezed together like sacks of potatoes. Forensic doctors, wearing white suits, masks and rubber gloves, were pulling them out, one by one. They placed them beside her, and asked her to examine their faces.Castillo was looking for her brother, Jaime, who had disappeared a few months earlier in Bogotá, more than 600km away. His was the last body they pulled out. When he was placed on the ground next to her, Castillo fell to her knees, screaming. The doctors told her he was a criminal, a member of one of the many guerrilla armies that had been fighting the Colombian state since the mid-1960s, and that he had been killed in combat. But Castillo knew that was impossible. Her brother had been a homeless beggar, not a guerrilla insurgent. Continue reading...
Refugees on the move as federal troops confront TPLF in Tigray and ethnic tensions escalateInternational aid workers who have left Ethiopia’s Tigray region in recent days have described a chaotic and dynamic situation with large numbers on the move to avoid fighting, choking roads already full of military vehicles.Federal troops are involved in a massive offensive aimed at removing the Tigray People’s Liberation Front from power in the northern region, and intensifying rhetoric from both sides has reinforced fears of a long and bloody conflict. Continue reading...
by Jamie Grierson Home affairs correspondent on (#5AJT4)
UN urges UK to restart programme of resettlement suspended during pandemicThe number of refugees resettled in safe countries will hit a record low in 2020, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has warned, as it urged the UK government to restart its flagship programme.According to the latest data from the UNHCR, as at the end September, only 15,425 refugees have been resettled globally, compared with 63,726 in 2019, 55,680 in 2018, 65,108 in 2017 and 126,291 in 2016. Continue reading...
‘Value over volume’ doesn’t take into account the benefits of young tourists, which includes working while they’re hereKiwis have a long history of welcoming guests and sharing what we love about our country. So it was perhaps no surprise that recent comments from New Zealand’s new minister of tourism, Stuart Nash, have elicited such passionate debate amongst locals and the industry.Speaking at a summit hosted by the Tourism Industry Aotearoa, Nash said the future of the New Zealand tourism industry is high-net-worth visitors who spend more while they are here. To show his intent in this area Nash also said he would like to ban the hire of non-self-contained vans to tourists to stop “Freedom Campers” – a specific subset of backpackers who sleep in their vehicle wherever the fancy takes them, as opposed to paying a few dollars for a campsite with amenities such as bathrooms. Continue reading...
The heavily redacted report found credible evidence to support allegations that 39 Afghan civilians were killed by Australian special forcesFull report: ‘A disgraceful and profound betrayal of the ADF’The findings of Maj Gen Paul Brereton, after a four-year inquiry, paint a grim picture of the actions of some of Australia’s most elite soldiers in Afghanistan.Brereton’s report relates allegations of unlawful killings, blood lust, a broken culture and cover up. Continue reading...
by Sally Weale Education correspondent on (#5AJMD)
About 50,000 cases of abuse or harassment take place every year, report findsAn estimated 50,000 incidents of sexual abuse or harassment take place in universities in England and Wales every year, according to research, which accuses the sector of failing to adequately address what is “fast becoming a public scandal”.Unsafe Spaces: Ending Sexual Abuse in Universities highlights the role of the “lad culture” in student sports clubs – especially rugby clubs – in creating a toxic atmosphere leading to sexual abuse and harassment, with abusers adopting “a pack mentality”. Continue reading...
Thursday: Calls for stronger penalties after prime minister’s office meets just 7.5% of freedom of information deadlines. Plus: what is modern monetary theory?Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 19 November. Continue reading...
NCA launches people-smuggling investigation after vessel stopped near Great YarmouthSeventy-two people have been arrested in an anti-people smuggling operation after they were found crammed on a 30-metre fishing boat off the coast of East Anglia.The National Crime Agency (NCA) said the vessel had been intercepted close to Great Yarmouth on Tuesday evening and escorted into Harwich harbour in the early hours of Wednesday. Continue reading...
Small retailers’ limited records meant only around half of cookers sold were made safeA leading UK appliance brand traced and made safe only around half of the cookers it had sold of a model linked to a series of deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning, an inquest has heard.Beko put huge effort into finding thousands of customers who had bought the “potentially dangerous” cooker, the court was told. But while it was relatively easy to find customers who had bought from high street chains, many who had bought from smaller retailers could not be found, the inquest heard on Wednesday. Continue reading...
by Presented by Gabrielle Jackson and reported by Mar on (#5AHZH)
Australia entered a recession in September for the first time in nearly 30 years. As countries around the world face similar economic woes, some are calling for a new way for governments to think about the economy. In this episode of Full Story, University of Newcastle professor Bill Mitchell and economics reporter Martin Farrer explain what modern monetary theory is and how it could work Continue reading...
Kremlin accused of ‘aggressive’ campaign to reclaim churches built before 1917 revolutionThe Kremlin has been accused of an “aggressive” campaign to wrest back ownership of a second Russian Orthodox church in Nice.Worshippers at Saint-Nicolas-and-Saint-Alexandra’s in the southern French city fear they will be turned out for a second time after the Russian Federation asked a French court on Wednesday to declare it the legal owner of the church. Continue reading...
Iran uses advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges in underground plant in breach of 2015 nuclear agreementIran has admitted a further breach of the 2015 nuclear deal by firing up advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges installed at its underground plant at Natanz.The finding was made by the UN nuclear weapons inspectorate, the International Atomic Energy Association, and confirmed by the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA. Continue reading...
Former senior Home Office employee Alexandra Ankrah says some colleagues showed ‘complete lack of humanity’Complaints of racism and discrimination within Home Office teams set up to address the Windrush scandal prompted the launch of an internal investigation and the resignation of a senior official, the Guardian has learned.The most senior black Home Office employee in the team responsible for the Windrush compensation scheme resigned earlier this year, describing the scheme as systemically racist and unfit for purpose, it can be revealed. Continue reading...
Trip would be first official visit by US secretary of state to settlement in occupied territoriesMike Pompeo is expected to tour an Israeli winery this week built on land Palestinian families say was stolen from them, a deeply provocative act that would make him the first US secretary of state to officially visit a settlement in the occupied territories.The top diplomat’s visit has been widely reported by Israeli media but not confirmed by Washington. If it went ahead, it would be a parting gift to Israel’s nationalist government and the settler movement, as the Trump administration scrambles in its final weeks to impose a vision for the Middle East that has deeply favoured Israel’s far right. Continue reading...
When Fariha Róisín started writing Like a Bird, she thought the traumatic event at its heart was just a dream. She explores the weight of a family secretIn her 1861 account Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs exposed her sexual abuse by her master with lucidity and truth. Yet for more than 100 years, it was accepted academic opinion that Incidents was a novel, written by white abolitionist Lydia Maria Child. It was not until the 1980s that critic Jean Fagan Yellin proved Jacobs to be the true author; Incidents had been autobiographical all along.In Hollywood, rape narratives are largely penned by men and seen as a motif, because the tension (and tragedy) of the experience creates sympathy, compassion; it formalises emotion. When we see a woman raped and abused on film we absolve ourselves for watching, because we want to understand the ugliness of human atrocity, or so that’s what we say. And when women write about rape, often in literature, its seen as melodramatic, overemotional, too impossible to be true. “Primarily, rape is considered a women’s issue, though this is, of course, hardly the case,” writes poet Moniza Alvi, in the introduction to Feminism, Literature and Rape Narratives, “and perhaps this is partly why it is considered a literary taboo, particularly when conveyed from a female viewpoint.” Continue reading...
by Jason Burke Africa correspondent and agencies on (#5AHM1)
End of 11th outbreak is first time for nearly three years country has been free of EbolaThe Democratic Republic of the Congo has declared an end to its 11th Ebola outbreak, nearly six months after cases were reported.The end of the outbreak in the western province of Équateur marks the first time that the vast central African nation has been Ebola-free in about two and a half years. Continue reading...
Putin says any move to leave Russian-backed ceasefire with Azerbaijan would be huge mistakeVladimir Putin has said it would be “suicidal” for the Armenian government to back out of a Russian-brokered ceasefire in the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, as opposition forces in Yerevan protest against the week-old truce and call for the resignation of the prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan.In a Russian state television interview about the deal aired on Tuesday evening, Putin was asked about a new government potentially coming to power reneging on the deal. “That would be a huge mistake,” he said. Continue reading...
Organisation says money pledged is ‘not enough’ and warns of potential for huge number of child deathsThe UN has earmarked $100m (£75m) in emergency funding for seven countries deemed at risk of famine, warning that without immediate action the world could see “huge numbers of children dying on TV screens”.The climate crisis, Covid-19, conflict and economic decline have created an “acute and grave crisis” in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen, where millions of people are facing emergency levels of food insecurity, UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told the Guardian. Continue reading...
by Written by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, read by Christo on (#5AHFG)
We are raiding the Audio Long Reads archives and bringing you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.This week: Using undercover agents, the DEA spent four years trying to bring down a cocaine trafficking gang in Liberia. Was the operation a triumph in the global war on drugs or a case of American overreach? By Yudhijit Bhattacharjee Continue reading...
The storm caused swollen rivers to burst their banks, flipped roofs on to streets, and killed at least nine people across the region Continue reading...
A search of Dwayne Michael Carter Jr’s private jet in 2019 turned up a handgun, which he is prohibited from owning due to prior criminal convictionsThe rapper Lil Wayne (AKA Dwayne Michael Carter Jr) has been charged with weapons possession and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.Carter’s lawyer, Howard Srebnick, told Vulture that the charge pertained to a search of the star’s private jet in Miami in 2019. This revealed a gold-plated handgun in his luggage, which Carter said was a Father’s Day gift. Continue reading...
by Anthony Giacchino, Alice Doyard, Lindsay Poulton, on (#5AHDE)
On the anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg trials, 90-year-old Colette Marin-Catherine confronts her past by visiting the German concentration camp where her brother was killed. As a young girl, she fought the Nazis as a member of the French Resistance. For 74 years, she has refused to step foot in Germany, but that changes when a young history student named Lucie enters her life. Prepared to reopen old wounds and revisit the terrors of that time, Marin-Catherine offers important lessons for us all Continue reading...
Filmmaker Anthony Giacchino and producer Alice Doyard explain how a young history student persuaded Colette, 90, to visit the German concentration camp where her brother diedThe new Guardian documentary, Colette, follows the remarkable story of a former member of the French resistance, as she travels to Germany for the first time to the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp where her brother died 75 years ago. Persuaded to go on the journey by history student Lucie, 17, the pair support one another through an emotional journey into the past. “When I cross into Germany I’ll never be the same again,” says Colette, 90. Continue reading...
The agreement reached on 21 November 1995 by the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia ended the war between the former Yugoslav republics, outlining an agreement for peaceBy Martin Walker in Washington
by William Costa in Asunción and Lorenzo Tondo in Pa on (#5AHBD)
Four months after seven men entered a container in Serbia, their remains were discovered in Paraguay, underscoring the risks taken by migrants trying to reach the EUWhen seven North African men climbed into a shipping container in a railway yard in the Serbian town of Šid this July, they hoped that they would emerge a few days later in Milan.Related: Paraguay authorities find at least seven bodies in fertilizer shipment Continue reading...
Murcia residents hope to protect the polluted Mar Menor, Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon, with a change in legal status“At least we know it is alive,” says a fisherman, walking back down the pier to the muddy beach at Los Urrutias, in the south-east Spanish province of Murcia, where he’s been fishing all day. He doesn’t mean his catch, but rather the water in the Mar Menor, one of the largest seawater lagoons in Europe.Los Urrutias may look idyllic, with flamingos, great cormorants and grey herons flocking to the waters around the volcanic islands off the coast, separated from the Mediterranean by a 22km (13-mile) stretch of sand. Continue reading...
Australian ministers urge dialogue to resolve dispute as Beijing says countries may pay ‘corresponding price’Australia and Japan will “pay a corresponding price” if their new defence pact threatens China’s security, Chinese state media has warned, as Scott Morrison insisted the deal should not cause any concerns to Beijing.The state-run Global Times newspaper declared the new agreement “accelerates the confrontational atmosphere in the Asia-Pacific region” and was aimed against China. Continue reading...
He shot to stardom in the Elvis! musical – and became a staple on 80s kids’ TV. Shaky looks back on a decade of chart domination – and a wild night with Edna O’BrienSomething momentous happened in January 1980, something that profoundly affected the British charts for the most of the following decade: Shakin’ Stevens appeared on kids’ TV as a solo artist for the first time – on BBC1’s after-school show Cheggers Plays Pop – performing his third single for Epic Records, Hot Dog. By that point, Stevens had been a professional singer for 11 years, with barely a sniff of recording success.Epic had signed him not because it had been tracking his career through the UK’s rock’n’roll underground – he and his band the Sunsets had been playing 50s music for years; John Peel had tried to make a record with them on his Dandelion label; they’d opened for the Rolling Stones in London in 1969. It signed him because because from November 1977 to April 1979, he had been one of the stars of the jukebox musical Elvis, in the West End of London. He was already a family entertainer, and you could sell family entertainment. Continue reading...
As news of its uncertain future spreads, readers are flocking to the city’s oldest bookshop – but can it survive changing tastes and technology?Despite the pandemic, shoppers crowd the small bookshop at 18 Rue d’Angleterre. Many are here for the first time, squeezing their way between the stacks of books piled high along the walls of the bookshop said to be the oldest in Tunis.Sunk within an obscure street near the city’s medina, there is little to distinguish number 18 from its rival further down the street, or the small haphazard book stands that shelter in the square opposite from a rain that never quite comes. All nestle amid the bleached awnings of the French ville nouvelle, itself marking the transition from the storied Arab architecture of the medina to the grand colonial designs of Tunis’ city centre. Continue reading...
by Helen Davidson in Taipei, and agencies on (#5AH5A)
Justice department pushes to install national security judge in case as three pro-democracy legislators arrested over unruly scenes during debateHong Kong’s department of justice has asked that a national security judge take over the trial of an activist, even though he has not been charged with national security offences, in a move that underlines the erosion of the city’s independent legal system.It came as a senior Chinese official called for “judicial reform” in Hong Kong and three pro-democracy legislators were arrested. Continue reading...
He was nicknamed Bird and he soared in his music – if not in his life. For the centenary of the saxophonist who redefined jazz, today’s players reveal how his dizzying speed and spirituality changed their livesOutside jazz circles, Charlie Parker might not be a household name like Miles Davis or Louis Armstrong, but the saxophonist, who died of cirrhosis aged 34 after struggling with addictions to heroin and alcohol, was one of music’s true innovators. By inventing the dizzyingly fast style known as bebop, Parker turned jazz from dance music into something intensely intellectual and spiritual. As the London jazz festival celebrates his centenary with a tribute, today’s jazz stars talk about the Bird’s shattering impact. Continue reading...
Without migration – now nearly non-existent due to closed borders – the country’s population will begin to shrinkNew Zealand’s birth rate has plummeted to a record low for the 10th year in a row, with demographers suggesting the rising cost of housing, increasing job insecurity and a strained economic environment were contributing to a reluctance to have children.Data collected by Statistics New Zealand found the birth rate for women of childbearing age has fallen to a record low of 1.63 per woman – far below the 2.1 needed to replace population numbers. Continue reading...
Wednesday: Successive cuts to coronavirus supplement are seeing many Australians sink into poverty. Plus: fireflies light up JapanGood morning, this is Tamara Howie bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 18 November. Continue reading...
James Marape faces chaos amid bitter fighting over who can command a majority in a parliament now suspended until AprilThe bitter arm-wrestle for control of Papua New Guinea’s government has descended into chaos with a half-full parliament passing a budget, then deferring parliament for more than five months.Prime Minister James Marape’s grip on power has been marginally improved by Tuesday’s events, but remains tenuous and the coming weeks are likely to be racked by private and public machinations over who can command a majority on the floor of the house. Continue reading...
Skirmishes break out between rival groups as police fire water cannon and MPs flee in boatsThailand’s riverside parliament was surrounded by chaos as police repeatedly fired water cannon at pro-democracy protesters, clashes broke out between the demonstrators and royalist counterparts, and MPs abandoned the scene in boats.Five people were treated for gunshot wounds after the most violent clashes since a student-led movement emerged in July. A further 36 people suffered other injuries in the protests, according to Bangkok’s Erawan emergency medical centre. Continue reading...
In Alex Gibney’s documentary Crazy, Not Insane, the career of clinical psychiatrist Dr Dorothy Otnow Lewis is explored, from her work with Ted Bundy to Arthur ShawcrossDr Dorothy Otnow Lewis knows her way around a dicey interview. Lewis, a clinical psychiatrist, has interviewed, by her count, over a hundred murderers, death row inmates and some of America’s most notorious serial killers, including Arthur Shawcross and Ted Bundy. She has testified at numerous death sentence hearings for inveterate, indisputable killers – almost always on behalf of the defense’s plea of insanity, leading to New Yorker profiles and at times derision.As outlined in Crazy, Not Insane, an HBO documentary from the impossibly busy Alex Gibney (Totally Under Control, Agents of Chaos, both from earlier this year) Lewis has plumbed an abyss few would dare or consider to approach. She seeks neither condemnation nor vengeance, but information: an empirical sketch of the darkest capacities of the human psyche, the bounds of empathy for the sickest minds. Continue reading...
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