President has become a hate figure in Islamic world over response to death of Samuel Paty

Downing Street faces Tory revolt as MPs grow angry at government’s refusal to extend scheme during October half-term

False claims that pandemic is a hoax or was started deliberately are attracting adherents around world

Cycling two abreast can be safer, say campaigners calling for update to Highway CodeA revised Highway Code should emphasise the legal right of cyclists to ride two abreast, cycling organisations have argued, saying the rule is often misunderstood by drivers, and that side-by-side cycling can be safer than single-file.In submissions to an ongoing government review of the Highway Code, British Cycling and Cycling UK have both called for a change to rule 66, which states cyclists should “never ride more than two abreast, and ride in single file on narrow or busy roads and when riding round bends”. Continue reading...

Calls for boycott of French goods after president’s remarks at tribute to murdered teacher Samuel PatyFrance has appealed for foreign governments to stamp out calls by what it calls a “radical minority” for a boycott of French products after Emmanuel Macron’s public backing of the Muhammad caricatures.The appeal came as anger escalated across the Islamic world over the president’s remarks at a national tribute to the murdered high-school teacher Samuel Paty last week. Continue reading...

Survey showed a decline in populist tendencies during 2020 in all eight European countries surveyedSupport for populist beliefs in Europe has fallen markedly over the past year, a major YouGov survey suggests, with significantly fewer people across a range of countries likely to agree with key statements designed to measure it.The YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project, a survey of about 26,000 people in 25 countries designed with the Guardian, showed a more or less steep decline in populist tendencies in 2020 in all eight of the European countries also surveyed last year. Continue reading...

Court hears Kyle Daniels’ superiors thought his coaching style involved too close contactA Sydney swimming instructor on trial for sexually assaulting young girls was described by his superiors as being an “overly energetic” teacher, a jury has been told.Kyle James Henk Daniels, 22, has pleaded not guilty to 26 charges including nine counts of having sexual intercourse with a child under 10. Continue reading...

A vibrant underground of rap, metal, folk and more is thriving among Brazil’s embattled tribes, who are standing up to Bolsonaro’s environment policiesAs Brazil’s world-acclaimed biodiversity turns to ashes, President Jair Bolsonaro has praised the country as an environmental role model. “It is not only in environmental preservation that the country stands out,” the far-right leader affirmed in a UN speech on 22 September. “In the humanitarian and human rights fields, Brazil has also been an international reference.”At the same time, the New York Times has reported that a team of Brazilian lawyers are drafting a complaint to the International Criminal Court in the Hague with a view to bringing Bolsonaro to trial for crimes against humanity, for removing environmental protections for indigenous peoples. Bolsonaro has not responded, but has said: “Where there is indigenous land, there is wealth underneath it,” and in February proposed a bill to legalise mining in Indigenous lands. Continue reading...

The shorthand we used to understand Russia back then was: nobody could get a pair of Levi’s. An upcoming VAT change could create something similar in the UK

From midnight on Tuesday night Melbourne businesses will be able to start reopening as restrictions ease. This blog is now closed

Pierre Koffmann’s croque monsieur, Rick Stein’s mackerel baguette, and Claire Ptak’s peanut butter and jelly: the recipes to transform your working-from-home lunchA bold boast maybe, but we proudly stand by it. Presenting 20 of the world’s best sandwiches by some its best food writers and cooks. Maybe start here: Pierre Koffmann’s croque monsieur! The definitive recipe for France’s finest sandwich by one of her greatest chefs. Add James Cochran’s buttermilk chicken, Rick Stein’s grilled mackerel baguette, Giorgio Locatelli’s Milanese panini and Claridge’s posh tea selection. We humbly offer Uyen Luu’s crispy pork belly bahn mi, Georgina Hayden’s halloumi, Signe Johansen’s fish finger sandwich, and the sweet perfection that is Claire Ptak’s peanut butter and jelly. Trust us. Your working-from-home lunch will never be the same again. Continue reading...

Hilsa fishermen must borrow to buy equipment but have to sell their catch at a low price to moneylenders – creating a generational debt trapKalam Sheikh’s life revolves around the few months when he goes in search of Bangladesh’s prized hilsa fish. When he gets a good catch, he can make enough money to live on for the rest of the year. He can pay off some of his debts and even improve his home.But this fragile annual cycle has been broken this year, with bad catches bookended by months off the water by the coronavirus pandemic and government restrictions to stop overfishing. Continue reading...

Asafoetida is a mainstay of the country’s cuisine, but only now are the first saplings being planted on Indian soilWhat’s in a name? Plenty, when it comes to asafoetida or “devil’s dung”. The evil-smelling spice is a stink bomb that unquestionably lives up to its moniker. Inhalation at five paces can make someone with a blocked nose stagger back. It has to be stored away from other spices to prevent it overwhelming them. Just a smidgen can cure indigestion. Yet it is a staple in Indian cuisine, adding a certain subtle aroma, pungency and flavour. For the Jain community, whose religion forbids the use of onion and garlic, “hing”, as it is called in India, is a lifesaver for the flavour it adds. Hing is India’s answer to Japan’s umami.Yet, until now, no one in India has grown the spice. Continue reading...

Campaigners report job losses and jailing of those airing grievances – and urge global fashion brands to stand up for workers’ rightsOn the morning of 4 May, Zar Zar Tun, a Burmese garment worker, led a strike at a factory in the city of Yangon. Within 24 hours she was an inmate at Myanmar’s notorious Insein prison.Zar Zar Tun, 31, was arrested outside the Blue Diamond bag factory in Dagon Seikkan, an industrial district of Yangon, where she and more than 100 other garment workers had been protesting over pay, working conditions and the right to strike. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Hospitals in England each have up to £20m less than they need to cope in coming months

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews announces an end to the stay-at-home order from Tuesday midnight after no new coronavirus cases are recorded

Ceasefire deal in Nagorno-Karabakh under threat as both sides allege breaches within hours of it coming into forceAzerbaijan and Armenian have accused each other of violating a new ceasefire in the countries’ conflict over the mountainous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.The truce, brokered by the United States and other western powers, had only just come into effect at 8am local time (4am GMT) on Monday when the defence ministry in Baku said Armenian troops had shelled villages in the Terter and Lachin regions. Continue reading...

The pop star and actor talks about her third diagnosis of cancer, taking cannabis and ayahuasca, having Karen Carpenter as her spirit guide – and why her hit film Grease shouldn’t be accused of sexismOlivia Newton-John likes to sing to herself. Over and over, she will repeat, “I’m healthy, I’m strong” to a random melody she has picked up. “I think it’s very important to keep that positive message in your head,” she says cheerfully. “You know, if you have a difficult moment, music is always a great healer.” It is something that has kept her going during her darkest days dealing with stage four breast cancer, the third time she has been diagnosed with the illness in the past 28 years.Sitting in the kitchen of her ranch near Santa Barbara, California, the singer radiates optimism. Her blond hair is cropped above her chin, colourful glasses perched on her nose. Now 72, she looks much younger – just as she did in 1978 when, at the age of 29, she played the high school student Sandy Olsson in the hit musical Grease. Continue reading...

Opposition leader calls for action on Monday as Lukashenko defies demand from 100,000 marchers in Minsk to step downBelarusian riot police launched another violent crackdown in Minsk on Sunday evening, throwing stun grenades into crowds of peaceful protesters, chasing people through courtyards and making arrests as they attempted to curtail the 11th consecutive Sunday of protest in the country.At least 100,000 people marched through the centre of the Belarusian capital earlier in the day to give what they called a “people’s ultimatum” to Alexander Lukashenko: step down, or face a nationwide strike on Monday that could cripple the economy. Continue reading...

A plebiscite called in response to street protests in 2019 sees 78% of people back a new charter to replace one imposed by military dictatorChile has voted overwhelmingly in favor of rewriting the the country’s constitution to replace guiding principles imposed four decades ago under the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.Jubilant pro-reform supporters took to the streets of the capital Santiago and other cities to celebrate on Sunday night after exit polls showed that 78.24% of people had voted to approve a rewrite, while 21.76% rejected the change. Continue reading...

Authorities test 2.84 million people after 137 asymptomatic cases found - the first local infections in China since 14 October

Commander of the ELN guerrillas known for media appearances and online videos is described as criminal by president Iván DuqueColombian security forces have killed a rebel commander known best by his nom de guerre Uriel, during an operation in the coastal Pacific province of Choco, president Iván Duque has said.Uriel, whose real name was Andres Felipe Vanegas Londono, was a leader in the National Liberation Army (ELN) and was known for his media appearances, online videos and a Twitter account. Continue reading...

A minor party hasn’t won a general electorate seat in well over 20 years. The result shows what is possible when convention is scrappedI was making toast in my tiny apartment kitchen four weeks ahead of election day. Not that I really had track of the days. They had melded into one ever-extending runway as Auckland went through its second Covid-19 lockdown and New Zealand’s election date was pushed back a month.We were a few months into an insurgent campaign for an electorate seat at the centre of the country’s largest city. We’d built a team of hundreds of people – particularly young people, some so young they couldn’t even vote yet – who, despite their claims to the contrary, were all doing a lot more than the least they could do. They were about to make history. Continue reading...

Kim Mills was one of nine women taken off a Qatar Airways flight in Doha, and the only one not to be strip-searched as authorities hunted the mother of an abandoned newborn babyAn Australian woman has described the “terrifying” experience of being taken off a Qatar Airways flight by authorities who strip-searched passengers as they tried to identify the mother of an infant found in the Doha airport toilets.Kim Mills was one of nine women taken off a Qatar Airways flight bound for Sydney on 2 October and led through the bowels of the Hamad International airport to what appeared to be a dark carpark or turning circle, where three ambulances were waiting to perform medical examinations to determine if any of the women had recently given birth. Continue reading...

Government says treatment of women after newborn found abandoned at Doha airport was ‘offensive’ and ‘grossly inappropriate’The Australian government has said it is “deeply concerned” at the “offensive, grossly inappropriate treatment” of female passengers on a Qatar Airways flight to Sydney, who were ordered to disembark the plane in Doha and were subjected to a strip search and a medical examination.Flight QR908 to Sydney was due to leave Hamad International airport at Doha at 8.30 on Friday 2 October, but was delayed for four hours, apparently after a newborn infant was found in the airport. Continue reading...

Reform of international corporate taxation could transform health and education, says reportBig US technology companies are exploiting loopholes in global tax rules to avoid paying as much as $2.8bn (£2.1bn) tax a year in developing countries, according to research by the anti-poverty charity ActionAid International.Facebook, Google and Microsoft have been accused of failing to pay a fair amount of taxes in poor countries where governments are struggling to provide even basic healthcare or education to their citizens. Continue reading...

Latest updates: Spain declares new national state of emergency; Dr Anthony Fauci tempers expectation of vaccine breakthrough in 2020

The Special Boat Service that stormed a tanker off the Isle of Wight is closely aligned to the SASThe secretive Special Boat Service, which stormed a tanker off the coast of the Isle of Wight on Sunday evening and detained seven stowaways suspected of seizing it, is Britain’s elite military unit tasked with tackling terrorist and other localised, violent incidents at sea. Its origins date back to the second world war, and the Ministry of Defence refuses to say how many fighters it comprises or give any detail of its operations.SBS operatives are trained to seize control of ships, tankers or rigs, typically by fast-roping down from helicopters. A similar operation in December 2018 saw the SBS take control of an Italian tanker that was subject to an attempted hijack by four stowaways near Tilbury in Essex, on the orders of then prime minister Theresa May. Continue reading...

The star was one of the corporation’s highest-profile presenters in the 1970s and 1980sThe former TV presenter Frank Bough, best known for presenting the BBC’s flagship sports show Grandstand, has died at the age of 87.Bough, also known for presenting Nationwide and Breakfast Time, was one of the corporation’s highest-profile and highest-paid television hosts in the 1970s and 1980s. Continue reading...

Special Boat Service storms vessel after suspected attempt to hijack itSeven stowaways have been detained after the Special Boat Service stormed a Liberian registered tanker off the Isle of Wight which they are suspected of attempting to hiijack.The special forces responded to a request for help from Hampshire police in the early evening on Sunday, gaining control of the Nave Andromeda vessel in nine minutes after it was feared that the crew was no longer fully in charge. Continue reading...

Monday: Australian women strip-searched and medically examined on flight from Doha. Plus: newly released palace letters reveal Kerr’s devastation at being forced to resignGood morning, this is Imogen Dewey bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 26 October. Continue reading...

Australia’s un-nuanced support for French dominion is unhelpful in a region where decolonisation is unfinished businessKicking the can down the road is a time-honoured solution to deadlocks over statehood and identity: hoping time, consultation and money can end up in agreement.But in New Caledonia, the French territory of 290,000 people in the Melanesian island chain to Australia’s north-east, the road is running out after more than two decades of can-kicking. Continue reading...

Forty-three economists were asked to rate the budget on a scale of A-F, and while none gave it a fail, most are unhappyAustralia’s leading economists have struggled to grade this month’s budget.Challenged by the Economic Society of Australia and The Conversation to rate it on a scale of A to F when judged by its stated aims of rebuilding the economy and creating jobs, none of the 43 economists who responded gave it the lowest grades of E or F. Continue reading...

Abolishing Pinochet-era constitution was key demand of last year’s protestsChilean streets filled on Sunday for the first time since the start of the coronavirus outbreak as millions of people turned out to vote on whether to get rid of the country’s Pinochet-era constitution in favour of a fresh charter drafted by citizens.A new constitution was a key demand of fierce anti-government protests that erupted last year over inequality and elitism in one of Latin America’s most advanced economies, and have simmered ever since. Continue reading...

Letter signed by more than 800 ex-judges and legal figures also accuses PM and home secretary of undermining rule of law

Newly released letters written by the former governor general show he regarded his forced resignation under the Fraser government as the ultimate betrayalIn the cryptic taxonomy of archives, the relationship between Sir John Kerr and the Queen stretches beyond the palace letters and into obscure files scattered throughout the National Archives of Australia and elsewhere. The most surprising of these is a new set of letters between Kerr and Sir Martin Charteris in the National Archives of Australia.From all these archives – in personal letters, Kerr’s rambling handwritten notes, and his unguarded personal reflections – a common theme emerges: the involvement of the palace in every step Kerr took, and every decision he made, regarding the dismissal of Gough Whitlam and its gathering aftermath, including even his own resignation. It is impossible to separate Kerr’s decisions from his intractable view of his “duty” to the monarch and the monarchy, presented to him so clearly in the months before the dismissal by Queen’s private secretary, the unctuous Charteris. Continue reading...

An ‘independent spirit’, she refused a 100th birthday card from the QueenBritain’s oldest person, Joan Hocquard, who drove ambulances during the second world war, has died aged 112.Hocquard died at her home in Poole, Dorset, on Saturday. Her nephew, Paul Reynolds, 74, said she had always sought to live life to the full and that she “loved eating butter and cream and didn’t believe in dieting”. Continue reading...

High court rejects call for judicial review of eight veterans’ immigration case

Wavel Ramkalawan wins presidency ousting incumbent United Seychelles party leaderAn Anglican priest won the Seychelles presidential election on Sunday, marking the first opposition victory since the Indian Ocean archipelago’s independence from Britain more than four decades ago.Wavel Ramkalawan won enough votes in the first round to clinch the presidency on his sixth attempt and called for unity after his victory. Continue reading...

Sanctions punished the Sudanese people, not their rulers. The US extracting compensation is one more hypocritical actFew countries in the world have been subjected to as many punitive sanctions as Sudan. After the deposed president Omar al-Bashir came to power in a military coup in 1989, the country was gradually cut off from the rest of the world, with the upholding of human rights the rationale. Economic sanctions were followed by a spot on the state sponsors of terrorism list, and then by the indictment of Bashir by the international criminal court. At some point it became hard to keep up with all the legislation, punishment for the reckless harbouring of terrorists in the 1990s, and the brutal slaughter of marginalised ethnic groups in areas such as Darfur. There were sanctions on individuals, a US travel ban on all Sudanese-born people, acts of Congress and lawsuits by members 9/11 victims’ families.The country became a sort of human rights cause celebre, attracting Hollywood stars and a vast network of lobbyists in Washington who, whenever it seemed like there might be a relaxation of sanctions, campaigned fiercely to keep them going. Bashir was a president over whom it was easy to reach consensus. Here was an African brute in the classic mould, a military man who turned on his own people, and a sharia-wielding terror sponsor to boot. Continue reading...

Macron’s office denounces ‘rudeness’ after Turkish president calls for counterpart to have ‘mental check’France said it would recall its envoy to Turkey for consultations following “unacceptable” comments by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who suggested Emmanuel Macron, his French counterpart needed mental health treatment.Erdogan’s remarks are the latest sign of a growing backlash in the Islamic world, including calls for a boycott of French goods, sparked by Macron’s claim that Islam is in crisis. Continue reading...

Leopoldo López left Spanish embassy in Caracas ‘of his own free will’ and on way to MadridLeopoldo López, a Venezuelan opposition figure who has sheltered at the Spanish ambassador’s residence in Caracas for 18 months, has fled the country, his father has said.“I can confirm he left the embassy of his own free will and left Venezuela in secret,” his father, who is also called Leopoldo López and who lives in Spain, told AFP. Continue reading...

Cycling is thriving in Colombia amid the pandemic but riders are taking self-defence courses to deal with aggressive driversAndy Villalba, a tattooed and scrawny bicycle mechanic in Colombia’s capital, has long been wise to the dangers of cycling in such a chaotic city. Now, amid a boom in both cycling and bike theft, he is giving workshops in road safety and self-defence.Related: 'We live for gravity biking': deadly sport is way of life in Medellín Continue reading...

Unnamed 38-year-old arrested on Saturday in Sussex

The country seems to have rebounded, but some analysts believe that at the very least, there is sleight of hand at workBeijing prompted envy, admiration and not a little resentment when it released data last week confirming that it was the first major economy to start growing again after the devastation caused by Covid-19 in the first half of the year.China appeared to have achieved the V-shaped recovery being chased by finance ministers around the world, after pioneering mass lockdowns to contain the virus that had taken hold in Wuhan, then shutting its borders to stop it filtering back in from abroad. Continue reading...

Claimants include victims of torture arrested under guidance from the Home Office between 2014 and 2017A group of asylum seekers, including victims of torture, who were illegally detained in the UK are suing the Home Office.More than 20 people have launched a claim for compensation, which lawyers believe could be owed to thousands held unlawfully between January 2014 and March 2017, a time when concerns about the government’s “hostile environment” policy towards migrants were paramount. Continue reading...

Police told home secretary of alleged far-right attack on law firm before her ‘inflammatory’ speech at Tory conferenceThe UK home secretary, Priti Patel, is under fresh pressure after it emerged that she appeared to have dismissed intelligence briefings from counter- terrorism police to the Home Office over an alleged far-right terror attack.Officers from S015, the Metropolitan police counter terrorism command (CTC), notified the Home Office in mid-September that it was suspected that a far-right extremist had attempted to carry out a terror attack at a solicitors’ firm in London. Continue reading...

Archives discovery shows the calculated nature of the execution and reinforces the image of the king as a ‘pathological monster’It is a Tudor warrant book, one of many in the National Archives, filled with bureaucratic minutiae relating to 16th-century crimes. But this one has an extraordinary passage, overlooked until now, which bears instructions from Henry VIII explaining precisely how he wanted his second wife, Anne Boleyn, to be executed.In this document, the king stipulated that, although his queen had been “adjudged to death… by burning of fire… or decapitation”, he had been “moved by pity” to spare her the more painful death of being “burned by fire”. But he continued: “We, however, command that… the head of the same Anne shall be… cut off.” Continue reading...