The men and women who come from the Pacific to pick fruit and vegetables often do so at a high personal cost. These are some of their storiesWe first started reporting for this story in early 2019. Back then the plan was to meet the people coming to Australia every year, for up to nine months at a time, to pick Australia’s produce. What were they sacrificing to do so, and why?In 18 months the story changed dramatically. When Covid-19 shut Australia’s borders and grounded global flights, the seasonal worker program was thrown into disarray. Long months passed and Australia’s borders stayed closed, an economic nightmare loomed, and the harvest seasons rolled in – with few people around to pick the fruit. Continue reading...

Police use of water cannon fires up more demonstrators on streets of capital and other citiesTens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Bangkok and other Thai cities on Saturday, defying a crackdown against a pro-democracy movement that has challenged both the king and the prime minister.Youth-led rallies have spread across Thailand over recent months, with protesters making public demands for reform of the country’s monarchy, which is protected by a harsh lese-majesty law and which, until recently, was considered untouchable. They have also called for changes to the constitution, and the resignation of the prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, who first came to power during the 2014 coup. Continue reading...

Anger continues to grow despite notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad being dispandedMore than 10,000 demonstrators flocked on to the streets of Nigeria’s capital city to join mounting protests against police brutality. Protesters clogged roads, bringing the centre of Lagos, the usually traffic-filled economic hub, to a standstill.Many brandished the green-and-white Nigerian flag as they filled a major stretch of highway in the city of 20 million people. Continue reading...

Show of support near Folkestone turned ugly after up to 50 protesters chanted racist messagesMore than 200 people gathered outside a former military barracks housing asylum seekers near Folkestone, to counter rising far-right activity against migrants.Far-right protesters clashed with the police around midday on Saturday as they encircled the refugee supporters with vans. After the welcome event, around 50 protesters brandishing St George’s and the British flags marched while chanting racist messages. Continue reading...

As if coronavirus were not enough, the ogre of a no deal lurks•You can buy your own copy of this cartoon Continue reading...

Andy Burnham denies meeting has been arranged to end deadlock over financial aid package

DS Nick Bailey says he ‘can no longer do the job’ despite trying hard to ‘make it work’The police officer who almost died after he was exposed to novichok during the Salisbury poisonings in 2018 has announced he is quitting the force.DS Nick Bailey, who came into contact with the nerve agent when he and two colleagues searched the Salisbury home of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, said he was leaving Wiltshire police after 18 years because he “can no longer do the job”. Continue reading...

New Zealanders give Labour more votes than at any other election in past five decades

While New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, waited for election results that would lead to the Labour party securing a historic landslide victory, her partner, Clarke Gayford, delivered home-cooked "fish sliders and venison bites" to journalists outside their home.Gayford served up food during the 2017 election and said he wasn't going to do the same this year, but said it was a good excuse 'to sneak out and go fishing'.

What are the forces at play as the end of the Brexit transition period looms?British fishing communities have felt that they were sacrificed at the time of the British negotiations to join the European Economic Community 50 years ago. Continue reading...

People in England and Wales reported notifications that did not match government guidance for their areas

Jacinda Ardern condemns divisive elections during victory speech, saying polls 'don’t need to tear people apart'. Ger words were interpreted as a veiled allusion to the divisive US election, due to take place in two weeks.The Labour party secured a landslide victory with its best result in five decades after Ardern emphasised kindness and cooperation during her first term, and told voters she needed a second term to deliver on her promises of transformational change

Terrorism investigation opened after 18-year-old attacker shot dead by policeA history teacher decapitated outside his secondary school in a Paris suburb on Friday after he showed a caricature of the prophet Muhammad to his pupils has been named.Samuel Paty, 47, who taught history and geography at the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine , north-west of the French capital, was attacked on Friday evening by an 18-year-old man who was shot dead by police shortly afterwards. Continue reading...

Parents and students have laid flowers outside a school in north-west Paris where a history teacher was decapitated on Friday after he showed a caricature of the prophet Muhammad to his pupils.

Judith Collins concedes as results show Labour on track for a large majority. Follow live:

Artwork showing girl playing with a bicycle tyre appeared on street corner last weekBanksy has posted a picture of a mural of a girl hula-hooping on social media, ending speculation over whether he was behind the work.The mural appeared on a wall onTuesday on the corner of Rothesay Avenue in Lenton, Nottingham. Continue reading...

Jacinda Ardern has secured a second term as leader after a resounding victory in the country’s general election. The Labour leader had led a coalition government since October 2017, ending nearly a decade of National rule. During her first term Ardern had to deal with responses to the Christchurch terrorist atrocity, the Whakaari volcano eruption and the Covid-19 pandemic. She gave birth to her first child, Neve, in June 2018

Joe Anderson announces death day after urging people to follow rules to prevent spread

New data reveals significant number of young vulnerable people put at risk of deportation by the Home OfficeKobe was in his final year at primary school when a drug gang recruited him. By then he’d been passed around seven different foster placements and met so many social workers he’d lost track of their names. Aged 17, Kobe was identified by the UK government as a child victim of trafficking.When Theresa May became prime minister she attempted to make tackling modern slavery a legacy of her premiership. The current government has also been keen to flag its credentials. Earlier this year, the Home Office minister Victoria Atkins stated she was committed to “safeguarding victims of this horrific crime”. Continue reading...

The Mose flood-defence system’s success will boost a centre-left government enjoying a reputation for quiet competenceVenice’s flood sirens sing, piercing through the early morning fog. Metal bulkheads are in position, securing shops and grocery stores. Wooden walkways sneak through calli and salizade – our streets. Locals sport emergency rubber boots. These are routine acqua alta (high water) preparations. But on 3 October, for the first time in our city’s history, all of it was superfluous. The Adriatic waters that have been both curse and lifeblood to the city were held back. As Tommaso, a Venetian gondolier, exclaimed in dialect familiar to me from childhood (I grew up nearby): “Xe un miracoo!” – It is a miracle.But far from being proof of divine providence, this modern parting of the waters is the work of Mose, or Experimental Electromechanical Module, an integrated system of coastal barriers and mobile dykes designed to protect the Venice lagoon from exceptional acque alte up to 3 metres above normal sea levels. It has been long in the making: construction – and controversy – started back in 2003, after decades of deliberations and tests following the destructive tide of 4 November 1966, to date the highest on record. Continue reading...

Jacinda Ardern is on track to be re-elected as the prime minister of New Zealand. The Labour party looked set for a landslide victory, attracting so many votes in the general election it could become the first party in decades to be able to govern alone.With more than 90% of the vote counted, Labour had secured 49%, with the opposition National party on 27%. Addressing supporters, Ardern said: “Tonight New Zealand has shown the Labour party its biggest support in 50 years.”

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said France’s battle against Islamist terrorism is 'existential' after the killing of Samuel Paty, a teacher who reportedly showed his class a caricature of the prophet Muhammad.Macron, who visited the site of the killing near a school in a Paris suburb, said the 47-year-old victim had been 'assassinated' and that his killer sought to 'attack the republic and its values'. French police shot a man dead after the attack and officials swiftly announced the killing was being investigated by an anti-terrorism prosecutor.

In seven years, BLM has gone from hashtag to global rallying cry. So why has the co-founder stepped away from the movement she helped create?

A year after the country’s first indigenous president was controversially ousted, his party is well placed to win a rerun presidential electionDavid Ticona Mamani felt despair and foreboding when Evo Morales was forced from his Andean homeland last November amid civil unrest, electoral meltdown and what supporters of Bolivia’s first indigenous president called a racist, rightwing coup.“I wept,” remembered the 56-year-old lawyer, a fervent supporter of Morales and his Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas). Continue reading...

Terror inquiry launched as police kill 18-year-old suspect who decapitated Paris teacher who showed pupils caricatures of the prophet MuhammadPresident Emmanuel Macron has said France’s battle against Islamic terrorism is “existential” following the killing of a teacher after he showed his class caricatures of the prophet Muhammad from the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.Macron, who visited the site near a school in a Paris suburb, said the victim had been “assassinated” and that his killer sought to “attack the republic and its values”. “This is our battle and it is existential. They [terrorists] will not succeed … They will not divide us.” Continue reading...

Elite Models boss Gérald Marie was one of the most powerful men in fashion. Was he also a sexual predator? As French prosecutors investigate, four women tell their stories for the first timeA special investigation by Lucy OsborneIn the spring of 1980, Wendy Walsh and her mother flew to Paris from their home in a suburb of Toronto, Canada. Walsh was 17, a straight-A student who excelled at maths. She was also an aspiring model whose blond, blue-eyed, girl-next-door look had already got her noticed; at a local hairdressing event, a couple of stylists from a Paris salon had offered to send her headshots to a leading model agency, Paris Planning. Letters and phone calls had been exchanged, and Walsh was invited to Paris.At the agency’s offices, Walsh and her mother, Ellen, were introduced to the charismatic 30-year-old boss, Gérald Marie. Marie offered to take them to lunch. “So we went to a little outdoor bistro in the Place de la Madeleine, around the corner from the agency,” says Walsh, speaking on the phone from her home in Los Angeles. “It was the first time I ever had a croque monsieur, and he was explaining what it was. I realise now it’s a fancy grilled cheese sandwich. And I remember distinctly him fawning over my mother, and this was surprising to me. She had been an extremely beautiful woman in her youth, but lupus had left scars on her face. Continue reading...

Rescuers pull men, women and children out of rows of houses turned to rubble in latest escalation of conflictAzerbaijan has said at least 12 people have died after shelling levelled a row of homes in the city of Ganja, with 40 more wounded in a sharp escalation of the conflict with Armenia over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.The Azeri prosecutor general’s office said that two shells hit apartment buildings in the country’s second largest city. There has been no official reaction from Armenia as yet. Continue reading...

Online conference this weekend will discuss how churches can defuse ‘ticking timebomb’

Businesswoman appears to confirm relationship in interview with Daily MailJennifer Arcuri has reportedly admitted having an affair with Boris Johnson after allegations that he used his position as London mayor to get the businesswoman favourable treatment.The prime minister avoided a criminal investigation after the police watchdog found no evidence that he influenced the payment of thousands of pounds of public money to Acuri, or secured her participation in foreign trade trips that he led. Continue reading...

Daniel Andrews hits back at Greg Hunt’s suggestion Victoria’s restrictions should be ‘in line’ with NSW’s

Italy’s southern orchards have been affected by hailstorms, drought and the Xylella bacteriaItaly, the world’s second-largest exporter of olive oil, has seen output drop by a quarter this year, an agricultural lobby said, due to bad weather and a deadly bacteria.Italian production for 2020 is estimated at 270,000 tonnes, down 26% from 2019 due to a sharp drop in output in the southern Puglia region, which usually accounts for almost half of the country’s olive oil, the farming lobby Confagricoltura said in a statement on Friday. Continue reading...

Election results expected to come out quickly, with many advance votes already castNew Zealanders are heading to the polls today in a general election that could see the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, strengthen her left-of-centre hold on government or socially sonservative Judith Collins installed after only three months as opposition leader.Labour party leader Ardern and National party chief Collins are the faces of the election to form the country’s 53rd parliament, in essence a pandemic-focused referendum on Ardern’s three-year term. Continue reading...

Victorian premier says he does not know location of the group and has written to Scott Morrison to express disappointment

Police allege Mark De Hesselle collected 139 boxes of the pulp and searched through them to remove the drugA Sydney man is facing life in prison after federal police intercepted cocaine worth $248m concealed in frozen fruit products from Brazil.AFP and Border Force officers seized 552kg of the drug hidden in pallets of banana pulp and branded with koala pictures in Sydney on Friday. Continue reading...

The revelations at Icac have prompted the question: did the Liberal leader turn a blind eye to Daryl Maguire’s actions?In early September 2017, the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, spent a busy morning visiting sick and dying children at Sydney’s Westmead hospital when her phone rang.On the other end of the line was a jubilant Daryl Maguire, then the Liberal member for Wagga Wagga. It wasn’t what you might imagine a typical call from a local MP to the state’s premier would sound like. Continue reading...

Prime minister says Canada will ‘stand up loudly’ for human rights after China’s ambassador against welcoming Hong Kong pro-democracy activistsCanada will continue to defend human rights in China, prime minister Justin Trudeau has pledged, after a top Chinese diplomat warned Ottawa against welcoming Hong Kong pro-democracy activists.China’s ambassador to Ottawa, Cong Peiwu, warned Canada on Thursday against granting asylum to Hong Kong activists, which he said could have consequences for the “health and security” for the 300,000 Canadians living in the theoretically autonomous Chinese territory. Continue reading...

City region was first area to face tier 3 local lockdown restrictions in England

Exclusive: confirmed case at site follows warnings about unsanitary conditions

Trump claims virus will ‘peter out’ in country with most cases and highest death tollThe US passed 8m recorded coronavirus cases on Friday, another unwelcome mark for the country with the most cases and the worst death toll from the global pandemic, approaching 220,000.Despite there being no sign that the pandemic is under control in the US, on Thursday Donald Trump said that the virus would “peter out”. Continue reading...

Katharine Murphy talks to Liberal MPs Katie Allen and Jason Falinski about Covid’s impact on aged care in Australia and the royal commission findings that the sector is ‘unfit for purpose’. With the pandemic highlighting and exacerbating its problems, how can aged care be transformed in time for the baby boomer surge? Continue reading...

Panguna mine is often cast as the economic key to Bougainville’s potential independence, but young MP Theonila Matbob says her people, and their land, must come firstFor all of Theonila Roka Matbob’s three decades, the scar on her land that was once the world’s largest copper mine has cast a pall.The Panguna mine in Bougainville, eastern Papua New Guinea, has not yielded a single ounce in her lifetime – forced shut the year before Matbob was born - but she grew up in the shadow of the violent civil war it provoked. Continue reading...

Exclusive: supermodel speaks out after four more women accuse Gérald Marie of sexual misconductThe supermodel Linda Evangelista has praised the “courage and strength” shown by a growing number of women accusing her ex-husband, the model agency boss Gérald Marie, of sexual misconduct and rape.Speaking exclusively to the Guardian’s Weekend magazine, Evangelista said she believed the women’s accounts of their experiences with Marie, who for over three decades was among the most powerful figures in the fashion industry. Continue reading...

PC Declan Jones allegedly committed assaults during two stop and searches and an arrest

PM presses Greater Manchester to accept new Covid measures without extra money for businesses

Patrick Vallance says Sage recommended circuit break in September and adds tier 3 measures not enough to get R below 1; weekly UK death toll up by more than 80%. This live blog is now closed – please follow the global live blog for latest updates

Case expected to open door for others wanting to drop ‘atig’ or ‘liberated by’ from their name

Lawyer for victim’s family suggests at pre-inquest hearing there was a ‘systemic problem’

Pro-democracy demonstrators assemble for second day in defiance of security crackdown

Mothers who have returned to Iraq without their children say they would rather be back in the hell of their former lives