Dido Harding gives evidence to Commons science committee; new restrictions placed on nearly 2 million people in north-east England

We look at the strategies available to authorities and how effective they appear to be

Paul Secher on the refugees housed in an army barracks on the outskirts of Sandwich in 1939, Rachel A Elliott on the judge who stopped the expulsion of 20 asylum seekers on a charter flight, and David Edwards Hulme on the origins of the boat name SpeedwellThere is an interesting parallel to the proposal to house 400 asylum seekers in a disused army barracks in Folkestone, about which the local Conservative MP, Damian Collins, and district councillors have registered their protest with the home secretary (Former Kent barracks to house asylum seekers who arrived by boat, 15 September).In the summer of 1939, some 4,000 refugees, also mainly men in their 20s and 30s (including my father and uncle), were housed in the derelict Kitchener Camp army barracks on the outskirts of nearby Sandwich. Similar objections were raised by some local politicians to the imminent arrival of so many foreigners, mainly from Germany and Austria. While the influx could have overwhelmed the small Kentish town with a population of just 3,500, they were largely welcomed – to the benefit of both the refugees and the local community.

The lawyer challenging the oil company’s toxic waste dump in Ecuador is under house arrest. We need a boycottAt a time when so many black Americans, Indigenous peoples, people of colour and white allies are protesting at systemic racism, we’d like to highlight a different story of marginalised people speaking truth to power on behalf of their most basic human rights. It’s the story of how “big oil” is now using Harvey Weinstein-like destroy-the-accuser tactics to try to crush environmental defenders. It is also the story of how we can all help those defenders peacefully fight back.In 2001, Chevron acquired Texaco, including all of its assets and civil liabilities. One of those liabilities was the “Amazon Chernobyl”, a 1,700-square-mile environmental disaster in Ecuador that Texaco created through a disregard – and an attitude that local Indigenous groups have called racism – for the health of the region’s peoples. Texaco, the sole operator of the fields from 1964 to 1992, eventually admitted that it deliberately discharged 72bn litres of toxic water into the environment, which ended up in the water supply, and gouged 1,000 unlined waste pits out of the jungle floor. According to several Indigenous witnesses, including Humberto Piaguaje, a leader of the Ecuadorean Secoya people, the company actually claimed that the oil wastes were medicinal and “full of vitamins”. Continue reading...

Grandson of co-founder Theo Albrecht presses charges in GermanyA feud between the German billionaire heirs to the Aldi and Trader Joe’s retail empire has further escalated after the grandson of one of the two supermarket chain’s founders decided to sue his mother for allegedly embezzling funds from a family trust.Nicolay Albrecht, grandson of the late Aldi co-founder Theo Albrecht, has pressed charges in Kiel against his mother Babette, three of his sisters and their lawyer, alleging that they improperly withdrew millions of euros from one of the trusts that holds the family fortune, Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported on Thursday. Continue reading...

Parliament will be asked to override withdrawal agreement only if Northern Ireland protocol is undermined, says PMDowning Street has clarified that it would ask parliament to support using powers to override parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement only if the EU undermines the “fundamental purpose” of the Northern Ireland protocol.Boris Johnson brokered a deal with Conservative rebels on Wednesday to see off a potential party revolt, agreeing to grant MPs a vote before invoking powers in the UK internal market bill that would break international law by breaching the EU withdrawal agreement. Continue reading...

Firm makes bumper profits despite Fred and Peter Done warning about cuts to fixed-odds betting terminal stakesBetfred paid its billionaire owners a £10.2m dividend after reporting bumper operating profits, as the impact of curbs on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) proved far milder than the industry had predicted.Fred Done, who owns the business with his brother Peter, warned in November last year that bookmakers were “fighting for our lives”, after the government cut the maximum wager on FOBTs from £100 to £2. Continue reading...

Prisoners took off distinctive yellow uniforms to avoid being spotted in remote Moroto areaUganda’s military and security forces are pursuing a group of 210 inmates who escaped in a massive jailbreak and stripped half-naked to avoid being identified as prisoners.Three of the escapers from the prison in the remote town of Moroto, 286 miles from Kampala, have been killed and seven detained. A senior military officer was also killed in an exchange of fire at the prison in the foothills of Mount Moroto on Wednesday afternoon. Continue reading...

Olga Edwards told lawyer her husband slept with a machete under his bed and had been violent towards their children, Jack and JenniferOlga Edwards heard her abusive husband make yearly threats to kill an ex-partner who “took the children away” from him, a NSW inquest has heard.Fears during her own divorce from John Edwards, who later murdered their teenage children, were so prominent they formed part of almost every discussion about parenting orders with her barrister, Peter Fowler, the NSW coroners court was told on Thursday. Continue reading...

Labour urges Home Office to ‘right this wrong’ as Syrian teenager remains stranded in Lesbos despite legal right to join family“When I saw the smoke coming I didn’t have the chance to get my backpack, I just ran. The fire was very close, I couldn’t save anything, I lost all my documents. I just escaped through the forest.”Ahmed looks nervously around as he talks about the catastrophe he has just lived through: the fire that destroyed the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos. Around him people are going about their daily lives in the island capital Mytilene, drinking coffee and chatting in the sunshine. But today the Syrian teenager is focused on the basics of survival. “Do you know where I can buy clothes?” he asks. It has been a week since the fire and he only has what he is wearing. Continue reading...

Nearly 2 million people in north-east England will be banned from mixing with other families, under the strictest measures imposed since the country eased out of nationwide lockdown. The restrictions include a 10pm curfew on nightlife.The health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced the measures following a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in the north-east and amid growing concern about a UK-wide rise in cases. 'With winter on the horizon, we must prepare, bolster our defences and come together once again against this common foe,' he said.The rules will apply to people in Newcastle, Northumberland, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Gateshead, County Durham and Sunderland

Proportion commuting highest since ONS started to measure impact of Covid-19 in March

The man’s granddaughter, Lauren Elizabeth, said ‘he may be old but he still matters to us’A 100-year-old who battled coronavirus for six weeks has been discharged from a hospital in Melbourne and returned to the aged care facility where he caught the virus.“He may be old, but he still matters to us,” wrote Lauren Elizabeth of her grandfather, Roy, who was discharged from St Vincent’s Private Hospital earlier this week. Continue reading...

Edward Argar denied the government is considering a two-week national lockdown, after a London-based former World Health Organization expert said the coronavirus infection rate could be nearing 38,000 a day. Argar said there was 'speculation in the press' that a new lockdown would be necessary to contain a rapid rise in infections, but said the prime minister did not want such tough measures to be reimposed nationally

Development suggests Russian opposition leader poisoned in Tomsk, not at airportAssociates of Alexei Navalny have said traces of novichok were found on a bottle of water in his hotel room in Tomsk, suggesting he was poisoned while in the Siberian city, and not, as previously suspected, from a cup of tea he drank at the airport.The Russian opposition leader fell ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow on 20 August. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, where he spent two days in a coma before being flown by a medical jet to Berlin. He remains in the Charité hospital in the German capital. Continue reading...

Trade deal with US not possible if UK undermines Good Friday agreement, Democrats sayConservative MPs have reacted angrily to an intervention by Joe Biden, the US Democratic presidential candidate, in the UK Brexit talks, accusing him of ignorance of the Northern Ireland peace process.In a tweet on Wednesday Biden warned the UK there will be no US-UK free trade agreement if the Brexit talks end with the Good Friday agreement being undermined. He tweeted: “We can’t allow the Good Friday agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit. Continue reading...

Hundreds relocating after blaze in Moria camp left 12,000 people without shelterA police operation has been launched to relocate more than 10,000 people living out in the open on the Greek island of Lesbos since fires last week razed its Moria refugee camp.The operation began early on Thursday with police forcibly moving people into a temporary facility outside the island’s port town Mytilene. Continue reading...

Checkpoints prevent anyone entering or leaving city of Ruili; WHO warns against swift reopening in Latin America; New Zealand in recession

‘Leisure is a feminist issue’ says Surabhi Yadav, whose photography project captures carefree moments of women around herWhen Surabhi Yadav’s mother, Basanti, died Yadav realised she had never really known her. “I knew her as my mother, but nothing else,” she says. “I asked one of her friend’s how she remembered her and she told me: ‘She was the funniest and goofiest in our group.’ Those were not words I associated with my mother. I thought of her as a very serious person.”Her father was the “funny one”, she thought, although her mother never appreciated his humour. “Now, as an adult, I understand that part of it is that my father’s jokes were often sexist, often at her expense.” Continue reading...

Protesters, mainly women, tore masks and balaclavas off police and security officers during demonstrations in Belarus in which dozens of people were arrested.Thousands gathered in the capital, Minsk, on Saturday 12 September as waves of protests continued following Alexander Lukashenko's claim of victory in an election on 9 August people say was rigged

Taipei speaks of ‘real possibility’ of war as US undersecretary for economic affairs pays visit that Beijing regards as provocativeTaiwan’s foreign minister has called for the international community to help defend his country against an intensifying military threat from China, fearing “a real possibility” of war.The comments from the minister, Joseph Wu, come before the expected arrival on Thursday in Taiwan of the US undersecretary for economic affairs, Keith Krach, with a delegation for a two-day visit. Continue reading...

Data offers hope as winter looms in north and raises viability of eliminating future flu pandemics

Matt Wright – known as ‘the outback wrangler’ – came across the large reptile while clearing logs in a river path in the Northern TerritoryFor most people, the sight of an approaching crocodile, mouth wide open, would provide the fright of a life. And their fear would be rightly placed, as encounters between man and saltwater crocs typically have deathly ends for the former.Not for Matt Wright, the so-called “outback wrangler”. Continue reading...

Former Australian PM says Philip Lowe fails to comprehend ‘the key income facts’ when he says increasing the super guarantee could affect wages growthPaul Keating has accused the Reserve Bank of Australia governor, Philip Lowe, of failing to comprehend “the key income facts of the last eight years” when he argued that lifting the super guarantee would create lower wages growth.Keating was responding to comments Lowe made to a parliamentary committee in the middle of August. The governor said if the Morrison government proceeded with lifting the guarantee from 9.5% to 12%: “I would expect wage growth to be even lower than it otherwise would be.” Continue reading...

Pentagon Papers whistleblower tells extradition hearing WikiLeaks founder won’t get a fair trial in the USThe man who leaked the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam war has defended Julian Assange at his London extradition hearing on Wednesday, saying WikiLeaks had acted in the public interest and warned that its founder would not get a fair trial in the United States.Australian-born Assange, 49, is fighting efforts to send him to the United States, where he is charged with conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law over the release of confidential cables by WikiLeaks in 2010-2011. Continue reading...

Leading Democrats tell UK foreign secretary that Northern Ireland peace deal cannot be casualty of BrexitJoe Biden on Wednesday joined the clamour of Democrats warning Boris Johnson not to let the Northern Ireland Good Friday agreement become a casualty of his Brexit talks.The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, is in Washington trying to repair relations with pro-Irish Democrats amid concerns that the UK’s attempt to leave the EU on its own terms will undermine the Good Friday peace agreement. Continue reading...

Thursday: The government will divert renewable funding away from wind and solar. Plus, centuries see Australia home in a thriller at Old TraffordGood morning, this is Lauren Waldhuter bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 17 September. Continue reading...

Extra measures to restrict social contact in Newcastle, Tyneside, Durham and Sunderland expected to be unveiled on Thursday morning

Lawyers argue group of up to 20 people will be left destitute in Spain if deportedA senior high court judge has halted a charter flight hours before up to 20 asylum seekers who crossed the Channel to the UK in small boats were due to be forcibly removed to Spain, a country they had previously passed through.The judge, Sir Duncan Ouseley, ordered the flight to be grounded because of concerns that the asylum seekers due to fly might be left destitute in the streets of Madrid, as happened to another group earlier this month. Continue reading...

PM to grant Commons vote on when to invoke powers to breach withdrawal agreementConservative rebels have forced Boris Johnson into an embarrassing climbdown, with the PM brokering a deal to see off a potential party revolt over a bill that would break international law.After two days of private negotiations, the prime minister agreed to grant MPs a vote about when to invoke controversial powers in the UK internal market bill that would breach the EU withdrawal agreement. Continue reading...

As Keen confirms he has quit as advocate general for Scotland, we look at how it happened

The prime minister believes that provoking chaos will get him a better deal in EU negotiations. He is wrongTo outside observers of Boris Johnson’s government, it can be difficult to tell the difference between partisan provocation and rank incompetence. Both generate an aura of chaos. It does not help that members of Mr Johnson’s own cabinet also struggle to understand what is going on.On a question as vital as the UK’s willingness to observe international law, there is confusion at the highest levels. Earlier this week, the Conservative frontbench voted for the internal market bill that repudiates aspects of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, thus reneging on a ratified treaty. Ministers who worry that they are breaking international law comfort themselves that the breach is insubstantial. It is only “limited and specific”, or so Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, told the Commons. Continue reading...

Even government experts were not banging the drum for new fleets of giant power plantsThe government officially regards it as “disappointing” that Hitachi has pulled out of building a nuclear plant at Wylfa. Why? Well, the loss of potential jobs in north Wales must be acknowledged. But, from the point of view of meeting the nation’s energy needs, there is no reason to be disappointed.Hitachi had been wobbly on Wylfa for the past two years anyway, despite being offered generous-looking terms. More to the point, the government’s experts – the National Infrastructure Commission – are not banging the drum for new fleets of giant nuclear power stations. Continue reading...

The average Australian eats half a kilogram of meat every week. But meat production has a huge impact on the environment – it’s responsible for almost 10% of Australia’s carbon emissions. So can we still eat meat if we care about the environment? Experts say yes, but with some caveats. And there are things that industry and governments should be doing to make meat production more sustainable, too• How Australia can ditch coal (without ditching jobs) – video

Thirty people claim to be victims of Communist party intimidation in Australia but only three reported it to local authoritiesDozens of people including Chinese Australians have been victims of Chinese Communist party intimidation in Australia, according to a policy paper published by the China Matters thinktank.The cases include a dissident who said he received a message from a Chinese Ministry of Public Security official the day after he attended a Tiananmen memorial in Australia in 2019, warning that his actions would have an impact on his family. Continue reading...

As virus begins to spread through country’s rural areas, true cost of pandemic is just becoming apparent

Move by advocate general for Scotland is latest blow in fallout from internal market bill

I was not at all surprised that Andrew Mitchell MP has so strongly defended the position of the Rwandan government in the case of Paul Rusesabagina (Letters, 11 September). Mr Mitchell has form on this issue.Just prior to the 2010 election I attended a briefing organised by Oxfam on Rwanda, at which Mr Mitchell spoke as shadow secretary of state for development. At the time, I was the Africa editor for BBC World Service News and was receiving regular reports of the human rights abuses being perpetrated by President Kagame’s government. I was shocked by how Mr Mitchell apparently brushed aside these concerns. When the discussion was over, I approached him, explaining privately what I knew of the situation. He appeared less than convinced, and so I arranged for Rob Walker, a former BBC Rwanda correspondent, to give him an off-the-record briefing. I was told that Mr Mitchell’s established view of the Rwandan government remained unaltered. Continue reading...

Many users report errors that prevent them booking a test or being told tests aren’t available

Caribbean island’s leader says ‘Barbadians want a Barbadian head of state’ and aims to achieve goal by November 2021Barbados has decided to press ahead with long-running plans to remove the Queen as head of state, prompting speculation that other Caribbean islands may follow suit in the wake of the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter Movement.Barbados said it intended to become a republic by November 2021. The move requires a two-thirds majority in parliament, and there are no plans to have a referendum, something that is not required in the constitution but had been previously proposed. Continue reading...

Finnegan Lee Elder, 20, says fatal stabbing of Mario Cerciello Rega in Rome was ‘worst night of my life’An American student accused of killing an Italian police officer has apologised in a Rome court.Finnegan Lee Elder, 20, is on trial with his friend, Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, 19, for the fatal stabbing of Mario Cerciello Rega on a street in central Rome in July last year. Elder referred to the night of the murder as “the worst of my life”. Continue reading...

Feminists seize human rights office to force President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to tackle grim toll of rape and murderAs Mexicans prepared to mark Independence Day celebrations on 15 September, a different kind of commemoration was held at the headquarters of the country’s human rights commission (CNDH).Under a fluttering purple anarchy flag, women in black balaclavas lined the upstairs balconies of the 19th-century building – and speaker after speaker expressed their fury at the country’s crisis of violence against women. Continue reading...

One regiment’s symbolic and often suicidal defence of a warehouse in bombed-out Shanghai is the subject of this tub-thumping war epicThe domestic release of this thunderous Chinese war epic was delayed last year for what trade magazine Variety described as “mysterious political reasons”. It is thought the film displeased Communist party academics by portraying rival Kuomintang army officers during the 1937 Sino-Japanese war in too positive a light. To an outsider, however, The Eight Hundred looks like a paragon of tub-thumping patriotism in its description of heroic Chinese soldiers defending the Sihang warehouse in the battle for Shanghai. Like Dunkirk for Brits, the incident is seen here as an honourable defeat, a moment to galvanise national pride. Continue reading...

In her first ‘state of union’ speech, the European commission president said Poland’s LGBT-free zones were ‘humanity-free zones’ that had no place in the EU in her strongest criticism yet of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party.It comes amid a dispute between the EU and Poland over the rule of law, since the country embarked on policies that weaken independent courts.Von der Leyen said the EU was ‘a union where you can be who you are and love who you want to without fear and recrimination’.

Child is thought to be first to have returned from the country since NovemberA British child left orphaned by the collapse of the Islamic State caliphate has been repatriated from Syria, the Foreign Office has said.The child is understood to be the first to have returned to the UK from Syria since November, when a small number of other unaccompanied British children were repatriated. Continue reading...

Findings conclude state and President Nicolás Maduro were responsible for extrajudicial killings and systemic use of tortureVenezuela’s president and top ministers are responsible for probable crimes against humanity including extrajudicial killings and the systematic use of torture, UN investigators have concluded.In a scathing, in-depth report published on Wednesday, the panel of experts said that they had found evidence that state actors including President Nicolás Maduro had ordered or contributed to crimes including extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and torture. Continue reading...

London marker will remember Christine Granville, Britain’s first female special agentShe was a Polish countess and Churchill’s favourite spy whose many dazzling accomplishments included smuggling microfilm across Europe which proved Hitler’s plans to invade the Soviet Union.But while she devotedly served the British government Christine Granville was also horribly let down by it, struggling to get full citizenship after the war and forced to work as a bathroom attendant on cruise ships. Continue reading...

Written off by critics as horror trash from ‘unskilled labourers’, Sabbath’s masterpiece album took beaten-down listeners on a rollercoaster out of their strugglesI first heard Black Sabbath’s second album during the part of my childhood when I was most susceptible to its charms. As a quiet, earnest Catholic school kid – the kind that excitedly whispers “I’m clean!” to themselves after their first confession – it’s not all that surprising that I eventually got bullied. The boys called me names, pushed me into lockers, and dug their pens and markers into my clothes, as if to tell the rest of the pack: “He will let you do this!” Continue reading...

Exclusive: Shanker Singham was one of key experts involved in non-government Alternative Arrangements CommissionA consultant who had a leading role in the campaign for an alternative to Theresa May’s Irish border “backstop” is in the running for all or part of a £200m government contract related to the post-Brexit checks down the Irish Sea.Shanker Singham, one of the main proponents of the so-called “alternative arrangements” for the Irish border, is understood to have teamed up with the customs expert Robert Hardy and the technology company Fujitsu for the Trader Support Service (TSS) contract. Continue reading...