Our South Asia correspondent on how coronavirus has affected a country’s livelihoods, faith and democracyPacing through the labyrinth of old Delhi, a place where life usually leaks out of every crack, I found myself straining my ears for the familiar sounds of chaos. But gone were the noises of the teeming vegetable markets and the horns of rickshaws piled so high with baskets they seem to defy the laws of physics; gone were the calls of the chai wallahs, the hiss of parathas on the griddle and the loud bleating of the goats who, in winter months, are dressed in bright jumpers to protect them from the cold. This was late March, days after a nationwide lockdown was imposed across India, and Delhi had never seemed so silent.Reporting on south Asia during the pandemic has been a strange, and at times frustrating, experience. The strict lockdown meant state borders were shut, trains were stopped for the first time in history and all domestic and international flights grounded. I was stuck in Delhi, a city I love and call my home, but which is also a notorious bubble in which it can be hard to get a real sense of what is going on across the rest of India. Continue reading...

Perfume brand admits reshooting commercial without Star Wars actor was ‘misstep’Perfume brand Jo Malone has apologised to the actor John Boyega for cutting him out of an advert he conceived, directed and starred in when it was launched in China.Boyega was replaced by Liu Haoran after the commercial was recast and reshot for the Chinese market. The original advert, London Gent, which was released last year, featured Boyega walking around Peckham, south London, riding a horse, dancing with friends and hanging out with his family. The original cast was multicultural, while the Chinese remake featured no black cast members. Continue reading...

Four others reportedly wounded in latest violence on border of disputed region

Boris Johnson’s attitude to international law inspires Wagnerian comparisons from reader Graham Bould, while Dr Anthony Isaacs urges Gina Millar to intervene. Mark Stallworthy says the row has exposed Suella Braverman’s shortcomingsFurther to letters (10 September) regarding the Tories’ disregard for the rule of law, I am reminded of the fate of Wotan and the other Germanic gods as told by Richard Wagner. Wotan the one-eyed, philandering leader, intent upon little else than prestige in his eyes and the eyes of the world, made frequent excursions on Earth. During these wanderings he carried a spear upon which were engraved runic characters spelling out the importance of treaties. His spear was the symbolic guardian of oaths and treaties. When times got tough and difficult decisions had to be made, Wotan was assisted by that master of trickery and deceit, Loge (aka Loki), who encouraged his master’s duplicity in breaking solemn treaties. We know how, eventually, that all went up in flames. I wonder whether Boris Johnson, the proud classicist, is aware of the manifestly parallel paths being trodden by his own cabinet and that of Wotan and his fellow gods?

Exclusive: CMI chief warns women without sufficient childcare could be left out of key decisions

Exclusive: FoI victory uncovers scale of grace and favour access enjoyed by 324 former MPsA “strategic counsel” for the lobbying firm Crosby Textor is among 324 former MPs who together used grace and favour passes to access the Houses of Parliament more than 2,500 times in a single year.Data released after a significant freedom of information victory by the Guardian reveals how frequently individual former MPs have been using their “category X” parliamentary pass, which grants the bearer continued access to the corridors of power after they step down, along with parliament’s subsidised restaurants and bars. Continue reading...

Infinite Cantabria by Okuda San Miguel is a riot of colours, geometric shapes and animalsA 90-year-old lighthouse perched on a lush cape in northern Spain is at the centre of a cultural row after a dazzling paint job by a local artist left the tower outshining its lamp – and some critics blanching.For almost a century, the lighthouse, near the Cantabrian town of Ajo, was a mute, monochrome sentry beaming its light out over the Atlantic. Continue reading...

Oxford institution worked with indigenous communities to overhaul insensitive displaysFor almost 80 years, the shrunken human heads at Oxford University’s Pitt Rivers Museum have fascinated and appalled visitors with their sewn-up lips and eye sockets, and straggly long hair decorated with iridescent beetles.But under a major revamp to address the museum’s problematic colonial past, the heads, which inspired a scene in the film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, have been removed from display, along with 113 other human remains, including decorated skulls, scalps and Egyptian mummies. Continue reading...

Aim of £9.3m project is to encourage prayer and ‘preserve Christian heritage of the nation’An enormous Christian monument, more than twice the size of the Angel of the North, is to be built on the outskirts of Birmingham, fulfilling a vision its instigator says came from God.The Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer will be constructed using a million bricks, each representing a prayer from a member of the public and its outcome. The aim is to “encourage and inspire people going through the storms of life”, said Richard Gamble, the project’s chief executive and a former chaplain of Leicester City football club. Continue reading...

Children go back to classrooms this week, and staff with health issues may not be exempt

Twenty-seven people stranded on Danish tanker for 38 days finally allowed to disembarkThe odyssey of 27 migrants stranded onboard a tanker for 38 dayshas finally come to an end, as the passengers were finally allowed to disembark in Sicily in what has been described as ‘‘the longest standoff in European maritime history”.On 5 August, the Danish tanker Maersk Etienne responded to requests from Maltese authorities to help an overcrowded boat in distress carrying 27 asylum seekers, including a pregnant woman and a child, about 70 nautical miles north of the Libyan coast. Continue reading...

Opt-out from parts of European convention would speed up deportation of asylum seekers

Exclusive: Draft EU action plan proposes to investigate whether race equality directive has gapsBrussels will consider upgrading the EU’s race equality law as it sets out a sweeping plan to tackle discrimination against people from a black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background.A draft EU action plan against racism, seen by the Guardian, proposes to investigate whether the 2000 race equality directive has gaps, particularly on policing and law enforcement. Continue reading...

Alexandra Prendergast, whose father’s funeral became part of a federal-state brawl over borders, writes open letter to PMThe daughter of a Queensland man whose funeral was at the centre of a federal-state brawl over border closures has accused Scott Morrison of using the case to “advance his political agenda”.Alexandra Prendergast said in an open letter to the prime minister his actions were “absolutely disrespectful” to families who had not been granted permission to attend relatives’ funerals. Continue reading...

Justice secretary says he doesn’t believe international law will be broken, as discontent grows among Conservative backbenchers over internal market billThe UK justice secretary, Robert Buckland, has said he would resign if the law was “broken in a way that I find unacceptable”, as Downing Street continued to come under pressure over planned legislation that would override parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement.In a remarkable scene in the Commons last week that astonished Conservative backbenchers, the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, admitted the internal market bill “does break international law in a very specific and limited way”. Continue reading...

Coronavirus bans have forced Jewish communities to adapt and innovate as the year’s high holy days draw near

British-Iranian dual national said to be relieved but angry at surprise moveA new trial of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian dual national detained in Iran for the past four years, has been postponed at the last minute.Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, confirmed the news, which came as a surprise to both his wife and her London-based family. Her MP, Tulip Sidiq, said Zaghari-Ratcliffe was relieved but also frustrated, angry and stressed. Continue reading...

Police ‘making inquiries’ after photographs of officer wearing US flag bisected by thin blue line circulated on social mediaQueensland police have said they are “making enquiries” after an officer was photographed allegedly wearing a patch associated with far-right extremism at a Black Lives Matter protest on Friday.Photographs circulating on social media showed an Australian police officer wearing a patch depicting the US flag bisected diagonally with a blue line. It appears very similar to popular variations of the “thin blue line” flag used by extreme rightwing groups in the US. Continue reading...

Cases are increasing here and across Europe as universities plan to reopen. What is the outlook for autumn?

Friends stage ‘Run for Kylie’ events for the Australian academic jailed on spying charges, as her family say they remain strong and hopefulThe family of the detained academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who faces 10 years in jail in Iran on espionage charges – have said they “remain strong and are far from giving up hope”, as hundreds of her friends marked the second anniversary of her detention on Sunday.Moore-Gilbert, a dual UK and Australian citizen, was seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as she attempted to fly out of the country following an academic conference at which she had spoken. Continue reading...

Lawyer seeks pardon for 2,500 Scots who were tortured and killed in ‘satanic panic’ begun by James VIIt spanned more than a century and a half, and resulted in about 2,500 people – the vast majority of them women – being burned at the stake, usually after prolonged torture. Remarkably, one of the driving forces behind Scotland’s “satanic panic” was no less than the king, James VI, whose treatise, Daemonologie, may have inspired the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.Now, almost 300 years after the Witchcraft Act was repealed, a campaign has been launched for a pardon for those convicted, an apology to all those accused and a national memorial to be created. Continue reading...

Former prime ministers urge MPs to reject legislation, saying it endangers Irish peace processBoris Johnson is facing mounting criticism over his plans to introduce legislation to override his Brexit deal, as former prime ministers Sir John Major and Tony Blair criticised the threat to break international law.

Riot squad marches through fruit stalls at Queen Victoria market as protest of about 250 people ends in scufflesPolice arrested 74 people on Sunday as anti-lockdown protesters massed in Melbourne for a second day, with some throwing fruit at police after raiding market stalls.About 250 protesters chanting “Freedom” and “Power to the people” were encircled by officers at Queen Victoria Market. Continue reading...

Attendees of this year’s virtual gatherings may be spared any gaffes, but at what cost?Utter the phrase “conference season” to a Westminster veteran and don’t be surprised if their initial reaction is a shudder. For regular attendees of the annual party gatherings, which kick off next weekend, they raise the prospect of lengthy policy sermons and curled cheese sandwiches by day, followed by sweaty bars and third-hand gossip by night.Related: Keir Starmer's conference challenge is to avoid the shadow of past leaders | Zoe Williams Continue reading...

As Liguria prepares for next week’s regional elections, an unlikely candidate has energised the fight against the far rightA procession of about 100 people, most of them young, departs from the church of San Martino di Struppa, up a track into the mountains around Genoa. Above, every shade of green; below, the port and the sea, like an aqueous mirror reflecting the blue sky.There’s history on these steep slopes, and that is why these people are here: the ancient paths were used by partisans during the war, and when they blew up a bridge, severing German troops from their supply lines, the priest of San Martino, Don Andrea Ricchini, was taken to Auschwitz in reprisal. He survived, and – after a funeral had been held, in absentia – returned to serve the parish for 30 more years. Continue reading...

Critics fear end of an era because of plans to make audio journalists work across media platformsBBC radio voices have described and defined modern British history. Live reports from inside a British bomber over Germany during the second world war, or with the British troops invading Iraq in 2003, or more recently from the frontline of the parent boycott of a Birmingham school over LGBT lessons have also shaped the news agenda.But now the BBC plans to axe all its national radio reporters and ask them to reapply for a smaller number of jobs as television, radio and digital reporters, rather than as dedicated audio journalists. Many fear it is not just the end of their careers but the premature end of an era for the BBC. Continue reading...

Heather Cox Richardson offers an eloquent history of the negation of the American idea, with clear lessons for NovemberHeather Cox Richardson’s How the South Won the Civil War is not principally about that war. Instead, it is a broad sweep of American history on the theme of the struggle between democracy and oligarchy – between the vision that “all men are created equal” and the frequency with which power has accumulated in the hands of a few, who have then sought to thwart equality.Related: A disputed election, a constitutional crisis, polarisation … welcome to 1876 Continue reading...

China says curbs ‘legitimate and necessary’ as tensions riseThe US has called a decision by Beijing to impose restrictions on all American diplomats on Chinese soil an “escalation”, the latest rebuke in a tit-for-tat dispute over foreign missions.Relations between the world’s top two economies have deteriorated in recent months, with both sides locked in fierce recriminations over trade disputes, human rights and the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading...

As coronavirus community transmissions rise in New South Wales, here are the current hotspots and what to do if you’ve visited them

Home affairs minister attacks state border closures, saying there is no equivalence with denying permission to leave Australia on compassionate groundsPeter Dutton has defended the decision to allow Tony Abbott to travel to the UK, while hundreds of Australians are fighting for permission to leave the country on compassionate grounds.The Morrison government closed Australia’s international borders in March. Since then, thousands of Australians have fought to prove they have “compelling and compassionate” reasons to travel, with at least 20% of applications rejected. Continue reading...

Spirits are low but this one-night-only virtual event reminded us of what’s waiting out there: fancy food, great music and dumb trendsSmiling can actually make you happier. Right? That’s what we’ve heard from social researchers and Nat King Cole and passive-aggressive family members for decades. The idea goes back more than a century. In 1872 Charles Darwin wrote: “Even the simulation of an emotion tends to arouse it in our minds.”In 2020 the science no longer fully backs this up. But it’s what I’m thinking about as I dutifully follow an acclaimed chef’s advice to boil exactly 20 currants in half a can of beer and set up a YouTube livestream of a DJ set tastefully lit by a tealight candle inside a cheese grater. Continue reading...

Coup leaders under pressure to appoint civilian president to prepare country for electionsMali’s military junta, which staged a coup last month, has agreed to an 18-month transition government led by a military or civilian leader that would pave the way to elections.Three days of consultations with leaders of political and civil society groups laid out a charter for the transition on Saturday, which will also include a vice-president and transitional council that will serve as the national assembly. The president and vice-president will be chosen by a group of people appointed by the junta, according to Moussa Camara, spokesman for the talks. Continue reading...

Ex-prime ministers Tony Blair and John Major unite to condemn internal market billSir Keir Starmer has committed Labour to back Boris Johnson’s new Brexit legislation if the prime minister addresses “substantial cross-party concerns”.The Labour leader accused the prime minister of having “turned the clock back” and of “reigniting old rows” by working to override his own withdrawal agreement. Continue reading...

Words to Land of Hope and Glory also heard after row that reached as far as Boris JohnsonThe traditional songs Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory have been sung during the Last Night of the Proms after weeks of controversy over the event.The BBC previously said the pieces would be performed without lyrics but executed a U-turn following heated debate over the decision. Continue reading...

Drama featuring McDormand as a retiree forced on the road after the 2008 recession takes top honours on the Lido, while Vanessa Kirby is named best actressChloe Zhao’s Nomadland, a recession-era road trip drama starring Frances McDormand, won the Golden Lion for best film on Saturday at a slimmed-down Venice film festival, which was held against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic.Zhao and McDormand appeared by video from the United States to accept the award, as en virus-related travel restrictions made reaching the Lido in the Italian lagoon city difficult if not impossible for many Hollywood filmmakers and actors. Continue reading...

Record-breaking wildfires are threatening thousands of acres of one of the most biologically diverse areas on the planet, Brazil's Pantanal region.'Sometimes we are a bit frustrated, but we try to have hope and to rescue the few animals we can,' said 26-year-old vet Karen Ribeiro at one of the shelters, where rescue units and volunteers are bringing in animals including jaguars for evacuation Continue reading...

Dunn’s mother, Charlotte Charles, has demanded an explanation from Boris JohnsonA Downing Street staff member labelled the spokesman for Harry Dunn’s family a “bad guy” after he voiced concerns of a potential cover-up over the teenager’s death.The internal email sent by an employee at No 10, seen by the PA news agency, followed a statement on Twitter from Radd Seiger in which he said the teenager’s family were intent on exposing “misconduct ... on both sides of the Atlantic”. Continue reading...

‘Stop the world’ the musical hero said whenever things went wrong. I’ve been feeling this way for a few years now

Delays are causing further suffering for almost 200 refugees whose requests for transfer or resettlement were approved in 2019A group of almost 200 refugees on Nauru who have had either medical transfers or resettlement requests approved since 2019 still remain on the island, and their cases have stalled, despite the Coalition claiming to have dealt with the backlog.The delays and policy inertia is causing further suffering for refugees and raises questions about why the resettlement and medevac processes have ground to a halt. Continue reading...

Turkish leader hits back after criticism from French president over warship deploymentThe Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Saturday warned his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, “not to mess” with Turkey, as tensions between the Nato allies escalated.“Don’t mess with the Turkish people. Don’t mess with Turkey,” Erdoğan said during a televised speech in Istanbul on the 40th anniversary of the 1980 military coup. Continue reading...

Protests aimed at toppling autocratic leader have been led by women and show no sign of slowingOne evening last week, a stylised image of the Belarusian opposition leader, Maria Kolesnikova, was projected on to the wall of a Minsk apartment block.Mocked up to look like the famous Soviet war poster The Motherland Calls, the image created by Anna Redko shows Kolesnikova heroically holding out a torn passport – a reference to her actions on the border with Ukraine on Tuesday when Alexander Lukashenko’s security services tried to deport her. Continue reading...

Tensions mount after authorities rush to replace camp destroyed by fireGreek riot police fired teargas at protesting refugees clamouring to leave Lesbos as the situation on the island became more explosive days after devastating fires forced thousands to flee its notorious migrant camp.Tensions mounted as asylum seekers, desperate to make their way to other parts of Europe, watched authorities, including the Greek army, rush to replace the now gutted facility of Moria with a new holding centre. Continue reading...

Rally in Minsk against disputed re-election of Lukashenko was attended by thousandsBelarusian riot police detained several dozen women demonstrators and threw them into vans, as thousands took to the streets of the capital to protest against police violence and electoral fraud.Before a massive protest expected on Sunday, columns of female protesters gathered in central Minsk for a peaceful women’s protest. Some beat saucepans with ladles and others chanted “Bring back our Masha”, referring to opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova by her diminutive name. Continue reading...

Family pay tribute to Habitat founder as ‘visionary who revolutionised the way we live in Britain’

Securing a ceasefire and safeguarding rights of women and minorities are key challengesThe Taliban and Afghan government negotiators launched historic peace talks on Saturday, aiming to end decades of war through a political settlement that would be unprecedented in the country’s recent history.Negotiations will be long and complicated; there is a yawning gulf between the Taliban’s vision of an austerely Islamic state and the government’s commitment to the constitution that guarantees democracy and women’s rights, even if its implementation is mixed. Continue reading...

Over past 24 hours, 221 people have tested positive – the highest figure since 8 May

‘My lucky charms are my songs’, the reggae icon told Miranda Sawyer as he promoted his final album, Got to Be Tough

Metropolitan police arrested a man in his 20s in Cambridge on SaturdayCounter-terrorism police have arrested a man in his 20s after a package containing a small improvised explosive device was sent to a residential address in north London.The Metropolitan police said the suspect was detained in Cambridge on Saturday morning on suspicion of attempting to cause an explosion, or making or keeping explosives with intent to endanger life or property. Continue reading...