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‘Pidge’ disappeared from Rainbow Springs in New Zealand in 1996 and was not seen again before his return in AugustHe might not have had the best homing instincts. But a New Zealand native pigeon – or kererū – named Pidge made it back, eventually, to the place of his hatching after 24 years missing in the wild.Pidge, who was hand-reared at Rainbow Springs – a wildlife and nature park in Rotorua, on New Zealand’s North Island – disappeared in 1996 and was not seen again before his return in August. That would make the bird, identified by a numbered band on his leg, 29 years old; most references list kererū lifespans as between 15 and 25 years. Continue reading...

Students will submit work related to China anonymously and told not to record classes

Campaigners call for urgent institutional response after attacks and death threats targeting MPs, academics and activistsOver the summer, Mamadou Ba, the head of an anti-racist organisation in Lisbon, received a letter. “Our goal is to kill every foreigner and anti-fascist – and you are among our targets,” it read. A few weeks later, it was followed up with a message telling him to leave Portugal or let his family face the consequences. That message was accompanied by a bullet casing.Ba’s experience is one of a growing number of racist incidents perpetrated across Portugal that have led the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) to call for “an urgent institutional response”. Continue reading...

Ardent Leisure pleaded guilty over 2016 Gold Coast tragedy, in which Cindy Low, Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorsett and Roozi Araghi were killedDreamworld’s parent company has been fined $3.6m after pleading guilty to safety charges over the Thunder River Rapids ride tragedy that killed four people on the Gold Coast in 2016.Ardent Leisure admitted breaching the Work Health and Safety Act and exposing individuals to a risk of serious injury or death. Continue reading...

Hon Man Po is a freedom swimmer who fled China for Hong Kong. He arrived in 1968 after years of trying.Two years prior he swam for five hours in the dark from the mainland to Macau, where he made enough money to take an illegal boat journey to Hong Kong. He was one of hundreds of thousands who followed that route between 1950 and 1980.

They risked their lives in search of liberty in the British colony - now the system they were desperate to escape is at the door

Hardliners and allies of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, are remaking the semi-autonomous territory

Pressure follows survey that showed over three-quarters of company bosses want a dealBusiness leaders have heaped pressure on the government to agree a last-minute Brexit trade deal after a survey showed that more than three-quarters backed an agreement with Brussels.The CBI warned ministers that only 4% of company bosses from a survey of 648 said they supported a no deal Brexit, while 77% said they wanted a deal. Continue reading...

People refusing to self-isolate will face penalties starting at £1,000, and police will act on tip-offs from neighboursA new, more robust chapter in English coronavirus regulations begins on Monday, with fines of up to £10,000 for people who refuse to self-isolate when asked, and enforcement including tip-offs from people who believe that others are breaching the rules.The changes come with the duty to self-isolate moving into law. It becomes a legal obligation if someone is told to do so by test-and-trace staff, but not for those simply using the Covid-19 phone app, which is anonymous. Continue reading...

Money laundering and tax evasion are costing Australian taxpayers tens of billions of dollars each year. So why is the government dragging its feet?

Lockdown is a risky time for those battling addiction, and wait times for drug and alcohol treatment have balloonedFour years ago, Lucky Rich found himself homeless, living in a 24-hour storage facility, in his 21st year of drug addiction and desperate to get help.“I was trying to get into treatment but it was just really difficult,” he said. “Sometimes the stars align and you get into [rehab], but obviously, there are lots of factors that can stop that from happening.” Continue reading...

The overseas operations bill is a shameful piece of legislation that could harm British troops as well as potential victims

Met chief pays tribute to Matiu Ratana as suspected culprit remains in hospital in critical conditionThe suspect in the fatal shooting of a custody sergeant at Croydon police station on Friday is 23-year-old Louis de Zoysa, sources have told the Guardian. He remains in hospital in a critical condition, the Metropolitan police said on Sunday, after the force’s chief commissioner, Cressida Dick, paid tribute to the fallen officer.A second man has been arrested on suspicion of supplying the revolver used in the fatal incident, and is being held in a south London police station, the force added. Continue reading...

Five little known black designers took spotlight on final day of Milan fashion weekThe fashion designer Claudia Gisèle Ntsama’s cocktail dresses are a feat of engineering, their spools of unravelled thread seemingly suspended around the body as if held in a spider’s web. Ntsama, one of five little known black Italian designers in the spotlight on the final day of Milan fashion week, supported herself by working as a cleaner while she created the collection, for which she cites the high-concept Japanese designers Junya Watanabe and Yohji Yamamoto as inspiration.The Haitian-Italian designer Stella Jean, a protege of Giorgio Armani who launched her label a decade ago, describes Ntsama as “a great talent of haute couture”. Jean, a campaigner for equality and diversity in Italian fashion, believes the challenges Ntsama has faced “renders her story all that much more extraordinary and admirable, considering how sophisticated and at what a high level her work is executed”. Continue reading...

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Madrid’s working-class neighbourhood of Vallecas demanding that authorities change their tactics on the pandemic.Madrid authorities ordered mobility restrictions in areas where a total of 850,000 people live, sparking complaints of discrimination and protests

Protesters marched in support of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who lost disputed election to Alexander LukashenkoMasked police dragged people into vans and fired stun grenades and teargas to disperse crowds as tens of thousands marched for a seventh straight weekend to demand the resignation of veteran Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.Protesters chanted “impostor” and “Sveta is our president” as they marched through Minsk and other cities decked out in the opposition’s red and white colours. At least 53 people were detained, human rights activists said. Continue reading...

Vote called by rightwing Swiss People’s party rejected by 61.7% of the peopleSwiss voters have resoundingly rejected an attempt to tear up the country’s agreement with the EU on the free movement of people, in a referendum that echoed the Brexit vote.The largest party in the Swiss parliament, the rightwing, anti-immigration Swiss People’s party (SVP), called the referendum, arguing that the country must be allowed to set its own limit on the number of foreigners coming in to work. Continue reading...

Archaelogists say Sumerian plaque dating from around 2400BC may have been lootedAn ancient sculpture is to be returned to Iraq after it was secretly smuggled out of the country and offered for sale in the UK – only to be seized by the Metropolitan police.The previously unknown Sumerian temple plaque, dating from about 2400BC, is being repatriated with the help of the British Museum, which first tipped off the police after spotting its planned sale in 2019. Continue reading...

Neath Port Talbot, Torfaen and the Vale of Glamorgan will be covered by latest restrictions

Israel has banned us from helping Palestinians in need. Next month, we will defend our work in the country’s supreme court

Oliver Dowden says everyone must follow rules after Labour urges promise on ‘unfair’ restrictions

Mobilisation follows alleged Azerbaijani attack on disputed region Nagorno-KarabakhArmenia has declared martial law and ordered the total mobilisation of its military after claiming to have destroyed several Azerbaijani aircraft and tanks in clashes over a disputed region on Sunday.Armenia said Azerbaijan had carried out an air and artillery attack on the disputed region, Nagorno-Karabakh, but Azerbaijan said it had responded to Armenian shelling. Continue reading...

Strategy of repeated ‘circuit breakers’ would reduce total number of cases, according to leading scientific adviser

More than 40% of Germans are cutting down on meat, and vegan burgers are a shopping mall stapleInside a shopping mall in south Berlin, two colleagues are chomping on hamburgers and fries, cheese sauce running down their fingers as they try to beat the lunchtime clock.Feelings of guilt are in short supply this Friday afternoon: the burger joint where the two women have grabbed a bite is called Vincent Vegan, and the patty inside the brioche bun is made of wheat, barley and soya. Continue reading...

As Covid cases rise, an increasingly heated debate has emerged over whether to readopt stringent measures or return to ‘the business of living’

Human rights groups condemn practice as evidence reviewed by the Guardian reveals systemic denial of entry to asylum seekersAt about 1am on 24 August, Ahmed (not his real name) climbed into a rubber dinghy with 29 others and left Turkey’s north-western Çanakkale province. After 30 minutes, he said, they reached Greek waters near Lesbos and a panther boat from the Hellenic coastguard approached.Eight officers in blue shorts and shirts, some wearing black masks and armed with rifles, forced the group – more than half women and including several minors and six small children – to come aboard at gunpoint. They punctured the dinghy with knives and it sank. “They said they would take us to a camp,” said Ahmed. “The children were happy and started laughing, but I knew they were lying.” Continue reading...

With only three months until the transition ends businesses say they have been unable to prepare for restrictions on EU trade

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s draconian legislation comes into force this week in a bid to censor free speech onlineWhen a team of 20 police officers demanded to search journalist Oktay Candemir’s flat earlier this month, he feared the worst: members of the Turkish media who are critical of the government are often arrested on spurious terrorism charges, and he has been in trouble several times before.Instead, one of the officers pulled out a phone to remind Candemir of a jokey tweet he had sent a few days earlier, mocking a spate of new television shows about Ottoman sultans. “I was arrested under article 130, for insulting the memory of a dead person. They told me I was defaming the Ottoman sultans.” Continue reading...

Philip Guston depicted ‘the banality of evil’ but galleries in the UK and US fear his work could be misinterpretedBest known for his abstract art, Philip Guston also dipped into figurative painting with a repeating motif of white-hooded Ku Klux Klan members. Now these images have caused the postponement of a major retrospective to honour him – and a heated row within the art world.Four institutions – the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Tate in London – have said their Philip Guston Now exhibition won’t open before 2024 because it needs to be framed by “additional perspectives and voices”. They want to wait until the “message of social and racial justice” at the centre of his work “can be more clearly interpreted”. Continue reading...

There have been some changes to metropolitan Melbourne’s tough stage four coronavirus restrictions. Here’s what you need to know

If Trump’s third nominee is confirmed, the court will tilt to the right. Campaigners fear setbacks on abortion, healthcare and more

That sun-soaked pause in life triggered nostalgia for many, says Mariella Frostrup. If it’s a real relationship you want focus on one driven by current connectionThe dilemma An acquaintance I didn’t know very well from 15 years ago added me on Facebook last year, then over lockdown asked for my number and started texting. He had split from his wife last year and moved out. The messaging became quite frequent and he indicated on several occasions that he was interested in meeting up. It definitely seemed that he wanted to be more than just friends. We were getting to know each other, and I started to think he was a nice guy and was considering meeting. We had a few things in common and have the same sense of humour.Suddenly things started to cool off. In the space of a week he stopped initiating texts, although he did reply in a friendly but distant way if I messaged him first. He still “likes” my posts. I’m completely confused. Do I forget him? Wait and see if he wants to meet at some point in the future? Should I assume he’s met someone else? Looking back, I don’t think I did or said anything off-putting. We are both in our 40s, so I wasn’t expecting this. This is all a bit of a head wreck! Continue reading...

Schools and childcare return, while rules are relaxed for outdoor gatherings, but breaches may be punished with fines of almost $5,000

Colombia tops 800,000 cases, Argentina passes 700,000; France reports 14,000 new cases; Australian state of Victoria lifts curfew

Labor MPs and others across the political spectrum pay tribute to the woman behind the Sex Discrimination Act, who has died aged 77

As a member of the Hawke government, Ryan was pivotal in passing key legislation to protect women from harassment and workplace discriminationSusan Ryan, the pioneering Labor senator who helped pass landmark laws to protect women from workplace discrimination, has died. She was 77.A prominent feminist and human rights campaigner, Ryan was pivotal in the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act and Equal Employment Opportunity and the Affirmative Action Act. Continue reading...

Country’s foreign minister attacks western ‘interference’, as Emmanuel Macron says president Lukashenko must goBelarus’s foreign minister, Vladimir Makei, has accused western countries of attempting to sow “chaos and anarchy” in the former Soviet republic, which has been rocked by street protests since a contested election last month that was claimed by President Alexander Lukashenko.“We are seeing attempts to destabilise the situation in the country,” Makei told the UN general assembly in a video statement on Saturday. “Interference in our internal affairs, sanctions and other restrictions on Belarus will have the opposite effect, and are harmful for absolutely everyone.” Continue reading...

Charities and human rights groups said officials had failed to provide basic servicesAbout 250 human rights activists have protested in the northern French port of Calais against a local ban on distributing food to migrants in the city centre.Members of about 70 charities and rights groups also on Saturday denounced what they say is the failure of local officials to provide even basic services to the migrants living in and around the city. Continue reading...

Recipients’ ‘dedication and compassion’ amid pandemic praised by PM

France’s total cases now 527,446; London mayor condemns ‘unacceptable’ demonstration. Follow all the developments live

President urges greater checks for sabotage before displaced people are returnedSuspected Islamist militants have killed at least 11 people in north-eastern Nigeria in an attack on a security convoy that was taking people displaced by an insurgency back to their homes, police and security sources said on Saturday.Islamic State, to whom a breakaway faction of Nigerian militant group Boko Haram pledged allegiance in 2016, said on its Amaq news agency that 30 police officers and soldiers were killed in the attack on Friday on a road leading to the strategic fishing town of Baga in Borno state. Continue reading...

We have a sense of what it means to live in disturbing times, to live under threat. We should not forget the many people who have known this all their lives

Disadvantaged areas already ravaged by the virus will be devastated when government subsidies are cutIf the slogan of 2020 is “We’re all in this together”, perhaps it should come with an asterisk: *except for those with less, who are hurting more.Covid-19 hasn’t torn through Australia as it has the United States, Brazil, India and much of Europe, but the economic impact has exposed gaping inequities in almost every facet of our lives. Continue reading...

Amendment calling for votes on new restrictions is winning cross-party support

Former Daily Mail editor could head Ofcom, while ex-Daily Telegraph editor considers BBC chairman jobBoris Johnson is reported to have offered jobs at the head of two of Britain’s most important media organisations to two outspoken critics of the BBC.Paul Dacre, former editor of the Daily Mail, has been asked to run the national broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, while Lord Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph and biographer of Margaret Thatcher, is believed to be considering accepting the role of chairman of the BBC. Continue reading...

The acting prime minister failed to form a government from among the feuding political blocs that have led the country to ruinLebanon’s prime minister designate, Mustapha Adib, has stood down after failing to form a government in a month of negotiations, in a further blow to a country reeling under the weight of multiple crises.The talks were brought down by the issue of who would nominate key cabinet ministers, particularly the finance minister. The government is made up of feuding political blocs, and the powerful Shia groups Hezbollah and Amal insisted on controlling the finance ministry, despite demands for a technocratic government that could Continue reading...

Scrutiny of procedures urged following fatal shooting of officer in Croydon police stationPolice officers believe there needs to be an urgent review of the stop and search protocols used when arresting suspects, following the fatal shooting of Sgt Matiu Ratana.As the Metropolitan police and the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) launch investigations into the death of the popular 54-year-old custody sergeant, questions remain as to how it happened. Continue reading...

Concerns frontline officers face increasing threats to welfare with ‘devastating consequences’More firearms are finding their way on to Britain’s streets with devastating consequences, the head of the body representing rank-and-file police officers has warned.John Apter, chair of the Police Federation, which speaks for more than 120,000 officers in England and Wales, spoke out amid growing concerns about the welfare of frontline officers. He said the death of Sgt Matiu Ratana at Croydon custody centre in south London was a “poignant reminder of how dangerous the job is”. Continue reading...

Interview part of investigation into film industry following death of actor Sushant Singh RajputDeepika Padukone has been questioned by India’s narcotics agency as part of an investigation into the film industry following the death of the actor Sushant Singh Rajput.The Bollywood star was among three actors summoned by the Narcotics Control Board (NCB) for questioning on Saturday. Continue reading...

The university has offered a rent rebate to students stuck in its halls, but will it ease their anger and frustration?