Papua New Guinean student Lesley Wengembo has painted campus assistant Mal Nagobi for Australia’s famous Archibald prizeAlongside Malachi Nagobi, progress across the august grounds of the National Art School in Sydney is constantly – happily – impeded.“Mal!” comes a voice, “hello Mal,” another. Every handful of steps, another person wants to stop to chat. Continue reading...
ANU researchers say 59% of 100 young people from one community dropped out in first year of off-country boardingA policy that sees Indigenous students from remote communities board “off-country” in an attempt to advance their educational opportunities is a revolving door that is “comprehensively failing” Aboriginal children and their families, according to a new study.Australian National University (ANU) researchers tracked the education histories of 100 young people aged between 12 and 21 years old from one Top End community. Continue reading...
A row over over borders, gasfields and national pride risks regional disorderSome claim it has been centuries since the Mediterranean has been viewed as the cockpit of history. But great powers and coastline states, wishing to capture hydrocarbon riches, are today vying for mastery of the sea – or at least its eastern waves. The trouble surfaced last month when a Turkish frigate escorting an oil-and-gas exploration ship collided with a Greek naval vessel. Since then, tempers have flared, with the unresolved question of Cyprus providing a flashpoint between the two nations. Greek ships were last week joined by France, Italy and the United Arab Emirates in the waters around Cyprus. Turkey announced that Russia will hold naval exercises. Nato is right that the temperature needs lowering and ought to be congratulated for kickstarting talks aimed at de-escalation. Nato members ought to trade words, not blows.In Turkey there has been a lurch towards authoritarianism under the executive presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, while the country’s military, economic and cultural power has expanded. Not since the Ottoman empire has the Turkish military had such a sprawling global footprint, with troops and drones recently saving a UN-recognised government in Tripoli from defeat. Despite a Covid recession, Turkish companies retain a global edge – taking advantage of cheap labour, made even cheaper by a weak Turkish lira, and access to European markets. Mr Erdoğan has also won favour in the Sunni Arab world by hosting 4 million Syrian refugees. Continue reading...
Frances O’Grady calls for pay rise pledge to be met, amid speculation it will be scrappedThe head of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has denounced a possible freezing of the national living wage as “totally wrong”, as the Treasury reportedly considers backtracking on a planned pay rise for the lowest paid.The hourly pay rate under the national living wage, the legal minimum paid to workers over the age of 25, was due to rise 6.2% from £8.72 to £9.21 in April, under targets set last December by the chancellor at the time, Sajid Javid. Continue reading...
by Jason Burke in Eshowe, South Africa on (#57TK7)
The Guardian’s Africa correspondent on life in a country that has fought and faced down more than one epidemicIn the evening I went for a run, down to the gate from my guesthouse, past a huddle of round huts and through the fields of sugar cane to the lake. A dog barked, a child howled, someone laughed, and tinny music played somewhere in the gathering darkness.Eshowe, a small town in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, is a place of astonishing natural beauty. The run did not last long. I stopped and watched as weavers, glossy starlings and sunbirds swooped through the trees, catching the last rays of the sun. To the north, low dry hills lined the horizon. To the south, the breakers of the Indian Ocean crashed on miles of wild shore. Eshowe was memorable for something else too: the very human suffering I found there, and equally human hope. Continue reading...
Similar marches held in other cities including Brest a month after disputed electionHuge protests have taken place across Belarus against the embattled regime of Alexander Lukashenko, with demonstrators marching on the president’s residence in the capital, Minsk, for a fourth weekend in a row.More than 100,000 people filled Minsk’s Independence Avenue calling for Lukashenko to step down. There were similar marches in other cities, including Brest, Vitebsk and Grodno. Continue reading...
Police say many accidents involve young men who have leased high-powered vehiclesRoad deaths in one of Britain’s biggest police force areas have increased by 42% this year despite a substantial drop in traffic during lockdown, with a senior officer blaming boy racers driving high-speed leased cars, often high on drink or drugs.Cycling organisations and lawyers representing injured cyclists report a similar picture nationally, with one law firm saying cycling cases were up 45% year-on-year. Continue reading...
Police fire pepper pellets in one of largest gatherings since national security law imposedOn what was supposed to have been Hong Kong’s election day, hundreds of pro-democracy protesters took to the streets on Sunday, where they encountered a heavy presence from police, who fired pepper pellets and arrested almost 300 people.It was one of the largest gatherings of protesters since China’s implementation of a sweeping set of anti-sedition laws that a coalition of United Nations expert groups has said risks breaching multiple international laws and human rights. Continue reading...
Despite the stories of people drinking more when confined to home, for many this has been a time to tackle their dependencyThere was nothing extraordinary about the weekend that Charlotte Davies decided to stop drinking. The 47-year-old office manager, from the Berkshire village of Warfield, watched TV with her husband. They cooked. On the Saturday evening, Davies drank two bottles of red wine. Fetching the wine from the garage, where she stores it, she realised with dismay that the 36 bottles she had ordered online had almost gone. She made a mental note to order more.On Sunday, her hangover was “horrendous”. “I was really ill, I had such a headache and I felt incredibly depressed,” she says. She held out for as long as she could, before cracking at about 5.30pm, and drinking another bottle of red wine. That day, Sunday 14 June, was the last on which Davies would drink alcohol. Enough. Continue reading...
If you have been affected by the events in Birmingham you can share your experiences directly with our journalistsWest Midlands police have launched a murder investigation after a series of stabbings in Birmingham city centre left one man dead, two people with serious injuries and five others injured.West Midlands police declared a major incident in Birmingham city centre after a number of stabbings in the early hours of Sunday morning. Continue reading...
Scott Morrison was criticised in August for announcing a heads of agreement had been signed with AstraZeneca before a final deal was securedAustralia will buy 84.8m vaccine doses at a cost of $1.7bn if two promising Covid-19 vaccine candidates prove successful, under deals for free access for Australians negotiated by the Morrison government.The deals promising onshore manufacture of the University of Oxford vaccine by AstraZeneca and the University of Queensland vaccine by CSL will be announced by Scott Morrison with the health minister, Greg Hunt, and the science minister, Karen Andrews, on Monday. Continue reading...
A man was killed and seven people injured in late-night stabbings in a busy area of Birmingham, police said Sunday. Police said they were searching for a lone suspect in what appeared to be random attacks in the English city. Ch Supt Steve Graham of West Midlands police said detectives were still investigating the motive but that ‘there is absolutely no suggestion at all that this is terror related’.
Straying from prepared weekly blessing, pontiff urges faithful not to air grievances in publicPope Francis said on Sunday that gossip is a “plague worse than Covid” that is seeking to divide the Roman Catholic church.Francis strayed from his prepared text in his weekly blessing to reiterate his frequent complaint about gossiping within church communities and the Vatican bureaucracy. Continue reading...
by Jessica Elgot Chief political correspondent on (#57TC8)
Gavin Barwell angered by David Frost’s suggestion that May government ‘blinked’ in negotiationsTheresa May’s former chief of staff has accused the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, of having a “brass neck” after he said the UK government had “blinked first” in negotiations.Gavin Barwell, a key member of the former prime minister’s negotiating team, said Boris Johnson’s withdrawal agreement was “95% the work of his predecessors” and a deal had only been secured by conceding to the EU’s demand for some customs checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of Great Britain, which May’s team had not agreed to. Continue reading...
Grattan Institute’s Stephen Duckett says roadmap on ‘the right track’ but evidence for overnight curfew is ‘limited’Coronavirus Australia mapMelbourne stage 4 restrictions explainedRegional Victoria stage 3 restrictions explainedPublic health experts have backed the Victorian government’s decision to extend Melbourne’s stage four lockdown and only lift all restrictions once there is no community transmission of Covid-19, but have questioned the effectiveness of the overnight curfew.The stage four lockdown has been extended for two weeks with some allowances made for single people living alone and a doubling of the time permitted for exercise. After that, from 28 September, the harshest measures of stage four will continue – including the curfew – but people will be able to meet in larger groups outdoors and some students will return to school. Continue reading...
Dismayed freelancers left wondering whether new director general’s call for restraint also applies to themRegular freelance contributors and BBC broadcasters have been left angry and confused this weekend in the wake of the new director general Tim Davie’s comments about restrictions to their use of Twitter.Speaking in Cardiff on Thursday, Davie called for restraint and greater impartiality from presenters and reporters. “If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media then that is a valid choice, but you should not be working at the BBC,” he said. Continue reading...
Chief executive Paul Guerra says roadmap, which includes a two-week lockdown extension, is a ‘kick in the guts’Coronavirus Australia mapMelbourne stage 4 restrictions explainedRegional Victoria stage 3 restrictions explainedThe Victorian government’s Covid-19 roadmap to ease restrictions has failed to quell growing anger among business leaders, with one peak body describing the plan as a “kick in the guts”.Facing pressure from business and the federal government to outline how Melbourne would emerge from lockdown, the premier, Daniel Andrews, unveiled a five-point plan on Sunday that included a two-week extension of stage four restrictions and thresholds for gradually reopening the economy. Continue reading...
Daniel Andrews has outlined plans to relax stage 4 and stage 3 restrictions across Melbourne and the stateCoronavirus Australia mapMelbourne stage 4 restrictions explainedRegional Victoria stage 3 restrictions explainedThe Victorian government released its roadmap for easing coronavirus lockdown restrictions on Sunday 6 September. Face masks will remain compulsory, with the premier, Daniel Andrews, saying they are a “high reward, low cost” measure.This is what was outlined, with Melbourne’s stage-four restrictions extended for two weeks. Continue reading...
Officers say a number of people were left injured after incident in city centreWest Midlands police have declared a major incident in Birmingham city centre after a series of stabbings.Police said there were a number of victims, but the severity of their injuries was not immediately known. They urged people to stay away from the area, which was cordoned off, and warned of a greater police presence. Continue reading...
The Lifvs start-up has opened 19 stores across the country, choosing remote places that have lost their local shopsEmma Nilsson’s husband is harvesting hay in the hot summer sun and she has popped into the village shop to get him a bottle of water. But there’s no friendly face at the checkout, or opportunity to swap local gossip. Instead, she pulls out her phone, logs in with BankID, the national identification app operated by Sweden’s banks, and opens the locked glass door with a tap on her screen.With only a small camera in one corner to supervise her, she studies fridges stocked by someone she’s never seen, selects the bottle she wants, calls up a barcode reader on the app, then scans and pays with another tap. This new unstaffed supermarket – a wall of fridges and another of shelves packed into a 22 sq metre container – has made it a lot more convenient to live in Eket, a village of 400 people in the far-north of Sweden’s Skåne region. Continue reading...
The Hollywood actor almost fell into a police trap when he met with the fugitive Mexican over a film deal, reveals new bookHe is one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed actors, at one time known as much for his hellraising, turbulent marriage and interest in humanitarian causes as for his films. Now it has emerged that Sean Penn’s taste for adventure – and a potential movie part – almost led him into a trap that had been set for the notorious Mexican drug smuggler and fugitive Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.The tale, recounted in a new book, El Jefe: The Stalking of Chapo Guzmán, sheds new light on an international spying operation set up to apprehend the drug lord who was responsible for ordering as many as 200 murders, according to prosecutors. Continue reading...
As the prime minister appears more out of his depth, his party looks to the far more competent and popular chancellorAs Tory MPs headed into the Covid-secure Commons for prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, all they wanted was reassurance after some very worrying weeks.Over the summer break, Boris Johnson’s administration had performed U-turn after U-turn in a chaotic period of serial blundering that had culminated in arguably the worst mess of all – the exams fiasco. Continue reading...
Pope backs drive to end ‘deviant spirituality’ of Italian crime families who use Madonna as a shield of religious respectabilityEarly in his papacy, Pope Francis responded to a particularly gruesome double murder in Calabria by travelling to the region and issuing a ringing condemnation of ’Ndrangheta, the local mafia-type organisation responsible. Addressing an audience of 200,000 people in June 2014, he said: “The ’Ndrangheta represents the adoration of evil and contempt of the common good … they are excommunicated.”The following month, with the pope back in Rome, an officially sanctioned religious procession through the streets of the Calabrian town of Oppido Mamertina halted outside the home of Giuseppe Mazzagatti, a local ’Ndrangheta boss. There, a giant statue of the Virgin Mary was made to bow in homage and obedience to Mazzagatti. Outraged police officers refused to accompany the procession as it then moved on through the town. Continue reading...
After a botched response to the pandemic, No 10 is now poised to sever EU trading ties and split the unionCovid-19 has pushed the economy into the worst recession on record. GDP fell by a fifth in the three months to June, the biggest quarterly drop of any G7 nation. This is surely the worst possible moment for the government to choose to inflict a further economic shock on the country. Yet that is exactly what Boris Johnson is planning to do. On 1 January, the Brexit transition period will come to an end and Britain will either trade on a no-deal basis with the European Union or, at best, with a bare-bones free trade agreement.The government’s economic forecasts predict that a no-deal Brexit would depress GDP by more than seven percentage points over 15 years and that a free trade deal outside the customs union and single market would reduce it by just under five points. But even Brexit’s most ardent proponents, who implausibly deny that creating friction in the trading relationship with our closest neighbours would significantly reduce growth over the long term, would concede that there will be a short-term shock to moving to a different relationship. It is a mark of just how mind-bogglingly ideological Johnson and his cabinet are that they refused to ask the EU for the transition period extension earlier this year that would surely have been granted. Continue reading...
Josef Koeberl spent more than 2 hours and 30 minutes in a custom-made box filled with 200kg of ice cubesAn Austrian man beat his own record for the longest full-body contact with ice cubes on Saturday.Josef Koeberl managed to stay 2 hours, 30 minutes and 57 seconds inside a custom-made glass box filled up to his shoulders with ice cubes. More than 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of ice cubes were needed to fill up the box, after Koeberl stepped inside wearing nothing but swim trunks. Continue reading...
Victoria premier Daniel Andrews says existing restrictions with minor changes will remain in place until 28 SeptemberCoronavirus Australia mapMelbourne stage 4 restrictions explainedRegional Victoria stage 3 restrictions explainedVictoria’s premier has apologised for having to extend tough lockdown conditions in Melbourne for six more weeks as Australia’s second largest city works to contain the second wave of Covid-19 cases that has caused 646 deaths to date.Stage-four restrictions in Melbourne, which include a night-time curfew, will be extended for two weeks to 28 September, with Daniel Andrews declaring: “We can’t run out of lockdown.” The curfew, travel limits and other elements of stage four will remain in place until 26 October. Continue reading...
Five men found injured – one seriously – after police respond to reports of a stabbing attack in south-east LondonFive men have been injured – one seriously – after reports of stabbing attack in south-east London.Officers were called to reports of a stabbing in The Broadway, Bexleyheath, at about 9.30pm on Saturday. Continue reading...
Jennifer Westacott also says such firms should ‘exercise some very careful judgment’ about paying dividendsCompanies receiving jobkeeper wage subsidies should not give executive bonuses and should think twice before paying dividends, the head of the Business Council of Australia has said.Jennifer Westacott made the comments in a wide-ranging interview on ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday during which she also decried the mooted extension of Melbourne’s lockdown and called for investment in renewable energy to kickstart the economy out of the Covid-19 recession. Continue reading...
Terminally ill French man is told his plan was blocked because it could promote self-harmFacebook has blocked a terminally ill French campaigner for assisted dying from livestreaming his own death.Alain Cocq, who has been suffering for 34 years from a rare and incurable degenerative disease, has stopped taking food, drink or medicine, and says he wants his death to be seen to help persuade French authorities to lift a ban on medically assisted suicide. Continue reading...
Wellington’s plan to boost urban density has set off a predictable cycle of conflict and outrage – but there is a way outIt’s like a slow-moving nightmare, in which the same battle is fought over and over again, without resolution.The city council in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital, has announced plans to house an extra 74,000 people – plans that would require some low-rise inner-city villas to be replaced by dense modern apartments. Continue reading...
Anger continues to build over prime minister’s handling of coronavirus crisis and corruption allegationsThousands of Israelis protested outside the official residence of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night, pressing ahead with a months-long campaign demanding he resign.Demonstrators have been protesting against Netanyahu’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, which has led to soaring unemployment, and believe he should step down while on trial for corruption charges. Continue reading...
Sentenced to death in China, American Mark Swidan hopes for a permanent reprieve but his fate may hinge on an easing of diplomatic tensionsWhen Chinese police raided the Guangzhou hotel room of Mark Swidan and arrested him on 13 November 2012, he was on the phone to his mother, Katherine. Swidan had been in China sourcing building materials for his business , Katherine says, and they were discussing booking his ticket home to Houston, Texas, for his wedding, when he said there was a knock at the door.“I heard banging, then I didn’t hear anything after that,” she recalls. Continue reading...
Country’s deposed president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, flying out to UAE for medical treatmentMali’s military junta began talks with opposition groups on Saturday on its promise to hand power back to civilians, after mounting pressure from neighbouring countries in the weeks since it overthrew the nation’s leader.The West African country has long been plagued by instability, a simmering jihadist revolt, ethnic violence and endemic corruption, prompting a clique of rebel soldiers to detain the president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, last month. Continue reading...
Performer and presenter says he has been suffering ‘almost fatal’ condition of lithium toxicityFormer Goodies star Bill Oddie has revealed he has been suffering from an “almost fatal” condition this summer.The 79-year-old conservationist and birdwatcher used Twitter to tell followers he had been “very ill” with “lithium toxicity”. Continue reading...
The WA government committed to establishing a Fitzroy River national park, but that hasn’t stopped potential irrigation plansThe Fitzroy is the largest river in Western Australia, snaking more than 700km from the east Kimberley to meet the ocean at King Sound. In its wettest years it can carry 50 times the water of Sydney harbour.On a drying continent, that is liquid gold. But while pastoralists and mining magnates circle the pumps, traditional owners living throughout the Fitzroy River valley have issued a warning: do this wrong, and you could repeat the disasters of the Murray-Darling basin. That drying, over-stressed catchment at the opposite coroner of Australia is a warning of what happens when corporate agricultural interests and partisan politics override ecosystem-wide concerns and knowledge. Continue reading...
Kaavan, who lives in a Pakistani zoo, lost his partner in 2012 and is now medically clear to travelAn elephant who has become a cause célèbre for animal rights activists around the world will be allowed to leave his Pakistani zoo and be transferred to better conditions, the animal welfare group helping with the case has said.Dubbed the “world’s loneliest elephant” by his supporters, Kaavan has languished at a zoo in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad for more than 35 years. Continue reading...
Prime minister said to be ‘furious’ after being asked in the House of Commons to withdraw comments about the Labour leaderAn increasingly desperate Boris Johnson has ordered his staff to step up personal attacks on the Labour leader Keir Starmer and his record as a lawyer, as confidence in the prime minister’s leadership collapses among Tory party members.The Observer has been told that Johnson was so furious after last Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions – where he was asked to withdraw comments he made about the Labour leader and the IRA by the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle – that he turned on his staff for leaving him under-prepared, and asked them to come up with more attack lines on the Labour leader’s career as a lawyer. Continue reading...
Angry families boycott government project after saying ministers ignored their inputRelatives of dozens of the 72 victims of the Grenfell Tower fire and the residents’ group representing the west London estate where the disaster took place are boycotting a government scheme to create a memorial, saying they have been sidelined.Ministers announced a memorial commission in 2018 to decide “the most fitting and appropriate way to remember” the victims of the blaze, which happened on 14 June 2017. However, the Grenfell Next of Kin support group, representing the immediate family members of 30 people who died, and the local Lancaster West residents association have said they have no confidence in the process and believe they are being systemically marginalised. Continue reading...
Fans gather in a German church to hear the first new sound in composition, Organ/ASLSP, for six yearsHundreds of fans have attended a special kind of musical happening at a church in Germany: a chord change in an organ piece that is supposed to last for an entirety of 639 years.The performance of the Organ/ASLSP (As Slow As Possible) composition began in September 2001 at the St Burchardi church in the eastern town of Halberstadt and is supposed to end in 2640 — if all goes well. Continue reading...
by Philip Oltermann in Berlin Daniel Boffey in Brusse on (#57SQ0)
The strength of the German chancellor’s condemnation of Russia was a surprise – and the multi-billion Nord Stream project could now be at riskGermany is demanding answers from the Kremlin over the confirmed poisoning of the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, but is struggling to find methods to extract them that don’t involve a humiliating loss of face.The assertive manner in which Angela Merkel announced on Wednesday that Navalny, who is lying in an induced coma in a Berlin hospital, had been targeted with a nerve agent from the novichok group raised eyebrows, and not just in the German capital. Continue reading...
The actor and activist on being locked up aged five, his passion for performance and coming out because of Arnold SchwarzeneggerMy father was an Anglophile. He was a San Franciscan, but he loved all things English. He adored all the kings and queens and I’m named after the stuttering King George VI.Getting cast as Lt Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek was life changing. The show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry, told me the idea was a metaphor for the fact that the earth’s strength lay in its diversity; people from all over the world, working out their problems and being a team – and boldly going where no one had gone before. Continue reading...
Sydney councillor Christine Forster says critics of new UK trade adviser are scoring ‘cheap political points’The sister of former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has defended him against allegations of homophobia and misogyny amid criticism of his appointment as an official trade adviser for the UK.Abbott’s sister, Christine Forster, a local government politician in Australia, who married her wife in 2018, issued a statement in response to the suggestion that her brother’s previous comments on same-sex marriage, women’s rights and climate change made him an inappropriate choice to be an external adviser on the Board of Trade. Continue reading...
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