Covid-19 has exposed the fragility of supply chains, which rely on the labour of black and brown workers. The deep inequalities won’t be fixed by injecting funds at the topIs the UK governed by parliamentary democracy or big businesses? It is a question that should concern us all, yet it is becoming increasingly hard to differentiate between the two, as the government hands out multimillion-pound contracts to private firms with dubious track records, and ministers revolve between roles at big banks and government. Last week, the line between UK aid and private businesses was called into question, as the Department for International Development (DfID) announced the decision to direct £4.85m of taxpayers’ money towards the work of large retailers including M&S, Tesco and Primark.The DfID funding is intended to support large companies to fix vulnerable supply chains and ensure that “people in Britain can continue to buy affordable, high-quality goods from around the world”. These aims, along with the fact that UK brands have been entrusted to deliver them, set off alarm bells for labour rights campaigners like myself, who advocate for better working conditions in the global garment industry. Continue reading...

Hans Sloane ‘pushed off pedestal’ and placed with artefacts putting his work in context of British empireThe British Museum has removed a bust of its founding father, who was a slave owner, and said it wanted to confront its links to colonialism.Hartwig Fischer, the institution’s director, revealed the likeness of Sir Hans Sloane has been placed in a secure cabinet alongside artefacts explaining his work in the context of the British empire. Continue reading...

Ecuador stood up for the Galápagos, but other countries don’t stand a chance against the 17,000-strong distant-water fleet

Curb on 1m-member ‘Royalist Marketplace’ comes after legal threat from Thai governmentFacebook has blocked access within Thailand to a group with 1 million members that discusses the country’s king, after the Thai government threatened the company with legal action.The decision, which has been criticised by human rights experts, comes as pro-democracy rallies spread across Thailand, with some protesters calling for reform to the monarchy. Continue reading...

Achievement comes following Nigeria vaccination drive, with last cases of wild virus recorded four years agoAfrica is expected to be declared free from wild polio, after decades of work by a coalition of international health bodies, national and local governments, community volunteers and survivors.Four years after the last recorded cases of wild polio in northern Nigeria, the Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC) is expected to certify that the continent is free of the virus, which can cause irreversible paralysis and in some cases death. Continue reading...

Tactic was used 1,100 times a day between April and June, and lower proportion led to arrestsStop and searches in London rose by 40% during lockdown and a lower proportion of them led to arrests, figures show.The tactic was used 104,914 times between April and June, equating to more than 1,100 times a day. Continue reading...

Ambreen Naeem, whose son and husband were murdered in the mosque attacks, tells Australian terrorist he has failedAt first, Ambreen Naeem’s five-year-old son didn’t understand what had happened to his father and older brother when they did not return home from Friday prayers.“I had to tell him that his father and Talha were very brave but that they were not coming home,” said a statement from Naeem, 45, that was read in the Christchurch high court on Tuesday during the sentencing of Brenton Tarrant, the Australian terrorist who murdered her husband and eldest son and 49 others. “I told him that they were in a better place because they had been so good and so brave.” Continue reading...

One dead and 28 rescued from block of flats south of Mumbai that caved in amid monsoon rainOne person has died and at least 100 people are feared trapped in the debris of a five-storey building that collapsed to the south of India’s financial capital of Mumbai, according to authorities in Maharashtra state.The building, which contained around 47 flats home to 200 people, caved in on Monday evening, a police statement said. Sachidanand Gawde, a spokesman for the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), told reporters that emergency workers had retrieved the body of one victim. Continue reading...

Janna Ezat, whose son Hussein Al-Umari was one of 51 people killed in 2019's Christchurch shooting, came face-to-face with the gunman in court, telling 29-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant, she forgave him. "I have decided to forgive you, Mr Tarrant, because I don’t have hate, I don’t have revenge," she said during victim statements. "The damage is done. Hussein will never be here. I have only one choice: to forgive you."

Lawyers call for meeting with defence secretary and accuse government of waiting for US permission to pay money owed to IranThe British government has deliberately delayed taking steps necessary to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – including payment of a £400m debt owed to Iran – for fear of offending the Trump administration, lawyers acting for the British-Iranian woman have alleged.The lawyers requested a meeting with the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, and his advisers at the “earliest convenience” to discuss the approach the government was taking on the issue of debt owed to Iran. Continue reading...

Tuesday: Hong Kong man diagnosed with coronavirus four months after recovering from first bout. Plus: how to grow potatoes in small spacesGood morning, this is Emilie Gramenz bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 25 August. Continue reading...

Coronavirus restrictions mean repatriation of remains would have taken three months

AstraZeneca says it has not discussed ‘emergency use authorisation’ with the US

An autopsy has found no direct cause of death for Jack Kokaua, who was pinned down by multiple officers and tasered three times

Suffering of many could have been avoided if government had acted on previous reviews, commissioners sayThe aged care royal commission has criticised the Morrison government for failing to establish independent monitoring and reporting of aged care quality outcomes, as the government’s performance during the pandemic dominated the first day of federal parliament since June.In a statement, the commission said new research showed Australia “could immediately establish independent, transparent, routine monitoring and public reporting of many aspects of aged care quality outcomes similar to leading countries”. Continue reading...

Justice Anna Katzmann says alleged defamatory meanings were likely to lead to an ordinary reasonable person thinking less of the nine-year-oldA judge has said nine-year-old Indigenous boy Quaden Bayles has an arguable case that he was defamed by columnist Miranda Devine.Justice Anna Katzmann has approved moves to serve court documents on the controversial New York-based columnist. Continue reading...

Refusal to discuss health details fuels speculation PM may have to curtail term

Brisbane watches hotspots after youth detention centre outbreak, Victoria’s hotel inquiry continues and politicians gather in Canberra for the first time in 10 weeks. Follow today’s latest updates

Photographer Melissa Ianniello’s long-term project investigates the double taboos of homosexuality and old age in Italy. The subjects of her intimate portraits are a group of gay men and lesbians between 60 and 90 years old, captured as couples or alone in their own homes Continue reading...

Exclusive: MoD data shows 660 army personnel were dismissed in 2019 after failing a drug testHundreds of British army personnel are being dismissed every year after testing positive for drugs in compulsory tests, with the number of sackings rising steadily, the Guardian can reveal.Ministry of Defence data released under Freedom of Information laws shows that about 660 soldiers and reservists – nearly the equivalent of a battalion – were discharged last year after testing positive for illicit substances, mostly cocaine, in the mandatory tests (CDTs). Continue reading...

Government calls Vatican representative for talks after scathing letter accuses Mnangagwa of corruption and abuse of power

Covid and a campaign to encourage cashless payments prompts credit card companies to consider adding 17th digitJapan is running out of credit card numbers amid a surge in online shopping during the coronavirus pandemic.The country’s credit card companies are struggling to come up with original 16-digit numbers as consumers eschew regular shop visits and opt for plastic over hard cash, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reported. Continue reading...

Internal review finds mining giant failed to meet Indigenous cultural heritage standards but critics say penalties are ‘pocket change’Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sébastien Jacques has lost almost $5m in bonuses and the head of Rio Tinto’s Australian iron ore group will lose more than $1m over the destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site at Juukan Gorge, after an internal review found “systemic failures in the cultural heritage management system”.The mining company destroyed two rock shelters in Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara region of Western Australia on 24 May, despite having received five separate reports on the significance of the sites, both archeologically and to the local Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) people, since 2013. Continue reading...

Russian opposition leader’s wife visits him in Berlin hospital as founder of NGO that evacuated him to Germany says he is expected to surviveKremlin critic Alexei Navalny will survive what his allies believe was a poisoning but could be out of action for months, the founder of the activist group that sent the air ambulance to fly him to Germany has said.“Navalny will survive the poison attack, but be incapacitated for months as a politician,” Jaka Bizilj, the founder of the NGO Cinema for Peace Foundation, told German tabloid Bild on Sunday. Continue reading...

Following an outbreak stemming from the Brisbane youth detention centre at Wacol, the state is trying to contain a coronavirus outbreak

Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir and Adelaide’s STCSA are among the main stages pushing ahead. No one expects a profit – and many will take a lossSydney Theatre Company has announced it is ready to open the doors of the Roslyn Packer theatre and present its first show since March.Wonnangatta, a new drama written by the award-winning Melbourne playwright Angus Cerini and featuring the actors Hugo Weaving and Wayne Blair, will play from 21 September to 31 October in a socially distanced production for audiences numbering no more than 147 (the Roslyn Packer can usually seat 880 patrons). Continue reading...

Chief minister Michael Gunner ‘very confident’ Labor will form government as battle comes down to handful of key seatsVote counting is set to resume in the knife-edge Northern Territory election, with incumbent Labor edging closer to a majority.The three-way race, which includes the County Liberal party and newcomers Territory Alliance, is the first major political test of the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...

Landmark became stuck open on Saturday after letting a ship to pass, causing traffic gridlockTower Bridge remains closed to vehicles after it was stuck open on Saturday because of a mechanical fault.The London landmark’s Twitter account confirmed that only pedestrians and cyclists could use it on Sunday morning, adding to the closure of several other of the capital’s Thames crossings. Continue reading...

Brexit and the pandemic have fuelled fresh calls for Scottish independence. For Westminster, the battle may already be lostCovid-19 is a great accelerator. In most of the countries it has struck, whatever inequalities, divisions and tensions were festering before its arrival have now sped into the political foreground. And so it has proved here. Race, class, gender, poverty, wealth, the north-south divide – even though it often feels it as if time has stood still, all of these things are now vividly in front of us, demanding attention. And one key issue has come roaring back: the fate of the United Kingdom itself. Brexit and the pandemic are pushing its countries and regions in strikingly different directions.Clearly, nothing highlights our increasingly unsettled, estranged national condition better than the politics of Scotland. One should always hesitate before claiming that mere polls represent historic shifts, but in the last few months, a number of surveys have found support for Scottish independence running at more than 50%. Leaving aside undecideds, a Panelbase poll last week put the for-and-against numbers at 55 and 45 respectively: an elegant inversion of the 2014 referendum result, and another excuse for stories about political shockwaves supposedly now spreading from Edinburgh to London. Continue reading...

Remains of hundreds of bodies also discovered at site used as burial ground for monksA lost medieval sacristy used by 13th century monks has been uncovered in the grounds of Westminster Abbey along with the bones of hundreds, if not thousands, of buried bodies.“You do have to be careful where you’re walking,” said archaeologist Chris Mayo, pointing to a fragment of skull poking out of the sandy soil. “You can see from the ground there are burials everywhere.” Continue reading...

More than 700 cases have been linked to Sarang Jeil church, which says it’s being made a scapegoat for the the pandemic

Artwork at Tel Aviv beach painted over after outrage over assault on teenage girlIsraeli authorities have removed a “peeping toms” mural that had long been a fixture of a Tel Aviv beach in response to public outrage over the suspected gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in the southern resort of Eilat.Painted 18 years ago and often criticised as sexist, the mural on the wall of a women’s changing room was painted over by a municipal worker on Sunday. It had depicted two young men in bathing suits peering inside. Continue reading...

England's chief medical officer has warned that failing to return children to school in September would pose a greater risk to them than catching Covid-19.Whitty and the chief medical officers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland released a rare joint statement advising on children returning to schools

Netanyahu-Gantz coalition could collapse as deadline for new financial plan loomsIsrael risks being thrust into a fourth round of elections and further financial strife as coalition rivals clash over meeting a Monday deadline to pass the country’s budget.The veteran prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, secured his political survival earlier this year by clinching a coalition deal with his rival Benny Gantz. But the unhappy alliance faces imminent collapse if the two cannot agree on money matters. Continue reading...

Leak to newspaper is apparently intended to show Navalny was not poisoned in city of TomskA Russian newspaper has alleged there was extensive government surveillance of the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny during a trip to Siberia before he collapsed from a suspected poisoning on Thursday.Navalny’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, had complained of being followed during the trip, calling the police surveillance “absolutely obvious” during a stopover in the city of Novosibirsk. The next leg in the city of Tomsk was “relatively calm”, she said, until Navalny fell ill during a return flight to Moscow on Thursday. He was transferred to Berlin’s Charite hospital on Saturday for treatment. Continue reading...

President has vowed to ‘solve’ demonstrations and told army to prepare for foreign invasionBelarusians are preparing for a second Sunday of massed rallies against Alexander Lukashenko, after the country’s authoritarian president told his military to be on full combat alert to deal with supposed external threats.Last Sunday saw the biggest demonstration in the country’s recent history, over Lukashenko’s rigged election win and subsequent police violence against protesters. The protest has continued throughout the week, with the riot police largely absent, but Lukashenko has promised to “solve” the issue of protests within a few days, leaving some wary of a new crackdown. Continue reading...

Five apparent murder-suicides in north-west may have been murders, coroner’s officer saysPolice in the north-west of England are reviewing claims that a serial killer may have been behind five apparent murder-suicides of elderly couples over the past 24 years.Stephanie Davies, Cheshire police’s senior coroner’s officer, has produced a 197-page report raising concerns that the deaths of Harold and Bea Ainsworth in April 1996 and Donald and Auriel Ward in November 1999, all in the wealthy town of Wilmslow, were double murders by a third party who is still at large, the Sunday Times reported. Continue reading...

Horrors of all kinds abound in HBO’s brilliant new drama; Afua Hirsch explores African history; and inside the mind of Derren BrownLovecraft Country (Sky Atlantic) | sky.com

Dr Dominic Pimenta resigned from his cardiology post after Boris Johnson’s chief advisor made his controversial car journey. Was it the right decision?

NT will have to wait at least another day to find out if Michael Gunner’s team has polled enough votes to form a majority governmentMichael Gunner’s Labor team is expected to retain government in the Northern Territory, where counting continues in a knife-edge election.The Northern Territory will have to wait at least another day to find out if incumbent Labor has polled enough votes to form a majority government. Continue reading...

Heavily supervised visits to indoctrination centres present reporters with smiling inmates and tales of cultural acceptanceJournalist Sherif Sonbol was taking pictures of ethnic dancers during an official tour of China’s far western Xinjiang province when he noticed a room full of women being trained to use sewing machines. He realised he was in one of Beijing’s network of political indoctrination camps, where – according to the United Nations – China is detaining up to one million members of the mostly Muslim Uighur minority.Sonbol, an Egyptian photographer and editor, was one of at least 80 journalists taken to Xinjiang since 2015 on the “Silk Road Celebrity China Tour”. He left convinced that accounts of mistreatment inside the re-education centres were untrue. “I keep hearing people saying the education centres were where they torture people,” he said. But the enthusiasm of the dancers impressed him, “Look at their faces! You know these are very happy people.” Continue reading...

NSW reports four new cases while two more people test positive in Queensland in cluster linked to Brisbane youth detention centre• Follow the live blog for latest updates

Outgoing finance minister says Richard Colbeck, who didn’t know Covid death numbers, is an effective behind-the-scenes operator

A candid shot of the young senator by Life magazine’s Ed Clark portrayed him as a man to lead a new generation into a new decadeEd Clark, a Life magazine staff photographer, was commissioned to photograph the Kennedy family at home in Georgetown in 1958. JFK was campaigning to be elected to a second term as Massachusetts’s senator and, if successful, there were strong rumours that he would make a run for the presidency in 1960. After several days taking pictures of husband and wife, Clark asked over lunch at the house if he could get a picture of the senator with his baby daughter, Caroline. “Jackie said no,” he recalled, “that she was upstairs asleep. But Jack bounded up the stairs, and I followed.”Clark took a spontaneous roll of film up in the nursery. It included this picture capturing the moment Caroline woke up, wide-eyed with delight to see her father. The nation was starting to share that excitement. Clark’s cover story for Life did much to advance the growing conviction that Kennedy was a leader for a new generation and a new decade. Up until that moment, presidents were far more likely to be grandparents than new dads, and family photographs were largely awkwardly staged compositions. Continue reading...

Far-right Britain First party leading the charge against asylum-seekers with false claims of ‘crime surge’ in EppingJabbing a finger in the direction of the Bell hotel, Paula Clarke was in no doubt as to what needed to happen to it. “They need to build an electrified fence around the place. It’s the only way to protect us,” said the 68-year-old.The hotel, which was originally a 16th-century coaching inn and is sited on the southern approach to the town of Epping in Essex, can never before have generated so much fear and loathing. Some nearby residents want its current occupants deported. Others feel very differently, proud to offer them sanctuary. Continue reading...

Agricultural minister accuses states of focusing on capital cities and ignoring impacts of coronavirus restrictions on rural areasAgricultural minister David Littleproud has made another plea for “common sense” to prevail in regards to border restrictions, to clear a path for agricultural producers to navigate Australia’s closed states.The Queensland minister accused state politicians of making coronavirus restriction decisions around capital cities and not taking into account the impact on regional communities, which have so far escaped the brunt of the pandemic. Continue reading...

Entire team of Channel Ten reality show in self-isolation after several crew members test positive for Covid-19

Labour leader attacks ‘confusion and incompetence’ from government

Taoiseach and deputy make statement following golf event held 24 hours after fresh curbs announced