Calls for Australian government to regard him as a foreign agent and explain how he can possibly work on a post-Brexit trade dealThe controversial appointment of Australian former prime minister Tony Abbott as an official trade adviser for the UK has sparked questions as to how he will manage conflicts of interest.The UK government officially confirmed Abbott’s appointment on Friday, defying a barrage of criticism over accusations of misogynistic and homophobic comments, and his views on the climate emergency. Continue reading...
Jorge Castañeda, once Mexico’s foreign minister, looks at the neighbour to the north – and where it might be headingIn 1830, Lorenzo de Zavala, the principal author of the 1824 Mexican constitution, found himself in exile. So decided to visit a nation he had long admired.Related: 'Trump has a different leadership style': David Rubenstein plays it by the book Continue reading...
Police say no newspaper delivery vans have yet left one site that prints major newspaper titlesMore than a dozen Extinction Rebellion protesters have been arrested after blockading two UK printworks owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp on Friday evening in a bid to stop a range of papers reaching newsstands on Saturday.More than 100 protesters used vehicles and bamboo lock-ons to block roads outside the Newsprinters printing works at Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, and Knowsley, near Liverpool on Friday. Continue reading...
More than half of yakuza are now over 50 - and 10% are over 70 - as a result of an ageing population and police crackdownsA double-whammy of skewed demographics and legal crackdowns has forced Japan’s yakuza crime syndicates to call on middle-aged men to do their dirtiest work, as they struggle to attract new blood to replenish their dwindling ranks.For the first time since records began in 2006, 51.2% of regular yakuza members are aged 50 or over – with a noticeable increase in septuagenarians – according to a new report by the national police agency. Continue reading...
Forty crew members are still missing but rescue efforts are being hampered by approach of Typhoon HaishenAuthorities have suspended their search for 40 missing crew members from a cargo ship that capsized off south-west Japan as Typhoon Haishen bears down on the region.The typhoon, the second in a week, is barrelling towards the southern cluster of Japanese Okinawa islands, prompting warnings about torrential rainfall and fierce wind gusts. It is expected to cross the region late on Sunday or early Monday. Continue reading...
US president says media should be asking about China rather than Russia despite global condemnation of attackPresident Donald Trump said the United States must look “very seriously” into the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but that his administration had not yet seen any proof.“I think we have to look at it very seriously, if it’s the case,” he said, before talking at length about his diplomatic efforts in North Korea and nuclear non-proliferation in Russia. “I don’t know exactly what happened. It’s tragic. It’s terrible, it shouldn’t happen. We haven’t had any proof yet, but I will take a look. Continue reading...
by Nick Evershed, Andy Ball, Hannah Izzard, Patrick L on (#57S4G)
Guardian Australia brings together all the latest on active and daily new Covid-19 cases, as well as maps, stats, live data and state by state graphs from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, WA, Tasmania, ACT and NT to get a broad picture of the Australian outbreak and track the impact of government response
Majority-Muslim Kosovo will recognise Jewish state, while Serbia promises to relocate embassy to JerusalemIsrael scored two diplomatic gains on Friday when majority-Muslim Kosovo agreed to recognise the Jewish state and Serbia said it would move its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.The decisions came after a White House-brokered agreement between the two Balkan arch-rivals to normalise economic relations two decades after they fought a bitter war. Continue reading...
As Covid-19 wreaks havoc in aged care homes, demands are growing for providers to reveal how they use taxpayer dollarsPressure is mounting on the aged care sector and federal government to reveal how some $13bn in taxpayer funding, along with millions in new funding for Covid-19, is being spent to benefit residents.Guardian Australia analysis of the 10 aged care homes worst affected by coronavirus in Victoria shows that three are controlled by two large companies, which between them received more than $1.45bn in government funding over the past two years and paid out dividends to their shareholders totalling $77m. Continue reading...
First Nations Australians were deported to Papua New Guinea under ‘aliens’ power in constitutionThe continuing incarceration of at least 20 people claiming to be of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent in immigration detention centres in Australia appears unlawful and they may be entitled to compensation, legal experts say.A spokesperson from Australian Border Force said that so far only five “non-citizen non-aliens have been released from immigration detention”. Continue reading...
Australia’s telling of the Pacific war story is correctly replete with Japanese atrocities. But crimes against Japanese prisoners do not feature prominentlySeventy-five years after the end of the second world war in the Pacific, the human suffering of millions of combatants and civilians is easily overlooked in a binary focus on allied victory and Japanese surrender.Three-quarters of a century later, Japanese humiliation still simmers in politics and among families of the surrendered or dead. On the other side, meanwhile, countless were the returned soldiers and their families who have long harboured seething hatred for the Japanese. Continue reading...
Children aged between one and eight were found dead in beds in case that has shocked countryGerman prosecutors have said they will charge a 27-year-old woman with murder after five of her young children were found dead at their home in the western city of Solingen.Heribert Kaune-Gebhardt, a prosecutor in nearby Wuppertal, told reporters that postmortem examinations on the dead children between the ages of one and eight showed signs of sedation and suffocation, but it was still unclear how exactly they died. Continue reading...
Claudio Noce’s very personal picture is a beautiful mess that views the harsh adult world from a child’s perspectiveAs a child in the 1970s, writer-director Claudio Noce stood in the wings while a leftwing terrorist group – the Armed Proletarian Cells – targeted his father, Rome’s deputy chief of police. The trauma, he says, harried him all his life before finally finding a catharsis of sorts with the making of Padrenostro, which competes for the top prize here in Venice. This, Noce’s third feature, marks his moment of unburdening. Unsurprisingly, then, it’s a personal picture, agonised and self-questioning, almost to a fault.Noce’s alter-ego is Valerio (Mattia Garaci), an angelic-looking 10-year-old with a low-grade heart murmur and a penchant for solitary walks and wild flights of fancy. But his immediate surroundings feel horribly real. Wounded in an assassination attempt, his father Alfonso (Pierfrancesco Favino) now carries a handgun in his bag and flinches every time the front doorbell rings. Valerio isn’t sure what has happened or why, which naturally means that we’re in the dark, too. For most of its run, Padrenostro elects to view the harsh adult world from a child’s perspective. It’s like What Maisie Knew crossed with a supergrass gangster film. Continue reading...
by Justin McCurry in Tokyo, Eleanor Ainge Roy in Quee on (#57QRK)
Search continues for other survivors from ship that hit trouble en route from New Zealand to ChinaA third crewman from a cargo ship carrying 6,000 cattle that capsized off south-west Japan has been found.A search plane spotted the Filipino crewman waving for help from a life raft about a mile off Kodakarajima, a small island in Japan’s southern Kagoshima prefecture. Rescuers also found an overturned orange lifeboat a little further off Kodakarajima, but no one was in it. Continue reading...
Critics say Abbott’s views on women and homosexuality and denial of climate crisis make him unfit for roleTony Abbott has been appointed as a UK trade adviser despite widespread concerns that misogynistic and homophobic comments and denial of the climate crisis have made him unfit to represent the country to the rest of the world.The announcement came shortly after Boris Johnson said that although he did not share Abbott’s views, he believed Abbott’s spell as Australian prime minister made him suitable for the job. Continue reading...
Hundreds gather for funeral of high-profile, outspoken victim of government’s hostile environmentHundreds of people gathered in a Wolverhampton carpark for the funeral of the Windrush campaigner Paulette Wilson, one of the most high-profile and outspoken victims of the government’s hostile environment who died unexpectedly in July, aged 64.A horsedrawn carriage brought her body to the New Testament Church of God, where Wilson had volunteered for years as a chef cooking food for the local homeless community. The two grey horses pulling the coffin wore red, green, black and yellow headdresses, marking her Jamaican and Rastafarian roots. Continue reading...
Debt seen as stumbling block for release of British-Iranians including Nazanin Zaghari-RatcliffeThe defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has for the first time acknowledged that he is actively seeking to pay a debt to the Iranian government that could finally help to secure the release of British dual nationals including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.Wallace assured lawyers acting for the families that the government was exploring every legal avenue to pay the debt, which for the first time he formally acknowledged the government owes. Continue reading...
by Luke Harding, and Philip Oltermann in Berlin on (#57RG4)
Moscow pressed over details of chemical weapons programme as Nato mulls next stepsRussia is under pressure to reveal details of its novichok chemical weapons programme after Nato called for an impartial international investigation into the “appalling” poisoning of Alexei Navalny.Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, convened a meeting of member states to discuss the latest findings from Germany on the Russian opposition leader, who collapsed last month on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. Continue reading...
Chinese government threatened woman when she resisted in move to suppress Muslim minority birth ratesA teacher coerced into giving classes in Xinjiang internment camps has described her forced sterilisation at the age of 50, under a government campaign to suppress birth rates of women from Muslim minorities.Qelbinur Sidik said the crackdown swept up not just women likely to fall pregnant, but those well beyond normal childbearing ages. Messages she got from local authorities said women aged 19 to 59 were expected to have intrauterine devices (IUDs) fitted or undergo sterilisation. Continue reading...
The gymnast has joined 400 sporting figures in protesting at the re-election of Alexander Lukashenko and police brutalityFor numerous bitter days in early August, Belarus went dark. After the rigged presidential re-election of Alexander Lukashenko, tens of thousands of civilians took to the streets in peaceful protest, where they were met by state-sanctioned violence as the government killed the internet. Haunting stories continue to emerge of beatings directed by the government.As unrest endures at home, it has coincided with unprecedented sporting success abroad. At the US Open, five Belarusian players reached the second round and the former No 1 Victoria Azarenka smited the fifth seed, Aryna Sabalenka, in a grand Belarusian derby. Continue reading...
Pop star’s lawyer suggests she appreciates fans’ help in challenging her father’s role as conservator of her affairsBritney Spears has pushed for greater transparency in the court hearings regarding the legal arrangement that has managed her life and finances for more than a decade, and in doing so appeared to endorse the #FreeBritney movement.Since Spears’s breakdown in 2007, her father, Jamie (known legally as James Spears), has primarily been at the helm of a conservatorship that means the 38-year-old must seek permission before making significant decisions related to her affairs, a setup that is usually reserved for elderly and infirm people with little hope of recovery. He is thought to receive around $130k (£97k) annually from Spears’s estate for his role. Continue reading...
Khalifa Haftar challenged in Virginia by relatives of military leader’s alleged victimsA $50m damages claim lodged in a court in Virginia alleges that the Libyan warlord General Khalifa Haftar, who holds US citizenship, is guilty of war crimes including starvation sieges that forced families to eat grass and tree bark to survive.The claim against Haftar by two relatives of his alleged victims is an attempt to make him answerable somewhere for the crimes he is accused of perpetrating as head of the Libyan National Army, the major military force in the east of the country, which since 2014 has been in conflict with the Tripoli-based government in the west. Continue reading...
Vulnerable groups like senior citizens face the possibility of being left behind – as fears of the coronavirus remain for themMarion Coleman walks six long blocks from her Athens, Georgia, home to a nearby McDonald’s several times a week. While Coleman, 73, likes the sausage biscuits and other breakfast items, her outings to this fast-food restaurant are very much about feeding her soul, not her body.Like many other US senior citizens, Coleman has been avoiding most social activity because of Covid-19. Going to McDonald’s on foot means she can see friends without riding a bus. Coleman, who believes “strongly” in wearing a mask, recognizes the risk – but fears there’s also danger in staying home. Continue reading...
Although Portugal remains on the safe list, for English tourists at least, rumours to the contrary spark panic and holiday cancellationsNoel Josephides sounds weary. Two weeks ago when the UK government added Portugal to the travel corridor list, the chairman of Sunvil issued a statement saying he was delighted to start selling holidays to Portugal again, “just in time for the last couple of weeks of the peak summer season, but also in time for the glorious autumnal months of September and October, right into November.”By the beginning of this week the rumour was that the country’s brief spell as a “safe destination” was about to come to an end as coronavirus cases in the country went above 20 per 100,000 people – the level at which the UK government considers triggering quarantine conditions. On Tuesday, the UK ambassador to Portugal fuelled speculation that the country would soon revert to the quarantine list when he warned that air bridges can “change quickly”. The hint that the 20 August decision could be reversed was enough to unsettle British holidaymakers in Portugal and spark a rush to get back to the UK before the dreaded deadline. EasyJet sold out of all its flights from Faro, which serves the Algarve, to airports in Britain on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Continue reading...
by Elias Visontay (now) and Amy Remeikis (earlier) on (#57QJV)
Victoria reports nine deaths in the past 24 hours and 50 people added to total who died in aged care facilities in July and August. Follow live news and updates today
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent on (#57R3C)
Firms trading with EU want ministers to address major gaps in supply chain preparationsBusinesses trading with the EU are demanding an urgent meeting with government ministers over concerns there are significant gaps in the UK’s Brexit border preparations.Eight logistics organisations have written to say they fear the supply chain that keeps supermarket shelves stocked daily will be severely disrupted next year if issues are not resolved before Brexit. Continue reading...
Firefighters called to scene after blaze tears through industrial building in HooA huge fire has torn through an industrial building near Rochester in Kent after a “big, big explosion”.Onlookers reported a mushroom cloud and secondary explosion at the scene in Hoo as firefighters continued to battle the blaze. Continue reading...
Dante Addug called his partner as water entered the Gulf Livestock 1 cargo ship but family has not heard from him sinceThe last time the captain of the Gulf Livestock 1 spoke to his partner, Typhoon Maysak was battering the ship and water was already flowing in. It was 8.30pm on Tuesday.“He informed her that water had entered the ship. The last thing he said was he will go to the bridge to check the situation,” Maya Addug-Sanchez, the captain’s sister, told the Guardian. Addug’s family hasn’t heard from him since. Continue reading...
by Rebecca Ratcliffe South-east Asia correspondent on (#57QX7)
Liu Yifei, who stars as Chinese heroine, has voiced support for Hong Kong police during suppression of protestsCalls to boycott Disney’s live-action remake of Mulan have been reignited ahead of its release on Friday, with Thai pro-democracy activists joining those vowing to shun the film.Controversy over Mulan erupted last year, when its star, Liu Yifei, voiced support for police in Hong Kong, who have been accused of using excessive force against protesters. Continue reading...
Sex, surf and scuba diving make Nicole Garcia’s crime drama easy on the eye but there’s little substance behind the style“You look like a painting,” a rich gentleman tells the heroine, Lisa, in the early stages of Nicole Garcia’s stylish, silly thriller. “I forget the name of the painting. A dark, gloomy one.” Minutes later he’s dead, laid out on the carpet while Lisa clutches her bathrobe. Whether he was killed by the purple prose in his mouth or the contaminated cocaine in his nose is best left for the coroner to decide.In any case, the rich gentleman was not entirely right. Lisa (played with blank sullenness by the Nymphomaniac star Stacy Martin) looks like a model in a glossy magazine photo-shoot. A dark, gloomy model posed against a series of eye-catching backdrops (grungy Paris; tropical paradise) with a hackneyed plot scaffolded around her slender frame. Amants, unaccountably, is competing for the top prize here in Venice. At least if it wins the presentation pictures will be pretty. Continue reading...
The writer and democracy activist has denied Chinese reports he confessed to espionageAn Australian writer who has been detained by Chinese authorities for more than 19 months has revealed he’s been interrogated more than 300 times and taken to meetings handcuffed and blindfolded.Yang Hengjun, in his first external communication in months, has rejected Chinese reports he had confessed to espionage, stating: “I am innocent and will fight to the end.” Continue reading...
We would like to hear from those returning to the UK early due to Portugal and Greece potentially being added to the coronavirus quarantine listBritish travellers who are on holiday in Portugal may face a 14 day quarantine when returning as coronavirus cases reached levels considered dangerous by the UK government.In Scotland, travellers from Greece already have to quarantine, whereas in Wales, this only applies to those arriving from the island of Zante. Continue reading...
It is hard to gauge the chances of the Russian opposition leader regaining his former healthAlexei Navalny is likely to survive his poisoning with novichok but his long-term prospects and chances of making a full recovery are unknown, the hospital treating him in Berlin said on Thursday.The Russian opposition leader “continues to improve”, doctors at the Charité hospital said. But they stressed: “Recovery is likely to be lengthy. It is still too early to gauge the long-term effects which may arise in relation to this severe poisoning.” Continue reading...
Dwayne Johnson says he, his spouse and their daughters caught the virus less than three weeks ago from ‘very close family friends’Pro-wrestler turned Hollywood actor Dwayne Johnson, known as The Rock, said in a video message posted on social media on Wednesday that he, his wife and their two young children tested positive for Covid-19 in recent weeks and he had “a rough go”.They all have recovered and are healthy, he said, while urging the public to wear face masks to help prevent the spread of coronavirus. Continue reading...
Soldiers, accountants, children … Luke Holland persuaded elderly Germans to account for what they did under Nazi rule, and the air of shrugging unrepentance is damningHeinrich Schulze is a kindly-looking old man who lived as a child near the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen in Lower Saxony, Germany. In the course of Luke Holland’s quietly searing Final Account, Schulze returns to the old family farm to point out the hayloft where a group of escaped prisoners had once taken shelter. The escapees were starving and had begged him for some food. But then the guards came and retrieved them, which was of course very sad. Under further questioning, with a sheepish shrug, Schulze admits that yes, the prisoners were recaptured because he himself called the guards. As to what became of them after that? “Oh,” Herr Schulze scoffs. “Nobody knows that!”Round them up and bring them out: the bystanders and functionaries, the children who pitched in and the adults who turned a blind eye. Holland, a British documentary-maker, spent the last decade of his life with these straggling survivors of history, those with first-hand experience of the Nazi regime, and the results are damning; the testimonies chill the blood. Monsters, Primo Levi once wrote, are always aberrations. But the small men who watch from the sidelines and occasionally lean in to lend a hand: these are the real danger. They’re even worse than the monsters. Continue reading...
Warning that lack of agreement means more young people will risk lives crossing ChannelThe EU has rejected a British proposal for a system to reunite children seeking asylum with their families in the UK or Europe, prompting warnings that more young people will risk their lives in dangerous Channel crossings.The government had proposed a post-Brexit agreement to continue transfers of unaccompanied child asylum seekers to families living in either the UK or EU, although with no obligation on either side. Continue reading...
The Victorian Chamber of Commerce reveals the draft Covid-19 roadmaps the government is using in consultationsThe head of the Victorian Chamber of Commerce says Covid-19 roadmap templates for business are based around a four-step “traffic light” system, as Victorians eagerly await the government exit roadmap from lockdown on Sunday.The chamber’s chief executive, Paul Guerra, has outlined to Guardian Australia the draft Covid-19 roadmaps the government is using to consult with Victorian business ahead of easing restrictions. Continue reading...
Heavy winds and rain lashed much of the Korean peninsula after Typhoon Maysak made landfall, even as damage from a previous typhoon last week was still being repaired and a third typhoon gathered strength off the coast Continue reading...
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