A notorious ‘friendly fire’ incident during the Iraq war is picked apart in this meticulous 5 Live podcastOn the Ground (BBC 5 Live) | BBC SoundsAudrey Gillan is known to radio lovers as the Scottish reporter who befriended two rough sleepers in Spitalfields, London, and made a six-part series about them. Tara and George was broadcast on Radio 4, and won radio programme of the year at the 2019 Broadcasting Press Guild awards. It was a tender and affecting series, with Gillan, if not at the forefront, decidedly involved: she was honest about her feelings around homelessness, her worries about Tara and George and how they were living. It was this relationship – as well as the one between Tara and George themselves – that gave the series its flavour and heart. Continue reading...

Antrim station closed for deep clean as police across district self-isolate and await testing

Federal agents clashed with protesters, accusing them of damaging vehicles and throwing projectilesSmoke filled the air outside a police precinct in Portland, Oregon early on Saturday, as authorities worked to clear a crowd accused of damaging patrol vehicles, throwing projectiles and pointing lasers at officers.Related: The Department of Homeland Security is a rogue agency. Democrats must take action | Trevor Timm Continue reading...

Justice minister vows to ‘find and judge’ vandals who defaced Oradour-sur-Glane

Just after becoming a new father, the author and dramatist abandoned his family. Charlie Gilmour, his son, tries to solve the riddle of the man he never really knewWithin minutes of my arrival at my biological father’s hospital bed, he exploded. He just went off, like a paint grenade. Blood everywhere. It had been pooling inside him for a while, then something gave way, and out it all came. Part of me suspected I had been the cause. Certain animals, when trapped, do the same – reflex bleeding, the last defence. A simulacrum of illness to put predators off their meal. It certainly got my old man off the hook. This deathbed reunion had threatened to be a moment of reckoning for a lifetime of absence. Instead, I found myself attempting to comfort the man who had silently vanished in the dead of night when I was a baby.“Just in case anything happens,” I told him, as he was wheeled away for an emergency operation that was likely to kill him, “I want you to know I love you.” Continue reading...

Four men ran from grey BMW after cyclist Andell Goulbourne was hit and left to die

Russian opposition leader flown to Berlin after doctors allow discharge from Siberian hospital

Band confirms news on Twitter after death of musician who played on debut album

In 20 years as a paediatric nurse, I have witnessed the extremes of pain and joy. What keeps me coming back is hopeMy daughter is here. Curled up in a hedgehog ball, but softer than anything in the universe. She is born with a quiff of thick black hair and an expression that says she’s been here before. A knowing, testing look. She is early, and small. I begin assessing my baby as if she’s one of my intensive-care patients. I check her reflexes, pupil reaction, respiratory rate and capillary refill time. Mary, the maternity support worker, watches me and laughs. “Nurses and doctors – always the worst patients.”I try not to think of all the babies, children and adults I’ve cared for who were seriously ill, but I can’t stop. I realise that when my daughter hurts, I will hurt more. And she is not hurting. She is fine. But something in me shifts. I think of all the faces of the mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and grandparents of my patients through all my years of paediatric nursing. I try to imagine their primal pain. How could I not have appreciated the extent of it? In the most desperate of unimaginable horrors, in the face of disability, or serious illness, or pain, or loss, how do patients’ families stand upright? How do they find the courage to care? Continue reading...

Cases on rise across Europe with Spain alone registering nearly 70,000 in past fortnight

Gandhi gave gold-plated glasses to vendor’s uncle who worked for BP in South Africa in 1920sA pair of gold-plated glasses worn by Mahatma Gandhi has sold in Britain for £260,000 after being found hanging in the letterbox of a Bristol auction house.“We found them just four weeks ago in our letterbox, left there by a gentleman whose uncle had been given them by Gandhi himself,” East Bristol Auctions wrote on Instagram on Friday. “An incredible result for an incredible item! Thanks to all those who bid.” Continue reading...

Restrictions on large gatherings in place in Seoul and surrounding cities

Fear of what lies behind drives people against desperate odds. Turning them away won’t stop them, and risks more deaths

After decades of messing about with vegetables, I’m still finding fresh ways to unleash their powers, revealed in this extract from my new book, Ottolenghi FlavourI have never been shy about my love of vegetables. I have been singing the praises of cauliflowers, tomatoes, lemons and the mighty aubergine for years. But while it’s my mission to present vegetables in new and exciting ways, I must confess to a niggling doubt: how many more ways are there to roast a cauliflower, slice a tomato, squeeze a lemon or fry an aubergine?The answer, I’m delighted to report, is many, and in my latest foray, I have been joined by my brilliant colleague and co-writer Ixta Belfrage. Our journey of discovery into the world of vegetables has focused on understanding what makes each one distinct, so they can be tasted afresh. It’s about creating flavour bombs, and it’s done in these three ways. Continue reading...

At $114bn, its market value is above HSBC – but questions remain about business model and if it will ever be profitableIt is a company that is just about to turn five years old but is valued more highly than the oil giant Shell, or HSBC, one of the largest banks in the world.Pinduoduo is the latest behemoth produced by China’s tech machine, an online shopping site that specialises in extraordinary discounts on everything from tissues to Teslas. And its market value has more than doubled in recent months to $114bn (£87bn). Continue reading...

Chief health officer Brett Sutton says state’s residents could be wearing masks until there is ‘no community transmission whatsoever’

After five years away, dance’s superstar duo have returned with a re-energising new album. They explain why they no longer fear nightclubs and why farming is the futureAnd so a summer has passed without a single tent unwittingly erected next to an all-night soundsystem, a single wristband being slipped off and passed back, a single bottle of supermarket vodka decanted into a bottle of mineral water. This has been our first year without dance festivals or open nightclubs since the second summer of love (although there has been a surge of illegal lockdown raves). Even as aspects of normal life return, the one thing most Brits haven’t done since early 2020 is dance with one another.So while it makes sense that Taylor Swift would release an album of folky introspection during this time, it seems almost perverse that Disclosure, whose whole rave-on d’être is to headline festivals in home counties woodland, or come on at 3am at an Ibiza superclub, would choose this moment to release their first album in five years. Continue reading...

Every AFL club has signed on to the #freetheflag campaign but Ken Wyatt has ruled out the Australian government buying the flag’s copyrightThe Aboriginal flag is a powerful symbol that has come to mean many things to many people. Since its creation in 1971, it has appeared on everything from jumbo jets to tattoos.So who “owns” the flag? Who has the right to reproduce it, and why is there such a battle over these issues today? Here’s a summary of how we got here. Continue reading...

South Korea records most cases since early March; South Africa infections pass 600,000; Brazil on ‘downward trend’

Protesters remain defiant but there is a sense of foreboding as embattled Lukashenko digs in“During this week, we have lived many lives,” Maria Kolesnikova, one of the leaders of the Belarusian opposition, said in a video address to supporters on Friday. “For a week, Belarusians have been on an emotional seesaw: pain, fear, rising spirits, apathy, pride, helplessness, hope and happiness.”Life in Belarus has indeed been an emotionally exhausting experience in recent days, as rapid swings in momentum seemingly change the atmosphere overnight. Peaks of adrenaline, when the 26-year regime of Alexander Lukashenko seems to be tottering on the edge of the precipice, quickly give way to troughs of despair. And then the cycle begins again. Continue reading...

Al-Fatih Hamdallah relives Darfur conflict and neglect that blighted many lives and exodus that led to the death of AbdulfatahThe Sudanese village that Abdulfatah Hamdallah came from is so small that it is not actually on the map.Himdey is in Kordofan State, which borders the war-torn areas of Darfur and the Nuba mountains. It has a population of about 2,000 and two wells for drinking water, according to Hamdallah’s older brother Al-Fatih. Continue reading...

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk reports nine new Covid-19 cases, including six linked to Brisbane youth detention centre, as NSW announces another nine infections

Buddina woman, 31, dies at scene after being found on roadsideA man has been arrested after a woman suffered fatal head and chest injuries during an “abhorrent” assault on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.The incident occurred early on Saturday morning on Matthew Street in Nambour, with the 31-year-old Buddina woman found lying on the roadside. Continue reading...

New Zealand’s youngest MP is now 26 and has set her sights on the economics portfolioEverything below her eyes is covered with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles face mask, but the few passers-by on the near-empty streets of Auckland still recognise Chlöe Swarbrick. New Zealand’s largest city is under a second lockdown to quell a resurgence of Covid-19 and Swarbrick, who became New Zealand’s youngest lawmaker since 1975 when she took office in 2017, at 23, is out for her permitted daily walk for an oat-milk coffee, the Guardian accompanying her by video call.“This is where I wash my clothes,” she says, stepping into an empty laundromat. Swarbrick, who is spending the lockdown in her small central city apartment , has been a familiar face on these streets for years, as a philosophy and law student, business owner, alternative radio journalist, and as a candidate for the city’s mayor, aged 22, just before she headed to parliament in the capital, Wellington. When she steps back out into Auckland’s blustery wind, another “Hi Chlöe!” is audible. Continue reading...

More than 60 of those wounded or bereaved to read statements in court and the gunman – facing life without parole – will be given the chance to speakIn a high security and physically distanced courtroom on Monday will begin an end, of sorts, to one of the darkest and most traumatic moments in New Zealand’s history: the day an Australian terrorist stormed two mosques in the city of Christchurch, killing dozens of worshipers at prayer.The shooting survivors and families bereaved by the gunman, will face him in Christchurch high court – many for the first time – as he is sentenced for 51 murders, 40 counts of attempted murder, and a charge of engaging in a terrorist act on 15 March 2019, all of which he has admitted. Continue reading...

Holidaymaker confirmed dead off Cornish coast, while a teenage girl dies in Cardiff river incidentA holidaymaker has died after getting into difficulty in the sea off the Cornish coast as emergency services warn of the dangers of strong winds that are battering parts of the UK.The Met Office had issued a wind yellow weather warning for all of England, Wales and parts of Scotland on Friday, bringing the potential for travel disruption and large waves in coastal areas. Continue reading...

The suspect remains in custody while searches are carried out at a property in PaultonA 33-year-old man has been arrested under the Terrorism Act and remains in custody, Avon and Somerset police said on Friday.The suspect was held as part of an investigation from Counter-Terrorism Policing South East and South West, and detectives said there was no wider threat to the public. Continue reading...

From Berry to Kyneton to Torquay, regional towns are becoming the destination for many Australians now working from home, seeking affordable housing and better lifestylesWhile Melbourne was lifting out of its first lockdown, Briony Towers, like many of the city’s 5 million residents, was facing the prospect of unemployment.She had just been told that $70,000 in funding she had squirrelled away would no longer be available to her, and that her contract as a research fellow working on bushfire recovery may not be extended past 30 June. The career she had worked for was falling apart, her mental health close behind it. Continue reading...

‘New normal’ under Covid-19 restrictions has seen a resurgence in traditional farming practices, bartering and the use of tabuFor many in Papua New Guinea, Covid-19’s “Niupela Pasin” – new normal – is a return to the old ways.As the country wrestles with a nascent but potentially crippling new outbreak of coronavirus infections, emanating out from the crowded capital, Port Moresby, to the highlands and the river valleys of the sprawling archipelago, many in PNG’s villages are returning to traditional economies. Continue reading...

Apart from legal trouble, what Bannon, Manafort, Flynn, Cohen, Stone, Gates and Papadopoulos have in common is the presidentTo live outside the law, Bob Dylan sang, you must be honest. It also helps, apparently, to stay as clear as possible from Donald Trump, whose inner circle of advisers has suffered steady attrition since 2017, through a series of encounters with the criminal justice system.Related: Steve Bannon pleads not guilty to fraud after arrest on luxury yacht Continue reading...

Serco and Sitel paid £200m to test and trace, but reach just over half of infected people’s contacts in some regions

UK’s second biggest city placed on government watch list while cases remain high across northern England

While activist remains in the country, response is unlikely to go overboard

Letter appeals to Russian leader after doctors refuse to allow Kremlin critic to leave countryThe wife of the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has appealed directly to Vladimir Putin to allow her husband to be evacuated to a clinic in Germany to receive treatment for a suspected poisoning.Doctors treating Navalny in the Siberian city of Omsk have refused to release him for evacuation to a clinic abroad, sparking a standoff with his family and aides who say his life is in danger in Russia. Continue reading...

Berlin film foundation steps in to help ‘poisoned’ Kremlin critic at request of Pussy Riot memberGermany’s plans to airlift the Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny to Berlin for treatment are being orchestrated by a charitable foundation acting with the explicit blessing of the federal government.Jaka Bizilj, the Slovenian-born promoter and producer who founded Cinema for Peace in 2002, said his organisation was financing the flight and medical aid through private donors. Continue reading...

Joseph Muscat formally interviewed for first time in connection with investigationMalta’s former prime minister Joseph Muscat has been questioned by police in connection with the investigation into the murder of the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.Muscat resigned as leader of the EU member state in January after the widening political scandal surrounding the journalist’s death threatened to bring down his government. Continue reading...

UK pursues ‘militarised’ response despite calls for safe routes for asylum seekers

Campaigners welcome decision after years of protest against ‘Mohrenstraße’ nameBerlin authorities have announced they are to rename Mohrenstraße (“Moor Street”) in the city’s Mitte district after the country’s first black philosopher, Anton Wilhelm Amo.The decision follows years of protest by postcolonial campaigners, including historians and ethnologists, who had criticised the street name as racist. Continue reading...

Agriculture minister Dara Calleary attended just after Ireland’s restrictions tightened

Development raises hopes of political solution as both sides call for end to oil blockade

Restrictions in Wigan and parts of east Lancashire to be lifted before rest of region, MPs claim

Ruling is result of lawsuit filed over deaths in childbirth of two women due to staff negligence and lack of facilities

Prominent dissident explains how she came to doubt her fervent beliefs in party orthodoxyIn the mid-1990s, Cai Xia, a devout believer in Chinese communist doctrine, experienced her first moment of doubt.She was a teacher at the central party school for training cadres when a friend called with some questions. Cai, an expert in Marxism and Chinese communist party theory, enthusiastically answered. Continue reading...

Lebanon’s performers rally to fundraise and tell stories of survival in country devastated by disasterThe deadly explosion in Beirut on 4 August was likened to 15 years of war in 15 seconds by Lebanon’s ambassador to the UN, Amal Mudallali.“It’s been hell,” says Sahar Assaf, an actor, director and professor of theatre at the American University of Beirut. “We’re still in disbelief and trying to fathom what happened. Each day we learn about a new loss, a new story.” Assaf is working to support artists through the crisis. “It feels like time stopped at the moment of the explosion. It’s devastating to witness all the destruction.” Continue reading...

As Scottish schools end first week of classes after five months of Covid-19 lockdown, what can rest of UK learn?

Michel Barnier says talks often go backwards not forwards as UK fails to grasp EU red linesMichel Barnier has accused the British government of “wasting valuable time” and making “unlikely” a post-Brexit deal between the EU and the UK.With barely two months to go until the EU-imposed deadline of late October for a deal, the EU’s chief negotiator said: “Frankly I am disappointed and I am worried.” Barnier added he was “a little surprised” because Boris Johnson had told EU leaders earlier this summer he wanted progress by July. Continue reading...

Hold-up only partly down to pause in construction because of Covid-19, TfL says

Behdan Esfahbod was forced by the Revolutionary Guard to enlist as a foreign agent. But when they tried to activate him, he went public insteadOn 14 June, Behdad Esfahbod, a Facebook software engineer, received a text from a strange Instagram account, supposedly from “a friend of your aunt’s son”. But he knew exactly who it was. Esfahbod had been bracing himself for weeks, knowing it was inevitable.The “aunt’s son’s friend” was the intelligence division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the message was a prearranged code. Continue reading...

Richard Colbeck apologises for federal government’s role in aged care outbreaks but denies it was ‘absent’Melbourne’s stage 4 restrictions; Vic stage 3 rules; NSW hotspotsAustralian stats interactive; Vic cases map; NSW cases mapSign up for Guardian Australia’s coronavirus emailScott Morrison has declared he still has confidence in his aged care minister after Richard Colbeck came under pressure at a Senate inquiry and was unable to recall how many people had died in aged care during the pandemic.Colbeck apologised on Friday for the times when the Morrison government “didn’t get everything right” in dealing with aged care outbreaks – but insisted it had been prepared for what it sincerely believed to be the worst-case scenarios. Continue reading...