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A seal has been spotted eating a large fish in a river in Melbourne’s inner north-west while the city remains in stage-four coronavirus lockdown. The seal delighted passersby who were out on their one hour of sanctioned daily exercise. Melbourne local Alicia Pavlis filmed the seal flapping about in the Maribyrnong River. ‘We might be a little more excited about things like this than normal,' Pavlis said. ‘But it really is all about enjoying the brief moments of respite between heavy global news and grim prospects, and it’s these small things that keep us going’ Continue reading...

It is a week since the devastating explosion rocked Beirut, killing more than 200 people. As shock turns to anger and the cabinet resigns, Bethan McKernan and Martin Chulov report on what comes next for the Lebanese peopleThe deadly explosion that ripped through Beirut last week has left more than 200 people dead, thousands injured and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes. The blast happened in a summer of already simmering tension in Lebanon as an economic crisis has taken a devastating toll on the country.The Guardian’s Martin Chulov, who is based in Beirut, describes the moment his apartment was rocked by the blast – and what he witnessed that day. He tells Mythili Rao the scenes were apocalyptic, and worsened the closer he walked to the site of the explosion at the city’s docks. Continue reading...

‘I will believe my own eyes,’ says Svetlana Tikhanovskaya after commission says Alexander Lukashenko won landslideShare your reaction on the Belarus election resultAt least one person has been killed and dozens injured in clashes between riot police and protesters in Belarus in the second night of protests against Alexander Lukashenko after the president claimed victory in elections amid accusations of vote-rigging.The fighting late on Monday appeared to escalate as police once again employed rubber bullets and stun grenades against demonstrators, while some shot back with fireworks and several Molotov cocktails, according to a Guardian reporter who estimated the crowd at several thousand people. Continue reading...

Heavy rains caused flooding and three evacuation orders on the New South Wales south coast over the past three days as howling winds and damaging surf battered much of the state’s coastline. Damaging winds with gusts of more than 90km/h were recorded along the Sydney and Illawarra coast, reaching 93km/h at Norah Head on the Central Coast. Waves also peaked at just over five metres in Sydney with much of the coastline from Ulladulla to Port Macquarie warned of hazardous surf. Heavy rains caused flooding with the Shoalhaven River at Nowra peaking at 4.13m on Monday – its highest level since 1991.• NSW weather: flooding eases on south coast but many residents yet to return home Continue reading...

What are the restrictions within Victoria and the border closures with NSW and Queensland? How far can I travel, and how many people can I have over at my house? Untangle Australia’s Covid-19 laws and guidelines with our guide

Terrence Higgins Trust advocates face coverings and not using face-to-face positions

While the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic has so far spared the Pacific, its economies are in free-fall, the region’s chief diplomat warnsBeyond the health and economic crises of Covid-19, the global pandemic has the potential to cause political instability and undermine state security across the Pacific, the region’s chief diplomat has warned.Dame Meg Taylor, secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum, said the region’s economies were struggling with the virus-induced shocks, and a prolonged crisis could worsen existing problems of hunger, poor healthcare, and state fragility. Continue reading...

Premier of Victoria will be the first witness called at the second sitting of the Covid-19 inquiry on Tuesday. Follow live10.18pm BSTWith the federal aged care response under its own microscope, Melissa Davey has this story, from Melbourne:

PM Hassan Diab forced to exit, saying the corruption is ‘bigger than the state’Lebanon’s besieged government has fallen, one week after a cataclysmic explosion destroyed Beirut port, with the country’s prime minister, Hassan Diab, claiming the disaster was the result of endemic corruption.Diab announced the resignation of the government after more than a third of ministers quit their posts, forcing Diab himself to resign. Continue reading...

PM says government will keep looking at data in all countries Britons are travelling to

Ministers should respond with compassion and pragmatism to an upsurge in arrivals of small boats. Instead, we get histrionicsWhat do the images of cramped dinghies in the Channel make you feel when you see them? Or pictures of their passengers on the decks of grey Border Force vessels, or disembarking on beaches? More than 4,100 migrants and refugees have reached the UK this year so far in small boats, most of them arriving in Kent. Almost 600 arrived in a surge of crossings between Thursday and Sunday last week.While they remain a tiny proportion of the total number of asylum seekers in the UK, which was 35,566 in 2019, the steep increase in arrivals has thrust immigration and asylum back to the top of the news. But the hate mill has been grinding away for months, with the Brexit party leader, Nigel Farage, using his social media channels and appearances to churn up public anxiety about what these migrants might do when they get here – while crushing out any grains of more generous impulses. Continue reading...

Marcus Coutain, 48, who is black, was filmed pleading with officers to ‘get off my neck’ as he was arrestedA suspended Scotland Yard officer is under investigation by the police watchdog for common assault and gross misconduct after appearing to kneel on a man’s neck during an arrest.The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is looking into the manner of the arrest of Marcus Coutain, 48, who was filmed pleading with officers to “get off my neck” as he was handcuffed on the pavement in Islington, north London, last month. Continue reading...

Businesses in areas where restrictions are being eased are urged to be careful about how they collect information

Exclusive: experts say staff and pupils should be screened for virus, possibly by group testingScientists have called for routine Covid testing of teachers and pupils alongside a robust test-and-trace system, amid a debate over how to safely reopen schools in England.On Sunday, the children’s commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, said teachers and pupils should have weekly tests, but Nick Gibb, the schools minister, ruled out the idea, saying instead that those who are symptomatic should be tested. Continue reading...

Traffic stops are not routinely recorded meaning no data is available on why the power is usedCampaigners and lawyers have called for traffic stops to be subject to the same scrutiny and oversight as other stop and search powers after a Labour MP was pulled over by police.Dawn Butler, the former shadow equalities minister, accused the police of being institutionally racist after the car she was being driven in by her black friend was pulled over in Hackney, east London. Continue reading...

WHO says virus has shown no seasonal pattern and tells western Europe to react fast

Angelo Boletti, 83, ordered to pay €166 after complaints about 4.30am wake-up callAn Italian pensioner has been fined because his cockerel kept waking up the neighbours at the crack of dawn.A police officer staked out the home of Angelo Boletti in Castiraga Vidardo, a town in Lombardy, to prove the truth of neighbours’ complaints that the bird, called Carlino, crowed at 4.30am. Continue reading...

Town councillor was one of four admins for group in which another user posted KKK imageOrganisers of Black Lives Matter protests in Sandbach, Cheshire, have been threatened and doxxed – subjected to the malicious spread of private information – in a Facebook group for which one of the town’s councillors was an administrator.Comments in the Facebook group, Sandbach Sarcastic Society, which has more than 5,300 members, included details of where one organiser was said to live. One person suggested sending the details to the English Defence League, while another posted a picture of the Ku Klux Klan. Continue reading...

Pro-democracy activists allege five British officers have taken part in brutal actions against protestersPro-democracy activists have launched a private prosecution in London against five British officers working for the Hong Kong police, alleging they have taken part in brutal actions against protesters.The officers – who have not been named – occupy senior roles inside Hong Kong’s local police force. They are accused of torturing anti-government demonstrators, who have been protesting since June last year over an extradition bill and security law imposed by Beijing. Continue reading...

Leading pro-democracy figure detained over alleged foreign collusion as police search Apple Daily offices

Experts compare situation with 1989 revolutions that toppled Europe’s communist regimesFor a man who has spent a quarter of a century building a political brand based on stability, there is no doubt that the events unfolding in Minsk will change politics in Belarus and the standing of its veteran leader Alexander Lukashenko forever.What is not yet clear is whether the new political era that will follow the protests will be one of dynamic change and a new government, or one of a sustained and bloody crackdown. Continue reading...

First minister apologises after predicted awards downgraded more heavily in poorer areasNicola Sturgeon has apologised to tens of thousands of Scottish teenagers whose exam results were downgraded last week and promised urgent changes to their awards.The first minister attempted to defuse a growing crisis for her government by confirming her deputy, John Swinney, would lay out proposals to regrade results in the Scottish parliament on Tuesday. Continue reading...

What are the restrictions within Victoria and the border closures with NSW and Queensland? How far can I travel, and how many people can I have over at my house? Untangle Australia’s Covid-19 laws and guidelines with our guide

Revelation provokes outrage at the five deputies whose identities are unknown due to privacy law

Gruesome find halts work on restoring newly purchased complex in prestigious areaWork on restoring an abandoned €35m (£27m) mansion in one of the most prestigious areas of Paris has been suspended after the discovery of a corpse that had been decomposing in the basement for 30 years, local media have reported.Minutes from Les Invalides and the French prime minister’s official residence, and backing onto the former home of Yves Saint Laurent, the vast but crumbling complex at 12 rue Oudinot in the heart of Paris had been empty for more than 30 years. Continue reading...

PM hints at law change to make it easier to deport people who make dangerous voyageBoris Johnson has branded attempts by people to cross the Channel in small boats as a “very bad and stupid and dangerous and criminal thing to do” and hinted at changing the law to make it easier to deport such arrivals.Meanwhile a French politician has warned that the UK’s decision to send in the Royal Navy “won’t change anything”, and a former Home Office official has said he was sceptical of the plans. Continue reading...

Social Democrats name pragmatic ex-mayor Olaf Scholz as candidate for chancellor in 2021Germany’s Social Democrats have fired the starting gun in the race to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor by announcing the pragmatist finance minister Olaf Scholz as their candidate for the job.One of the two pillars of 20th-century democracy in Germany, the Social Democratic party (SPD) has seen its support wither away since joining Merkel’s government as junior coalition partner in 2013. It lies third in the polls behind the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Greens, on about 14% of the vote. Continue reading...

Investigation focusing on why chemicals were stored at port for six years despite warningsA Lebanese judge has begun questioning the heads of the country’s security agencies over last week’s devastating blast in Beirut, as another cabinet minister resigned in protest.Judge Ghassan El Khoury began by questioning Maj Gen Tony Saliba, the head of state security, according to the state-run National News Agency. It gave no further details, but other generals are scheduled to be questioned. Continue reading...

Exclusive: doctor’s warning comes as two nurses at hospital caring for people from care homes test positive for coronavirusTwo nurses working at a private hospital accepting residents from Victoria’s beleaguered aged care system have tested positive for Covid-19, with a senior doctor describing the mass transportation of elderly residents to hospitals as a “catastrophe waiting to happen”.The Victorian premier in July responded to coronavirus outbreaks in aged care homes throughout the state by saying he had “no confidence in infection control” in some of the facilities and that residents from those homes would be moved into private and public hospitals. Continue reading...

At least seven people dead and one missing on island of EviaGreek emergency services are clearing debris and searching for people potentially still trapped by flood waters after flash floods sparked by a storm on the island of Evia left seven people dead and one missing over the weekend.The dead include an elderly couple discovered in their flooded home on Sunday morning, and an eight-month-old baby found in a flooded ground-floor apartment. Continue reading...

Jihadists suspected of attack that killed six French and one Nigerian aid workers and a guideEmmanuel Macron has condemned as “cowardly” the killing of seven aid workers – six French and one Nigerien – and a guide by suspected jihadists at a wildlife reserve in Niger.“Several of our compatriots and Nigeriens were cowardly murdered yesterday in Niger in a deadly attack,” the French president said in a statement posted on Twitter. “I share the pain of their families and loved ones. Some were hired for the most altruistic of missions: to help people.” Continue reading...

In Melbourne, some families haven’t known whether their loved ones are alive or dead, which is “unforgivable”, the barrister assisting the inquiry says

Video from a polling station in Minsk, Belarus, appears to show a member of the electoral commission climbing down a ladder from a second-storey window with a bag assumed to contain voting slips.Clashes broke out in cities across Belarus on Sunday evening as riot police clashed with protesters after Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled for 26 years, claimed a landslide victory in a presidential election marred by allegations of vote-rigging.

Hard rock ‘genius’ helmed nine classic Iron Maiden albums and worked with Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac and othersMartin Birch, the producer whose bright but heavy sound was applied to classic albums by Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and more, has died aged 71. No cause of death has been announced.Whitesnake frontman David Coverdale tweeted: “It is with a very heavy heart I’ve just had verified my very dear friend & producer Martin Birch has passed away … Martin was a huge part of my life … helping me from the first time we met through until Slide It In … My thoughts & prayers to his family, friends & fans.” Continue reading...

Labor spokeswoman says delay was a ‘catastrophic communications’ failure that may have been deadly for Melbourne aged care home’s residentsThe aged care regulator has been accused of a “catastrophic communications failure” causing a “potentially deadly delay” after it was revealed it took four days to inform the federal government about a Covid-19 case at Melbourne’s St Basil’s aged care home.The aged care quality and safety commissioner, Janet Anderson, wrote to the Senate committee on Covid-19 on Friday to clarify that the commission had learned on 10 July that a staff member had tested positive on 8 July. Continue reading...

The prime minister stresses the importance of premiers’ political accountability – but when it comes to the commonwealth, he is searching for a leave passScott Morrison and his ministers have developed a preoccupation with attribution. Take one, obvious example. Australia’s second wave of coronavirus infections is referred to on high rotation as “the Victorian wave”, lest anyone be confused about the origins of the outbreak.Over the past couple of days, the most senior Victorian in the Morrison government, Josh Frydenberg, has been pursuing project attribution down to the footnotes. “What we’re dealing with here is hundreds of new cases in Victoria every day, 97-to-98% of new cases in Australia are coming from Victoria alone,” the treasurer said last week. Continue reading...

Sub-Saharan hospitals are dependent on costly oxygen from multinational suppliers. As Covid-19 spreads, doctors are being forced to make terrible choicesAs Covid-19 spreads throughout Africa, a potentially deadly lack of oxygen is leaving doctors unable to offer essential treatment.Some experts put considerable blame on two multinational gas suppliers that dominate the market for oxygen cylinders across much of the continent, saying that their high prices and systems make the treatment unaffordable. Continue reading...

Britain takes in very few of the world’s asylum seekers and only a minority of them arrive by boatQ: Media reports suggest that many refugees are making a beeline for the UK. Is this correct?A: The UK is home to just 1% of the world’s 29.6 million refugees. Asylum seekers make up a very small percentage of overall migrants to the UK with study and work cited as the main reasons why people want to come to the country, according to research from Oxford’s Migration Observatory. Asylum applications in the UK are relatively low – 35,099 in the year ending March 2020, significantly lower than a peak of 84,000 applications in 2002. Continue reading...

Cases in Britain rise over 1,000 a day for first time since June; one in every 65 Americans has tested positive; US health secretary praises Taiwan

Audrey Gillan was embedded with coalition forces 17 years ago when a British patrol was attacked by US aircraft. She talks to the remaining crew about their struggle to come to terms with what happenedThey were waving a white flag: Iraqi civilians desperately trying to signal to the British army patrol approaching their village. The five-vehicle convoy slowed down, cautiously closing the hatches of their small Scimitar and Spartan tanks. But as they nudged forward, the two front vehicles were strafed with 30mm cannon, piercing their armoured walls and setting off dozens of boxes of ammunition. Within seconds, they were ablaze.Believing they were being attacked by the approaching Iraqis, the first Scimitar, driven by an 18-year-old trooper, Chris Finney, reversed, throwing the vehicle’s commander Steven Gerrard from the turret. In the wagon behind, the troop leader, Alex MacEwen, and driver Joe Woodgate escaped. They made it to a drainage ditch, but their gunner, Matty Hull, was still trapped inside. Continue reading...

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has imposed stage three Covid restrictions across regional Victoria from 6 August

Small towns look to bring back life and the sound of children after young Spaniards leave in search of workOn the wall of a small flat in Pareja, not far from the chemist, the plaza mayor and the 16th-century church, hangs a picture of a wooden farmhouse set among the palms and endless plains of western Venezuela.Were the painting bigger, it would show the mud-brick bread oven where Ángel Márquez and his family baked bread to sell, and the cows, the pigs and the horse they left behind when they finally decided enough was enough. Continue reading...

Guardian Australia analysis and map shows how the pattern of Covid-19 has changed by region and throughout Sydney. Live data updates will track the numbers throughout New South Wales

We didn’t know the pandemic would separate us for five months. ‘People in love never give up,’ a man at his hotel said to me

The PM promised transformative government, but has so far largely maintained the status quoJacinda Ardern was travelling in a taxi in July 2017, two months before the election that would make her prime minister, when arguably the most important message in her nine-year parliamentary career came through. Labour’s poll results were crashing, the message said, and the party leader – the austere Andrew Little – was considering stepping down. Would Ardern, the then deputy leader, consider stepping up?In the following days calls went back and forth. The party activists (and MPs at risk of losing their seats) were in the pits, and Little told the country’s leading current affairs show resigning had crossed his mind. From that admission, the poll numbers could only fall further. The Greens were at 15% , sucking up votes to Labour’s left while the conservative National party was polling in the mid-to-high 40s, maintaining an iron grip on the centre right. Continue reading...

Thousands of protesters have taken to the parliamentary precinct in the capital demanding the fall of the government days after a major explosion rocked Beirut, killing 159 people injuring more than 6,000. The protests began at sunset and continued into the night, with demonstrators clashing with police and soldiers. The demonstrations come as two government ministers and a string of MPs resigned from their posts, loosening the government's already parlous grip on power

Police, firefighters and HM Coastguard were called in to search for the child who got into difficulties in the river Leven near Balloch BridgeA search for a missing child in a river in the west of Scotland has ended with police finding the 12-year-old girl’s body.Police Scotland were called to a report of the girl being in difficulty in the river Leven at Balloch Bridge about 25 miles north-west of Glasgow at 6.45pm on Sunday, sparking a search also involving firefighters and HM Coastguard. Continue reading...

NSW rescinds arrangement to allow residents to pass through state to return home as ACT offers to dispatch police escort• Follow the Australia live blog

Eight-month-old found dead in a house after torrential rain causes rivers to burst their banks and blocking roadsSeven people have died, including a baby, as torrential rains and floods swept the Greek island of Evia, damaging dozens of houses and blocking roads.The eight-month-old baby was found dead in a house in the village of Politika on Sunday, said a spokesman for firefighters involved in rescue efforts. The baby’s parents were unharmed. Continue reading...

Riot police deployed in Minsk and about 20 other cities in some of the biggest clashes in the country’s history