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New law in Shenzhen means buildings can be developed with 95%, rather than 100%, support from residents – promoting concern over erosion of rightsThey stand as eyesores to most passers by and potential public health risks to authorities, decaying buildings wrapped in tangles of exposed wire, studded with protruding leaky plastic pipes, vegetation billowing from cracks and terraces where particulates from polluted air have accumulated over time.With skyscrapers and ultramodern developments on every side, some of these “nail houses” are also sitting on land worth millions of dollars in Shenzhen’s inferno of a property market, where new-unit and second-hand home prices rival London. Continue reading...

Fears of flash flooding in parts of country, while experts warn extreme heat could become the normOver a month’s worth of rain could fall within two hours on parts of Britain this week, causing flash flooding, while an ongoing heatwave is set to break records.Police and the coastguard issued warnings over the weekend as two people died – a woman after a collision between a jet ski and a boat in north Wales, and a man believed to have drowned in a lake at a Norfolk beauty spot. Continue reading...

SES orders parts of Moruya, Nowra and Captains Flat to evacuate as kayaker in Canberra dies and 400 calls for help come from Sydney and Blue Mountains

Why asylum seekers are resorting to desperate measures to reach the ‘better, fairer’ UKSami was on a beach near Calais, crying, when Claire Moseley found him. The charity worker got a text asking for help and went to collect him in the early hours of the morning.He and three friends, one of them only 17, had pooled their money to buy a three-seater kayak from the sports retailer Decathlon to try to make the arduous 20-mile journey to Britain, as 4,000 others have successfully done this year. Continue reading...

UK figure is the highest since June; Greece sees biggest daily rise; US passes 5m cases

Monday: US marks a grim milestone after reporting 5m cases of Covid-19. Plus: towns evacuated on NSW south coastGood morning, this is Emilie Gramenz bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 10 August. Continue reading...

Emmanuel Macron’s office confirms six French volunteers with ACTED relief organisation died in attack on SundayGunmen on motorcycles killed six French aid workers, a Nigerien guide and a driver in a wildlife park in Niger on Sunday, officials said.The group were attacked in a giraffe reserve 65km (40 miles) from the west African country’s capital, Niamey, the governor of Tillaberi region, Tidjani Ibrahim Katiella, told Reuters. “They were intercepted and killed,” he said. Continue reading...

Clashes broke out between rioters and police as global donors pledged recovery aidThousands of protesters pelted Lebanon’s parliamentary precinct with rocks on Sunday, demanding the fall of the government in the wake of the catastrophic blast that destroyed parts of Beirut last week.The violent rally took place around sunset, as an international donor conference launched to fund the enormous cost of recovery resolved that the country would not be abandoned. Continue reading...

The Labour MP describes her experience of being pulled over with a friend in London

Jeremy Menesses, 17, was chased down Oxford Street by an attacker with a macheteA teenager stabbed to death after being chased down Oxford Street during a mass brawl has been named as Jeremy Menesses, 17, from south London.Metropolitan police officers were called at 5.38pm on Saturday to reports of an assault on Market Place close to the West End shopping street and found the victim with a stab wound. He was taken to hospital for treatment, but was pronounced dead at 7.30pm. Continue reading...

Hume was a fervent supporter of European integration, writes Harry Schneider, while Brian Simpson and Catharine Sadler remember his work and qualities as a leaderAmong the many words written about John Hume recently, relatively little has been said about the European dimension of his beliefs. Reading Martin Kettle’s comments (John Hume’s politics went far beyond Northern Ireland – his vision is as urgent as ever, 5 August), I was reminded of a story I heard him tell more than once.As a newly elected MEP in 1979, he went for a walk one evening across the bridge over the Rhine from French Strasbourg to the German town Kehl. In the middle of the bridge he stopped and imagined someone else standing there 30 years earlier – just after the second world war, with Europe lying in ruins. He used to say: “If that person had proposed that in 30 years’ time we would all be together in a united Europe, with the French still being French and the Germans still being German, they would have been sent to a psychiatrist.” Continue reading...

Car driven by a friend pulled over by officers who later admitted they made a mistake

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya appears at polling station in election president is expected to win

Director general admits mistake following 18,000 complaintsThe BBC’s director general, Tony Hall, has apologised after the N-word was used in a TV news broadcast, following mass complaints and the resignation of one of the corporation’s radio DJs.“Every organisation should be able to acknowledge when it has made a mistake. We made one here,” Hall said in an email to all BBC staff. Continue reading...

Born in Rio’s favelas, Anitta became Brazil’s biggest pop star. Then a political awakening made her even more influential. She talks Bolsonaro, Black Lives Matter and bisexualityAnitta had imagined that this summer would be a break: a period in which she could record new music. It would have followed 10 years in which she became Brazil’s biggest pop star, including stadium tours, a Netflix docuseries about her life, and hits with Madonna, Snoop Dogg and Rita Ora – all of which skyrocketed her from a Rio favela to fame. Instead, she’s been quarantining at home with her five dogs, infiltrating her country’s politics and being touted as a future Brazilian president.I speak to her in early June, just as the coronavirus pandemic is tightening its grip in Brazil. (The country’s death toll is now the second-highest in the world.) Demonstrators have gathered to denounce the president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has urged governors to open states while dismissing Covid-19 as “a little flu” and reminding Brazilians that “we’re all going to die one day”. Some of the protests have expanded to include the issues of systemic racism and police brutality that plague Brazil’s population, which is 50.7% black or mixed race, according to a 2010 census. The country is hot with unrest. Continue reading...

Kate’s first official outing in Amaia mask leads to spike in ‘ditsy print’ search

151 people come ashore on Saturday as French and British ministers prepare to meetTensions are mounting between the UK and France over migrant crossings in the Channel as the number of people who have reached UK shores in small boats this year surpassed 4,000.Families with young children were among hundreds of people who came ashore near Dover this weekend, including 151 on Saturday, the Home Office confirmed. Continue reading...

Lebanon’s information minister, Manal Abdel Samad, has quit in the first government resignation since an explosion in the port of Beirut killed more than 150 people and destroyed large parts of the capital. She apologised to the Lebanese public for failing them in her statement

Developer seeks to cash out of investment in John Nash-designed mansion with views of Regent’s ParkDevelopers have stuck an asking price of £185m on a house overlooking Regent’s Park in central London in what would be the UK’s second most-expensive home purchase.The property firm Zenprop is targeting foreign billionaires as potential buyers of 1-18 York Terrace East as it seeks to cash out of a 2016 investment. Continue reading...

Official measure to be declared this week as coronavirus lockdown shrinks GDP by 21% in second quarterBritain’s economy will be officially declared in recession this week for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, as the coronavirus outbreak plunges the country into the deepest slump on record.Figures from the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday are expected to show gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic prosperity, fell in the three months to June by 21%. Continue reading...

With ‘don’t kill granny’ warnings and talk of an over-50s lockdown, there are fears unity is fraying in the UK

The destruction caused by last week’s explosion in Beirut is visible in drone footage shot in neighbourhoods devastated by the blast. The close-up footage shows buildings reduced to rubble and homes rendered uninhabitable. The explosion in the city’s port killed at least 154 people, injured 6,000 and destroyed a swathe of the city. Officials say the blast, which was felt hundreds of miles away, could have caused up to £11.5bn of damage.

Demonstrators allied to Evo Morales say authorities are using Covid-19 to delay voteDemonstrators in Bolivia have dynamited Andean passes, scattered boulders across highways and dug trenches along rural roads to protest against repeated delays to a rerun of last October’s deeply contentious election, which led to the downfall of the long-serving leftist president, Evo Morales.Amid a mounting death toll from the coronavirus pandemic, more than 100 roadblocks and marches nationwide – convened on Monday by Bolivia’s main workers’ union, and indigenous and campesino movements allied to Morales’s Movement Towards Socialism (Mas) – have brought the country to a standstill for six days. Continue reading...

Music tycoon and entertainer having surgery but his spokeswoman says he is ‘doing fine’Simon Cowell has been taken to hospital with a broken back after falling off an electric bike in California.His spokeswoman said the 60-year-old music mogul, who has a home in Malibu, was undergoing surgery for his injuries but was “doing fine”. Continue reading...

Manal Abdel Samad apologises for failing Lebanese people over fatal Beirut port explosionLebanon’s information minister, Manal Abdel Samad, has quit in the first government resignation since an explosion in the port of Beirut killed more than 150 people and destroyed swathes of the capital.“After the enormous Beirut catastrophe, I announce my resignation from government,” she said on Sunday in a statement , apologising to the Lebanese public for failing them. Continue reading...

Police allege a kitchen knife was used in brawl at under 20s community game between Wentworthville Magpies and Penrith BrothersThree men have been hospitalised after an alleged stabbing following an under 20s community football game in Sydney’s northwest.Emergency services were called to Old Saleyards Reserve in North Parramatta following reports of an assault after an under 20s community game between Wentworthville Magpies and Penrith Brothers on Sunday morning. Continue reading...

Up to 200mm of rain falls across towns including Moruya, Nowra and Captains Flat and warning issued for flood risk on Deua and Moruya riversEvacuation orders are in place for several towns on the NSW south coast battered by heavy rain and flash flooding.Up to 200mm of rain hit a number of towns including Moruya, Nowra and inland at Captains Flat over the 24 hours to Sunday evening, with up to 300mm in some areas. Continue reading...

Shareholder payout to stay despite 73% fall in quarterly profits due to impact of Covid-19Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant still plans to pay $75bn (£57bn) to its shareholders this year even as the impact of the coronavirus caused its profits for the last quarter to plummet by 73%.The global slowdown in oil demand during the coronavirus pandemic pushed Saudi Aramco’s net income for the second quarter down to $6.57bn, from $24.7bn in the same period last year and $16.6bn in the first quarter of 2020. Continue reading...

Natalia Pasternak has waged a tireless media campaign to counter Bolsonaro’s chaotic, anti-science pandemic responseFor months Natalia Pasternak has implored Brazilians to take science and coronavirus seriously, in a marathon of TV appearances, newspaper columns, live streams and podcasts.“I’ve given interviews at 2am,” said the microbiologist and broadcaster who runs a civil society group called the Question of Science Institute. Continue reading...

Alcohol and Drug Foundation says one in 10 people report consuming more than 10 standard drinks per week

Depicted as a warmonger, the future PM had a very modern dislike of media criticism, reveals new bookIt is one of the earliest examples of a politician accusing the media of fake news. And it illustrates that, despite having been a journalist himself, Winston Churchill had an ambivalent relationship with the press, praising it on occasions, attacking it on others.Churchill had been incensed by a picture published on the back page of the Daily Herald on 4 June 1929, that showed him outside 11 Downing Street carrying a book with the title War clearly visible. The caption suggested that war was “one of his favourite subjects”. Continue reading...

The prime minister is pitching a mix of steady leadership and big-spending policies to voters after a world-leading coronavirus response

The decision 75 years ago to use atomic bombs was fuelled not by strategy but by sheer inhumanity“If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” So said Curtis LeMay after America obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with two atomic bombs in August 1945.LeMay was no bleeding-heart liberal. The US air force chief of staff who had directed the assault over Japan in the final days of the Second World War, he believed in the use of nuclear weapons and thought any action acceptable in the pursuit of victory. Two decades later, he would say of Vietnam that America should “bomb them back into the stone ages”. But he was also honest enough to recognise that the incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not regarded as a war crime only because America had won the war. Continue reading...

Presenter says he can no longer work for broadcaster after ‘slap in the face’A BBC radio presenter has quit his job after the corporation defended its decision to broadcast the N-word in a television news broadcast.Radio 1Xtra presenter Sideman said he no longer felt comfortable working for the national broadcaster after it stuck by the decision to broadcast the language in a report on a racially motivated hit-and-run attack. Continue reading...

Male employees flouted government wage subsidy scheme more than women, survey revealsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe majority of people who have been furloughed have carried on working during lockdown, with men significantly more likely than women to flout the rules of the scheme and work for their employer when they are not allowed to do so.Working mothers have also felt more compelled to volunteer to be furloughed than working fathers, research shared exclusively with The Observer reveals. Continue reading...

One of the country’s leading publishers says his latest venture will give a voice to those hit hardest by the economic slumpCarlo De Benedetti, the former owner of La Repubblica, one of Italy’s biggest daily newspapers, is no stranger to a challenge. Now, at the age of 85, the tycoon is about to embark on what might be his biggest one to date – launching a newspaper in the midst of a serious financial slump.De Benedetti wants the newspaper, due to launch online and in print in mid-September, to be a progressive, independent voice in a market weighed down by political and economic influence. And, as its name – Domani (Tomorrow) – suggests, the focus will be on coverage that looks to the future. Continue reading...

US nears milestone as Trump extends jobless aid; NZ warns against complacency; Australia records deadliest day of pandemic to date

Putin’s failure to put down unrest in Khabarovsk suggests he may be losing his grip on Russia’s regionsAfter Vladimir Putin pushed through constitutional changes enabling him to remain as Russia’s president until 2036, most people assumed that, like it or not, he was here to stay. But residents of the city of Khabarovsk, on the eastern edge of Siberia, have different ideas. They have been demonstrating each weekend since July, calling, among other things, for Putin to resign. “Down with the tsar!” is one of their more pointed slogans.

Opposition steps up attacks on coronavirus support measure that allows people in financial distress to withdraw up to $20,000Young people will bear the brunt of the Covid-19 economic crisis, Labor has said, as it estimates a 25-year-old who withdraws $20,000 from superannuation may be left up to $100,000 worse off in retirement.The opposition is stepping up its attack on the government’s handling of the early access to superannuation scheme, which allows people dealing with the adverse economic effects of Covid-19 to withdraw up to $10,000 this financial year. People were also able to access up to $10,000 last financial year. Continue reading...

A corruption-riddled government has presided over rising poverty for decades. Could the anger released after the catastrophe in Beirut’s docks finally topple it?The first violent jolt seemed like a neighbourhood accident; a blown generator, or a car crash. Five seconds later, the thundering secondary blast arrived; a crushing surge of energy that instantly sucked the air out of the city, then plunged it back with devastating weight. Giant shards of debris blew through rooms, door frames collapsed and furniture became missiles – all in what seemed like a paralysing slow motion.A deathly still followed, and then came a cascade of shattered glass from what appeared to be every home, or tower block; hundreds of thousands of panes and pieces falling to earth at once. Many who survived the blast wave did not live beyond the seconds that followed. Days later, giant pools and trails of blood littered pavements and roads, each telling their own tale of life or death in Beirut’s apocalypse. When the glass stopped falling, the screaming started. A yellow pall of dust, smoke and chemicals shrouded the eastern suburbs. Continue reading...

A week after going into exile, the scandal-hit former monarch is said to be staying in a $12,000-a-night suite in the Emirates palace hotelAt first it was Portugal, then the Dominican Republic, but now Abu Dhabi is firming as the most likely place of residence for Spain’s scandal-hit former king Juan Carlos.On Saturday, Spain’s NIUS media group published an image that showed a man with at least the likeness of Juan Carlos in a face mask, descending from a plane. Continue reading...

Daniel Andrews reports 394 new cases of Covid-19 and a record number of deaths, most of which are linked to aged careAustralia has recorded its deadliest day of the coronavirus pandemic so far, after 17 people died in Victoria in the 24 hours between Saturday and Sunday.Ten of the 17 deaths were linked to aged care homes, and the state also recorded 394 new cases of Covid-19, premier Daniel Andrews announced. Continue reading...

The mercury is set to hit 35C in Kent and Sussex on Sunday before thunderstorms arrive early in the weekMany Britons are set to bask in another hot day, with temperatures well above 30C.The mercury looks set to reach as high as 35C on Sunday – with Kent, Sussex and parts of London being the most likely to see the warmest temperatures, according to Met Office forecaster Craig Snell. Continue reading...

Australia’s finance minister indicates openness to more economic support and explicitly backs state border closures for first timeAustralia’s finance minister has kept the door open to making further changes to economic support measures such as the jobkeeper wage subsidy, saying the government would act “if facts change”.Mathias Cormann foreshadowed the Coalition’s openness to further changes in an interview on Sunday, during which the senior minister from Western Australia also declared that the federal government now supported the border restrictions imposed by numerous states, including WA. Continue reading...

Canada reportedly increases security around Saad Aljabri, who is suing Prince Mohammed bin Salman over alleged 2018 assassination attemptA former senior Saudi intelligence official who has accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of trying to have him assassinated in 2018 has been placed under heightened security after a new threat on his life, a Canadian newspaper has reported.The Globe and Mail said Canadian security services had been informed of a new attempted attack on Saad Aljabri, who lives at an undisclosed location in the Toronto region. Continue reading...

Two ex-Green Berets hired to oust president were sentenced in a secretive hearing that their lawyers say breached their right to a defenceA Venezuelan court has sentenced two former US special forces soldiers to 20 years in prison for their part in a blunder-filled beach attack aimed at overthrowing president Nicolás Maduro.Lawyers for the former Green Berets, Luke Denman and Airan Berry, said they were barred from the secretive jailhouse proceedings Friday night in what they consider a violation of their constitutional rights to a defence. Continue reading...

Family of Isaac Oehlers say they are ‘heartbroken by the sudden and tragic loss of our beautiful boy’A two-year-old has been named as the Australian victim killed of the Beirut explosion which tore through the Lebanese capital.The Department of Home Affairs is helping the family of Isaac Oehlers, who is believed to be from Western Australia. Continue reading...

Prime minister says it is a ‘national priority’ and ‘moral duty’ to get all pupils back into classroomsBoris Johnson has spoken of “a moral duty” to get all children back in class amid indications he would force pubs, restaurants and shops to close ahead of schools in the event of severe coronavirus flare-ups.The prime minister is understood to favour only closing schools as the last resort after scientific advisers warned more restrictions may be needed to reopen classrooms in England next month. Continue reading...

Lebanese riot police fired teargas at demonstrators in Beirut on Saturday and shots were heard in growing protests over this week's devastating explosion. Scores of protesters have taken to the streets calling for the government to be punished for their negligence that protesters say led to Tuesday's gigantic explosion that killed 158 people and injured more than 6,000.

Statement signed by Rowan Williams, bishops, imams and rabbis says Chinese Muslim minority faces ‘human tragedy’