Tourists slowly returning to Spain’s Balearic Islands after months-long coronavirus lockdown

Libel trial hears details of row over excrement in bed and a final confrontationJohnny Depp has denied hurling a phone at Amber Heard in the final confrontation of their turbulent marriage.Details of the alleged incident in their LA home as the couple were breaking up emerged on the fourth day of Depp’s cross-examination at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Continue reading...

Will anyone attend the livestreamed fringe events without free sandwiches as inducements?There are times I feel I’m losing my touch as a hypochondriac. There were long periods during my 40s and 50s when I would only have to exhibit the mildest of symptoms and I would be on the phone to the doctor – with Google almost any symptom can be potentially fatal. I’ve lost track of the number of blood tests and more invasive procedures I’ve had in order to find out I’m not about to die. Continue reading...

Syria’s rebel-held province has been dreading an outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic

Open letter by former judges, leading politicians and campaigners urges home secretary to grant asylum to Sudanese girlBarristers, former judges, politicians and campaigners are among 300 people who have signed an open letter to the home secretary, Priti Patel, urging her to grant asylum to an 11-year-old girl at high risk of female genital mutilation if taken abroad.Helena Kennedy QC, former chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal, campaigner Leyla Hussein and more than 30 MPs have added their names to the letter published by the the Good Law Project alongside a petition launched today. Continue reading...

The international trade secretary fears the UK may fail to comply with WTO rules. But the real problem will be trade with the EUThe international trade secretary, Liz Truss, joins a long list of people concerned that the UK may not be as ready for Brexit on 1 January 2021 as it needs to be.In a letter to cabinet colleagues this week, she has reportedly raised concerns that the UK will not be operating a World Trade Organization (WTO) compliant border when we leave the EU. It was an embarrassing revelation, particularly coming on the same day as the UK was nominating her predecessor, Liam Fox, as the man to lead the WTO into a new era. Continue reading...

Los Angeles police charge two men with murder after rapper was shot dead during a home invasion in Hollywood in FebruaryFive people have been arrested in connection with the death of Brooklyn rapper Pop Smoke. The 20-year-old artist, born Bashar Jackson, was shot dead in a suspected robbery that took place in a rented apartment in Hollywood, California, on 19 February.Los Angeles Police Department said it had arrested three adult males and two minors. Corey Walker, 19, and Keandre Rodgers, 18, have been charged with murder. Twenty-one-year-old Jaquan Murphy has been charged with attempted murder. Continue reading...

Hidden Corner has rapidly become one of the country’s most discussed and watched showsIn the hit Chinese web series, Hidden Corner, a children’s song presages the show’s most violent moments.“Under the blue, blue skies, in the silver river is a small white boat,” three young children sing tremulously, looking into a camera propped up on the mountainside where they have just hiked on a clear summer day. In the background, a man is taking a photo of his elderly in-laws posed against bright green foliage. He adjusts their legs and hands, pauses and then pushes them off the cliff. Continue reading...

As the brutality of drumlines and culling is exposed, ingenious new ideas are being trialled to protect humans from sharks – and vice versaIn 2017, surf champion Kelly Slater responded on Instagram to the death of Alexandre Naussac, a bodyboarder who died after a shark attack: “Honestly, I won’t be popular for saying this but there needs to be a serious cull,” Slater wrote. “There is a clear imbalance happening in the ocean there … 20 attacks since 2011!?”Réunion Island, the French overseas department in the Indian Ocean where Naussac died, did indeed see 24 shark attacks between 2010 and 2019, 10 of which were fatal. If anywhere is a shark attack hotspot, it’s here: one-sixth of recorded fatal attacks globally from 2011–20016 happened in the island’s murky water, which appeals to bull sharks but makes it harder to spot them. Overfishing has been cited as another possible reason for the high incidence of attacks, as sharks move nearer land to find food. Continue reading...

The arts institution, which is home to eight resident arts companies, had gone into voluntary administration in MaySydney arts institution Carriageworks has been saved from administration after the NSW government backed a multi-million dollar lifeline from a group of 15 philanthropists.The multi-arts organisation that operates performance and gallery spaces in repurposed 1880s locomotive workshops in Sydney’s inner west owes more than $2m to more than 140 creditors, and went into voluntary administration on 4 May. Continue reading...

Medical charity accused of shoring up colonialism and white supremacy in its workThe medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières is institutionally racist and reinforces colonialism and white supremacy in its humanitarian work, according to an internal statement signed by 1,000 current and former members of staff.The statement accused MSF of failing to acknowledge the extent of racism perpetuated by its policies, hiring practices, workplace culture and “dehumanising” programmes, run by a “privileged white minority” workforce. Continue reading...

Park Won-soon found dead two days after former secretary files criminal complaintSouth Korea has been left in shock after the mayor of Seoul apparently killed himself amid allegations of sexual harassment.Park Won-soon, an activist and lawyer who had led the capital for 10 years, was discovered dead after a search party involving hundreds of officers was launched by police. A fire brigade search dog located Park’s body in a wooded area on Mount Bukak in central Seoul one minute after midnight local time (1601 BST) on Friday. Continue reading...

Research company owned by associates of senior Tory and PM’s adviser gets £840,000 job

More than 1,500 Mexican immigrants have died in the US and families face hurdles as they seek to return their loved ones’ remainsMedel Huesca liked to dance, play cumbia music, and host backyard cookouts at the house he shared with relatives in Valley Stream, New York. He was deeply loyal, and kept close ties to his family in Veracruz, Mexico, despite having been away for twenty years.He worked two jobs – at a supermarket and for a meat supplier – to support his wife and six children back home; he provided uniforms to his youngest daughter’s baseball team, and he called home nearly every day. Continue reading...

ABS-CBN denied licence after repeatedly clashing with President Rodrigo DuterteLawmakers in the Philippines have voted against the renewal of a 25-year franchise for the nation’s biggest broadcaster, ABS-CBN, ensuring a media conglomerate that has clashed with the country’s firebrand president stays off the air indefinitely.A legislative committee overwhelmingly supported a house working group’s assessment that ABS-CBN was “undeserving of the grant of legislative franchise”, a decision likely to anger activists who say media freedom has come under sustained attack during the rule of President Rodrigo Duterte. Continue reading...

Pop-up testing facility to be set up in Sydney hotel car park as Victorian premier says 37,588 tests were conducted in the state yesterday. Follow live news and updates

Country’s indigenous groups count for 12.8% of population but government response has been criticised as ‘monocultural’Away from the grey tower blocks and sprawling suburbs of Chile’s capital, Santiago, the country’s indigenous communities are facing new challenges during the pandemic.The country’s 10 indigenous groups account for 12.8% of the population, scattered from the southernmost tip of Patagonia to the dry plains of the Atacama Desert in the north, and remote Easter Island in the South Pacific. Continue reading...

Mike Pompeo says US ‘will not stand idly by’ over abuses of ethnic minorities in China’s western region of XinjiangThe United States has imposed sanctions on three senior officials of the Chinese Communist party, including a member of the ruling politburo, for alleged human rights abuses targeting ethnic and religious minorities in the western part of the country.Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said in a statement: “The United States will not stand idly by as the Chinese Communist party carries out human rights abuses targeting Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang, to include forced labor, arbitrary mass detention, and forced population control, and attempts to erase their culture and Muslim faith.” Continue reading...

Latest updates: how has Covid-19 progressed where you live? Check the week-on-week changes across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern IrelandThe map shows local authorities where the number of cases has increased week-on-week and where it has fallen. Some of this is due to natural fluctuations, especially in areas where there are very few cases, and so a rise from 1 to 2 is a doubling. Increased testing also means that more cases may be being detected than previously, although the impact of this between one week and the next is likely to be slight. Continue reading...

Revealed: Gangs abandoned trafficked Nigerian women without access to food or funds amid coronavirus pandemicThousands of Nigerian women forced into prostitution were left to starve by sex traffickers during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, the Guardian can reveal.According to the UN’s International Office for Migration (IOM), more than 80% of the tens of thousands of Nigerian women who arrived in Italy from Libya in recent years were victims of highly organised sex trafficking gangs. The women are forced into prostitution to pay off debts of up to €40,000 (£36,000) and controlled through violence and fear of “juju” black magic rituals they are made to undergo before their journey to Europe. Continue reading...

Attacks by Islamist groups and rising ethnic tension in the Mopti region have led to life-threatening disruption to farming practicesA surge in fighting in central Mali has forced hundreds of villagers from farmland they depend on and could leave them without enough food to survive this year, according to a study of satellite imagery by the UN’s World Food Programme.More than half the number of violent attacks by armed groups against Mali civilians last year were recorded in the Mopti region, largely targeting people who survive on land or livestock. Continue reading...

Journalists ordered to be questioned after broadcast of documentary about migrant workers in Kuala Lumpur during Covid-19 pandemicFive Australian journalists are being interrogated by Malaysian authorities who have accused them of sedition and defamation after the broadcast of a documentary about migrant workers in Kuala Lumpur during Covid-19.A week after the broadcast of the Al Jazeera English documentary in Malaysia, the journalists were ordered to attend the police station for questioning on Friday morning. Continue reading...

Former New Zealand prime minister says WHO director general said during early days he was ‘screaming every day but no one is listening’

The British public have discovered hundreds of thousands of archaeological objects, and the British Museum has revealed that the number recorded by its Portable Antiquities Scheme has hit a milestone 1.5m. These finds have radically transformed what we know about life through time on the British Isles Continue reading...

The department is a world leader in programmes based on gender equality. The government must show this will continueNews that the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are to merge raised many questions about the UK’s commitment to supporting the world’s poorest people. A key question for us is how the new department will support women and girls.For more than 20 years, UK aid has saved and transformed the lives of women and girls in some of the world’s poorest countries. In the past five years, 10 million women and girls have received humanitarian assistance and more than 6 million girls have been able to access quality education. Upwards of £25m has been invested to prevent violence against women and girls through the government’s What Works programme, and a further £67m committed. Continue reading...

Knocked off course by anxiety and an album she didn’t believe in, the singer is back after five years away with a bold new sound – and an urge to speak outEllie Goulding has spent the coronavirus lockdown holed up in what is essentially the world’s nicest student house. Her art dealer husband Caspar Jopling is studying an MBA at Oxford University – he is on the boat race team, Clark Kentishly nerd-handsome and ripped – and she has been at his lovely old cottage in the surrounding countryside. You get the feeling the only noodles to have crossed the threshold are wholewheat udon rather than Super or Pot.When I arrive, she ushers me back out, desperate for a constitutional. As we turn off the road on to a deserted footpath, she pulls her hood down perhaps unconsciously: the celebrity leaving incognito mode. We tramp up and down a lane of brambles and bushes, chatting about TikTok. Continue reading...

Announcements come after Brazil’s president tested positive; South Africa records highest one-day case increase; Australia to limit incoming travellers

The Australian government and its partners had no choice but to recognise the new reality in the territory and offer some of its citizens a way outI feel sorry for Chinese foreign ministry officials, with whom I have had many good conversations over the years. They have been pushed to lambast Australia and other Western democracies with such frequency that they risk running out of fresh invective, hyperbole and idiom.It was inevitable that Chinese diplomats would excoriate Australia after prime minister Scott Morrison’s measured moves this week in response to Beijing’s draconian national security legislation for Hong Kong: offering limited sanctuary to Hong Kongers, suspending an extradition treaty with Hong Kong and heightening the travel warning for the city. Continue reading...

Forced to quarantine away from her multiple lovers, Ashley Ray embraced isolation and loved itOn my 20th birthday, the first person I’d ever been in a long-term relationship with proposed to me. We’d been dating for almost three years. I said yes. Everyone we knew was shocked. Even at 20, I’d made it clear I wasn’t the type to believe in traditional relationships. I spent most of high school quoting Simone de Beauvoir when friends asked me for relationship advice. It turns out being pretentious is the most dangerous gateway to polyamory.Related: All you need is loves: the truth about polyamory Continue reading...

Descendants of the 3,000 British internees and their families recount one of the war’s forgotten episodes

City authorities, which cannot legally force closures, offer incentives after Japan capital reports a record 224 new cases

From Jaws to James Bond, film-makers have tried to make a fish not inclined to bite humans look hell-bent on doing so“You convince yourself that there is no danger,” Ron Taylor once said of how he captured his groundbreaking underwater footage of sharks. And afterwards, “You wonder how you got out of it alive.”In 1970, Australian divers Taylor and his wife, Valerie, set out with the directors Peter Gimbel and James Lipscomb on a global quest to find and film great white sharks. Even today, 50 years later, with sharks a familiar sight from our sofas, the footage the Taylors eventually succeeded in shooting is gripping. Continue reading...

Man in his 50s is the third person to abscond during quarantine, as the nation battles with influx of returning citizens

Colllaery has until 24 July to lodge appeal against ruling that suppresses crucial parts of his trialBernard Collaery has signalled he will appeal a ruling that shrouds crucial parts of his trial in secrecy.Collaery is facing trial for allegedly conspiring with his former client, intelligence officer Witness K, to expose an Australian bugging operation against Timor-Leste during negotiations to carve up oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea. Continue reading...

Expats say they feel insecure about living somewhere ‘where the walls have ears’• Australia’s Hong Kong intervention was hardly strident but that didn’t matter to ChinaAustralian expats in Hong Kong are feeling jittery about their future after Beijing imposed a new national security law that could lead to foreigners being arbitrarily detained. They say the move has hastened their plans to leave the financial hub amid calls from their government for its citizens to “reconsider” their need to stay there.The national security law passed in Beijing and enacted in Hong Kong on 1 July punishes crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison. It applies to permanent residents and non-residents in Hong Kong who breach the law in the territory, along with anyone accused of violating the law regardless of their nationality and where the alleged crime took place – so foreigners could be arrested on arrival in Hong Kong. National security cases can also be sent to Chinese courts for trial. Continue reading...

EU to invest €2bn on vaccines now being tested but UK officials say scheme benefits are ‘limited’

Scottish first minister announces changes from Friday with changes coming in on Monday in Wales

By contrast China is seen as a partner across much of Africa, offering itself as a growth modelBritain’s treatment of the Windrush generation and attitude to its colonial past means it is struggling to retain the same influence across the African continent as China, a cross-party group of peers has said.In a new report, sharply critical of a lack of a clear UK government strategy for Africa, the Lords International Relations and Defence Committee said the Home Office’s treatment of Africans seeking visas to the UK was close to humiliating. Continue reading...

Winter testing of drone flights to mainland raises hope of fast medical deliveriesA test project using powerful drones to fly urgent medical samples from isolated Scottish islands is being expanded this winter after successful recent trials.The tests will involve flying blood and fluid samples from Hebridean islands such as Coll and Tiree to hospital labs on the mainland in a fraction of the time needed to take them by road and ferry. Continue reading...

Scott Morrison seems at pains to play down his diplomatic response to the new security laws, focusing on economic opportunitiesEven as he moved to offer some certainty to Hongkongers who fear the future of the city under the new national security law, Scott Morrison seemed at pains to play down the significance of his own announcement.The Australian prime minister stressed the move to grant a five-year extension to about 10,000 temporary visa holders already in Australia, and then a pathway to permanent residency, was merely an “adjustment” of existing policy settings. Continue reading...

Interior minister announces investigation but says ‘no-evidence’ of network of rightwing extremists in policeGerman police are facing growing accusations of links with the far right after a police computer was used to search for details of a leftwing MP who received death threats.Peter Beuth, the interior minister for the state of Hesse, announced on Thursday that he would appoint a special investigator to try to shed light on the case. Continue reading...

Friday: Covid-19 infections have doubled in the past six weeks, World Health Organization warns. Plus, $1m grant to help develop ‘electric flying car’Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 10 July. Continue reading...

Benjamin Hannam, a serving probationary officer, faces five charges including membership of National ActionA serving probationary Metropolitan police officer has been charged with being a member of far-right terrorist group National Action.Benjamin Hannam, 21, of north London, has been charged with five offences following an investigation by the Met’s counter-terrorism command and has been suspended from duty, Scotland Yard said. Continue reading...

Beauticians and outdoor pools to return within days with indoor pools and gyms opening on 25 July

Body found as local reports say Park had been subject of sexual harassment complaint

Arrests in London and Leicestershire followed joint investigation by police and MI5Armed counter-terrorism police made a series of arrests on Thursday, over what they described a a potential attack linked to extremist Islamist ideology.Four men were arrested, three in east London. A fourth arrest was made by unarmed officers in Leicestershire. Continue reading...

Calls intensify for withdrawal from security arrangement with kingdom over human rightsThe British government has been accused of “empty talk” over human rights as two pro-democracy campaigners in Bahrain face the death penalty.The UK has provided security advice to the island nation in the Persian Gulf for five years and funds a body that examines allegations of police mistreatment. Continue reading...

Merseyside police say they responded to reports of woman armed with knife on Cairns StA woman has been taken to hospital after being shot by police in Liverpool.Merseyside police said officers were called to reports of a woman armed with a knife on Cairns Street in Toxteth at 1.50pm on Thursday. Continue reading...

Dowden says beauty salons can reopen on Monday; theatres can put on outdoor shows from this weekend; repaying crisis debt will take ‘decades’ and higher taxes likely, says IFS

The UK and other countries are reshaping their approach to Beijing. It’s going to be bumpyFive years ago George Osborne, then chancellor, promised a golden decade for Sino-British relations. The sheen was always deceptive, and the decade has ended prematurely. In April, Dominic Raab remarked that there could be no return to business as usual. Now the foreign secretary’s rhetoric is translating into reality, with indications that the government is preparing to turn its back on Huawei as a 5G supplier.The fundamental reassessment of relations with China by western countries is becoming more explicit. That Beijing will retaliate to such shifts is equally evident. On Thursday it warned Australia of unspecified consequences for offering Hongkongers a pathway to permanent residence; Canberra’s latest travel advice for China cautions its citizens that they could be arbitrarily detained. But Britain is also taking the heat over Huawei’s future and the offer of potential citizenship to Hong Kong residents. This week, Beijing’s ambassador to London, Liu Xiaoming, warned: “China wants to be UK’s friend and partner. But if you treat China as a hostile country, you would have to bear the consequences.” Continue reading...