by All photographs by Chris Jackson/Getty Images on (#5668E)
Polzeath Ladies surf club was founded in 2013 by George’s surf school, also based in Polzeath. The club provides a safe space for women to enjoy surfing as part of a wider community, led by professional surf coaches Continue reading...
Over-policing, housing, health services and fracking are the big issues for voters disheartened by both sides of Northern Territory politics“Some people don’t like repeating themselves,” says Naomi Wilfred, an Alawa elder from Minyerri in the Northern Territory.She explains why people in the community – and in many other remote parts of the Northern Territory – feel a familiar sense of frustration come election time. Continue reading...
Those of us who have resettled in the US and other countries all left someone very close to us behindOn 19 July 2013 the Australian government announced that those who arrived by boat seeking safety would never reach the mainland. The effect of this policy is beyond description and I am still haunted by the memories of the time myself and hundreds of others were held captive on Manus Island.The concept of a system ruining people’s lives is not easy to understand. It is complex, destructive and manipulative and every aspect is highly politicised. It is a form of systematic torture, the scars of which are not obvious, but they are real and will affect a person for the rest of his or her life. Continue reading...
Most stallholders prepare to leave as 19th-century market is transformed into a multi-million-pound centreAfter more than 30 years working in Newport’s indoor market, record stallholder Dean Beddis was packing up his collection of punk, new wave, reggae, funk and soul discs for the last time.“It’s the end of an era,” said Beddis. “This building is much more than a market. It’s a family, a wonderful community that has developed over decades. This is the heart and soul of Newport. I think that is all going to be lost. I’ve had people here in tears. It’s so sad.” Continue reading...
British travellers in Madrid have expressed their shock and anger at the government’s sudden decision to impose a two-week quarantine on those returning from Spain
Kai Agyepong’s mother said incident left the family feeling ‘utterly violated’The Metropolitan police have defended officers who arrested and handcuffed a 12-year-old boy seen with a toy gun, saying they acted in line with training and expectations.Mina Agyepong, 42, lodged a complaint after her son Kai was led away by armed officers and detained in a police vehicle during the raid on their house in Somers Town, north London, on 17 July. Continue reading...
Team of 16 volunteers carried Daisy off mountain on a stretcher during five-hour operationA mountain rescue team has said its members “didn’t need to think twice” when they were called to help a 121lb (55kg) St Bernard dog that had collapsed while descending England’s highest peak.Sixteen volunteers from Wasdale mountain rescue team spent nearly five hours rescuing Daisy from Scafell Pike after receiving a call from Cumbria police. Continue reading...
Britons currently on holiday there will have to self-isolate for 14 days on their returnSince Spain emerged from lockdown on 21 June, coronavirus cases in the country have surged. The health ministry logged nearly 1,000 new infections per day at the end of last week. The steep rise in new cases prompted the UK government to remove Spain from the travel corridor list on Saturday evening, meaning travellers returning to the UK must now self-isolate for 14 days. Continue reading...
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Maria Kolesnikova and Veronika Tsepkalo challenge president’s 25-year ruleThree women are spearheading a maverick opposition campaign for next month’s presidential election in Belarus, transforming the country’s politics as they attempt to unseat Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled for 25 years.At their head is Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a reluctant candidate who has grown increasingly confident in her challenge to Lukashenko. Continue reading...
Authorities scour area after people try to swim from a boat to reach Langkawi islandMalaysian authorities have launched a search for 24 Rohingya refugees who went missing while trying to swim to shore from a boat off the resort island of Langkawi.Muslim-majority Malaysia has long been a favoured destination for Rohingya Muslims seeking a better life after escaping the 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar and, more recently, refugee camps in Bangladesh. Continue reading...
Prince William said to have feared brother was ‘blindsided’ by lust in his haste to marryThe royal rift that led to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex leaving Britain and stepping back from royal duties began after Prince William feared his brother had been “blindsided” by lust in his haste to marry Meghan Markle, a new book claims.Harry was offended by William’s advice to “take as much time as you need to get to know this girl”, causing tension between the two that finally led to “Megxit” , according to the authors of Finding Freedom. Continue reading...
Dominic Raab has defended the government's sudden decision to impose restrictions on holidaymakers returning from Spain after a surge in coronavirus cases in the country. Travellers will have to self-isolate for two weeks upon their return. The foreign secretary said the government would not 'make apologies' for the move as inaction could have risked a second wave in the UK
39-year-old who closed cathedral for the night has been arrested and charged with arsonA volunteer church assistant has confessed to setting the fire that severely damaged a Gothic cathedral in Nantes, western France, his lawyer said Sunday.The 39-year-old, an asylum-seeker from Rwanda who has lived in France for several years, was arrested on Saturday after laboratory analysis determined that arson was the likely cause of the blaze, the local prosecutor’s office said. Continue reading...
Family say Northamptonshire force ‘absolved of any blame’ over death of 19-year-oldHarry Dunn’s parents have dropped their legal claim against Northamptonshire police after concluding the force was “absolved of any blame” over their son’s death.The 19-year-old’s family are set for a two-day judicial review at the high court in November where they allege the foreign secretary “obstructed justice” by allowing the suspect in the case, Anne Sacoolas, to leave the UK. Continue reading...
by Tom Phillips in São Paulo, David Agren in Mexico on (#565W0)
More than 160,000 people have died but from Mexico to Brazil, social networks are awash with quack cures and conspiraciesFor months Gustavo Andrade has been battling to convince his parishioners to take Covid-19 seriously.Related: Desperate Bolivians seek out toxic bleach falsely touted as Covid-19 cure Continue reading...
Regulator Ofcom under growing pressure to block state-backed station for its broadcast of forced confessionsBritain’s broadcasting regulator is under mounting pressure to bar China’s state-owned TV channel from the UK’s airwaves after accusations that it has repeatedly breached impartiality rules and aired forced confessions.There are currently three live investigations under way by Ofcom into China Global Television Network (CGTN), the country’s English-language news channel. The regulator has already ruled against the channel earlier this month, for airing a forced confession by the former British journalist Peter Humphrey. Labour is to raise alleged repeated breaches by the channel with Ofcom’s chief executive Melanie Dawes. Continue reading...
Campaigners accuse Kensington council of ‘contemptuous disregard’ in decisions that led up to the fireThe Grenfell Tower fire inquiry must include a separate investigation into how “race and class” contributed to the tragedy, according to a group supporting more than a third of the deceased.The organisation, which represents 28 of the 72 individuals who died in the fire, submitted a statement on 21 July to the inquiry chairman, judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, to request that an extra module be added to the inquiry to examine if the cost-cutting measures that helped spread the fire would have been sanctioned “if the tower block was in an affluent part of the city for an affluent white population”. Currently there are eight modules, each covering a separate theme, in phase 2 of the inquiry which is examining why the fire happened. Continue reading...
One-size-fits-all approach for sector puts not-for-profits in jeopardy, union warnsThe not-for-profit early childcare education sector is struggling to pay up to $9,000 for deep cleaning each time a Covid-19 case is identified, while federal government transition payments may not be enough to keep the sector afloat as parents pull their children out of the system.The United Workers Union’s director for early childhood education, Helen Gibbons, said the one-size-fits-all approach towards the early childcare sector needed a rethink or the community risked losing not-for-profit childcare centres, which comprise just under half of the sector. Continue reading...
Stephan Knoll and Tim Whetstone resign over allowances scandal, while David Ridgway leaves in response to reshuffleTwo South Australian ministers have quit over an allowances scandal and a third has stepped down, forcing premier Steven Marshall into a major cabinet reshuffle amid the coronavirus pandemic.Th transport minister, Stephan Knoll, and the primary industries minister Tim Whetstone tendered their resignations on Sunday after wrongly claiming accommodation allowances available to country-based MPs. Continue reading...
Residents of Khabarovsk march over the arrest of popular governor Sergei FurgalHuge anti-government demonstrations erupted in Russia’s far east on Saturday over the arrest of a popular governor who was replaced this week by a Kremlin appointee who has never lived in the fraught region.Residents of Khabarovsk near the border with China took to the streets en masse for the third Saturday in a row after governor Sergei Furgal was arrested by federal law enforcement and flown to Moscow on murder charges this month. Continue reading...
Protesters demanded London mayor Sadiq Khan cancel Silvertown road tunnel projectThree Extinction Rebellion activists were arrested and taken into custody after locking themselves to a rig in the middle of the Thames to protest against a planned road tunnel underneath the river in south-east London.The keys to the locks around the protesters’ necks were delivered to the capital’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, with a note asking him to come and talk to them. However, the mayor’s office issued a statement ignoring the request and confirming plans to build the Silvertown tunnel are continuing. Continue reading...
Jed Foster claims he suffered abuse and anti-traveller hatred after being remanded in custodyAn innocent man who spent weeks in prison accused of murdering PC Andrew Harper before proceedings against him were dropped is taking legal action against the police.Jed Foster, 21, was charged over the killing in August 2019 after being among 10 suspects arrested at a caravan park near the site of the fatal incident where Harper died after being dragged along a road by a getaway car in Berkshire. Continue reading...
Green co-founded band with Mick Fleetwood in 1967 and was behind a string of hitsTributes have been paid to Fleetwood Mac co-founder Peter Green after he died “peacefully in his sleep” aged 73.A statement from Swan Turton solicitors, acting on behalf of his family, said: “It is with great sadness that the family of Peter Green announce his death this weekend, peacefully in his sleep. A further statement will be provided in the coming days.” Continue reading...
Police have arrested a man and four women on suspicion of the murder of Lee McKnightPolice have launched a murder investigation after a man’s body was found in a river in Carlisle.The body of 26-year-old Lee McKnight was found in the River Caldew in the Blackwell Hall area, near Cummersdale, at about 5.30am on Friday. Continue reading...
Covid-19 has spread around the planet, sending billions of people into lockdown as health services struggle to cope. Find out where the virus has spread, and where it has been most deadly
On 1 March, photographer Jon Tonks left New Zealand on a Pacific cruise. Twenty eight days later, the boat docked in San Diego, amid a pandemic. What happened in between?The cruise ship MS Maasdam left New Zealand on the evening of 1 March, steaming out of Auckland’s Waitemata harbour into the Hauraki Gulf, where it headed north. The route was to San Diego via Fiji, the Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Hawaii. On board the Holland America Line ship were around 1,200 passengers, including Americans, Britons, Canadians, Australians and French holidaymakers. The 542 crew included Dutch, Americans, Germans, Venezuelans and Filipinos. There were also a handful of entertainers and guest lecturers along for the ride, including Jon Tonks, a portrait photographer from Bath, who ended up with a portrait of a cruise that didn’t go to plan.Covid-19 was certainly a thing at the beginning of March, but it was still considered mainly a China thing. The Maasdam wouldn’t be going anywhere near China. Questionnaires were handed to passengers, about symptoms and where they’d been before, but then they were good to go. Still, Tonks says that friends had joked before he left: “Good luck on your corona cruise.” Continue reading...
A study in the Lancet suggests the world’s population will peak in 2064. If so, the consequences will be profoundThe battle to feed humanity has been lost, Paul Ehrlich warned in his influential 1968 treatise, The Population Bomb. The world’s population was growing faster than the Earth could sustain, he predicted, and catastrophe loomed. “In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”That doomsday message turned the entomologist into a celebrity and galvanised population control and environmental movements for years after. But another social wave gathering at the time would help prove his forecasts wildly wrong. Continue reading...
Australia says China’s claims to disputed islands are ‘invalid’ and are not consistent with UN convention on law of the seaAustralia has declared “there is no legal basis” to China’s territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea, marking an escalation of recent tensions with Beijing and bringing Canberra further in line with Washington.The declaration, made in a submission to the United Nations on Thursday, comes after the United States hardened its position earlier this month, accusing Beijing of a “completely unlawful … campaign of bullying” to control the sea. Continue reading...
David Connell and his wife, Margaret, were separated for weeks in Italy after catching coronavirus on the Costa Luminosa. For days, David didn’t know if his wife had survivedDavid Connell had to pack his wife Margaret’s luggage quickly. She was sick, lying on the cabin’s bed, conscious but barely.Her knitting and a book were already in her bag, he threw in some essentials and put both their phones in his pocket for safekeeping. They were headed from their cruise ship to a hospital in Italy, which on 22 March was one of the countries most heavily infected by Covid-19. Continue reading...
by Lyanne Togiba in Port Moresby and Ben Doherty Paci on (#564KH)
A spike in cases in the capital Port Moresby threatens to overwhelm the country’s health systemCoronavirus latest updatesPapua New Guinea’s Covid-19 outbreak could overwhelm its health system within days, the country’s pandemic chief has warned, as masks have been made compulsory in the capital, and the government has called in the World Health Organization and the military for help.PNG’s pandemic response controller, David Manning, said a dedicated isolation unit established in the capital Port Moresby to treat Covid-19 could soon be overwhelmed if current infections trends continue. Continue reading...
Brussels has the authority to borrow for the EU as a whole in response to the coronavirus-induced economic crisis. But cuts to national budgets are not the way to repay bondholdersThe European Union is a global heavyweight in trade and climate. But in political terms, it is puny. For all the Brexit conspiracy theories of a “United States of Europe”, the EU has no federal government. Brussels is not the continent’s capital, but home to its bureaucracy. The club’s power lies with member states that zealously guard their interests and scrupulously defend their sovereignty. They often recoil from shared burdens and a collective will.The EU is not hiding plans of integration, it just has none of any note. Over the last three decades, the appetite for greater political and fiscal union has been shrinking, not growing. The EU’s budget in 1993-1999 was 1.25% of the club’s gross national income (GNI); for the next six years, beginning in 2021, the proposed budget of €1.07tn is just a shade over 1% of GNI. This seems too thin a sliver of European wealth for a continent that faces a possible ruinous recession caused by coronavirus. Continue reading...