Cressida Dick says entire force would condemn taking of inappropriate images at scene

A summary of the major developments in the coronavirus outbreak across AustraliaGood evening, here are the latest weekly developments on the coronavirus pandemic in Australia. This is Luke Henriques-Gomes and it’s Friday 26 June. Continue reading...

Amendments to country’s media law revoked after outcry from pressAn outcry by the Afghan press over amendments to the country’s media law has seen the government call off initially approved changes.The newly revoked amendments included a rule that would force media to reveal sources to the government without a court order. Continue reading...

The federal health minister had signed off on a regulation to ban imports from 1 July but prohibition will now not come into force until 2021Greg Hunt has delayed the introduction of a ban on imports of liquid nicotine for vaping by six months, after his unilateral decision prompted widespread backlash on the Coalition backbench.The health minister announced on Friday the ban will now apply from 1 January, with a “streamlined process” for patients to get a prescription from their GP. Continue reading...

Ōrora, who hit 292kg before he retired, warns wrestlers need to care of themselves after death of colleague from coronavirusJapan’s sumo wrestlers should rein in their enormous appetites and take better care of their health. The advice comes not from doctors or nutritionists, but from a former wrestler who weighed more than any other man in the sport’s long history.“It’s never easy to stay healthy as long as you’re living the life of a sumo wrestler,” Ōrora, a retired professional wrestler, or rikishi, said in a recent interview with the Asahi Shimbun, soon after a young wrestler died after contracting coronavirus. “You are the only person that can take care of yourself. Nobody in your sumo stable cares about you.” Continue reading...

Decision raises possibility Japan would create its own first-strike capability, which some say violates its constitutionJapan has scrapped plans to buy a multibillion-dollar missile defence system from the US that was intended to boost its ability to counter the “serious and imminent” threat posed by North Korea.Japan’s defence minister, Taro Kono, conceded the land-based Aegis Ashore system would prove too costly and time consuming because it would require a hardware upgrade to ensure booster rockets did not fall on populated areas near host sites. Continue reading...

With tobacco sales banned in effort to curb coronavirus, illegal trade has surged on border with ZimbabweSouth Africa and Zimbabwe have stepped up border patrols in a bid to stop cigarette smuggling, which has boomed since Pretoria banned the sale of tobacco in March.The country claimed smokers were more prone to Covid-19 – something that has been challenged by tobacco companies – but the illegal trade has increased, despite South Africa erecting a R37m (£1.7m) 25-mile fence across the border in April as part of its measures to curb the spread of coronavirus. Smugglers have been crawling through broken sections of the fence and taking advance of the particularly porous Beitbridge/Musina crossing point. Continue reading...

Dozens of fresh coronavirus cases reported in state of Victoria; Brazil nears 55,000 deaths; Trump repeats claim that testing to blame for rise in cases

As a huge crowd celebrated outside Anfield, Merseyside police said the region had a responsibility to prevent the coronavirus spreadThousands of jubilant Liverpool supporters have spent the night celebrating the team’s first league title for 30 years, prompting warnings from police concerned about mass gatherings flouting social-distancing rules.As a huge crowd sang songs and let off flares outside Anfield, Merseyside police assistant chief constable Rob Carden said the region had been “disproportionately affected” by the coronavirus pandemic and its residents had a responsibility to prevent further cases. Continue reading...

26 June 1950: North Korean forces cross into the South and capture a town 23 miles from the capital, SeoulSeoul, June 25

Political parties demand Sweden’s strategy be reviewed before next election in 2022

Ammar Kalia reflects on his transformation after years spent seeing his body as a receptacle for beer and cigarettesIn this new series, Guardian writers reflect on what they’ve learned in lockdown. Share your experience in the comment sectionEver since my gym teacher stood, arms folded, laughing at my inability as a four-year-old to tuck myself into a ball and perform a somersault, exercise has been a foreign concept.Team sports were an orgy of disappointment – of realizing I was the weak link leading us to yet another defeat – while individual endeavors were equally dispiriting. Running made me feel like my lungs were about to explode, I never learned to ride a bike, and swimming made me realize you could sweat underwater and almost drown in the shallow end of the pool. Continue reading...

With public support bouncing around, the left and right still have everything to play for

Shoppers at NZ supermarket chain Countdown will no longer see euphemistic language like ‘sanitary’ to describe pads, tampons and menstrual cupsShoppers at a New Zealand supermarket chain will no longer see euphemistic language like “sanitary” or “feminine hygiene” products to describe pads, tampons and menstrual cups after the chain said it would be the first in the world to use the word “period” to describe the items.No other local or international retailer used the word “period” to describe the products shoppers buy for menstruation, according to a spokesperson for Countdown, a major supermarket chain in New Zealand that operates 180 stores. Continue reading...

EU summit intervenes to thwart Mette Frederiksen’s plan to marry her very patient ‘fantastic man’Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, thought she had finally found a date for her wedding, but has now had to postpone it for a third time due to an EU summit, she said on Thursday.Many a wedding plan has been upended by the Covid-19 pandemic and it seems not even world leaders are immune. Continue reading...

Swift decision by Keir Starmer is praised by Jewish groups but condemned by Labour left

The Met is targeting illegal parties and raves after more than 2o police were injuredExtra police have been put on the streets in London to target illegal street parties and raves following violence in Brixton on Wednesday.The Metropolitan police said it launched an “enhanced policing operation” after 22 officers were injured on the Angell Town estate in Brixton when trying to break up the event, which was widely condemned. Continue reading...

While some the papers lose their temper, on the coast there is a heady mix of liberation, anxiety and sunburn

$1bn gold hoard subject of dispute between Nicolás Maduro and rival Juan GuaidóClaims that the Bank of England is unlawfully blocking the release of 31 tonnes of gold valued at nearly $1bn(£805m) and intended to combat the coronavirus in Venezuela have been heard in the high court this week.The bars are among the 400,000 bars of gold held in the Bank’s vaults, but there is a political dispute about their rightful owner. Continue reading...

Bank employees cite Abraham Weintraub’s racist and derogatory remarks and petition ethics committee to stop appointmentThe World Bank is facing growing pressure to block Brazilian attempts to hand one of Jair Bolsonaro’s most notorious allies a plum £210,000-a-year-job at its headquarters in Washington.Abraham Weintraub, who until last week was the Brazilian president’s hard-right education minister, flew to the US, possibly using a diplomatic passport to skirt a Covid-19 ban on travellers from Brazil. Continue reading...

US ends federal support for some testing sites; cases in Indonesia surpass 50,000

Meat factories’ working conditions may contribute to higher risk of spreading the coronavirus

Government has said all foreign arrivals have to pay $3,000 to cover potential coronavirus costs

Despite funding challenges, community aims to increase biodiversity at Langholm Moor making it resistant to climate changeA small community in the rolling uplands of southern Scotland hopes to create a major new nature reserve, straddling more than 10,000 acres of heather moorland home to hen harriers, black grouse and curlew.The 2,300 villagers of Langholm, a small settlement a few miles north of the English border, hope to buy one of the UK’s most famous grouse moors, owned by one of the UK’s most powerful hereditary landowners, the Duke of Buccleuch. Continue reading...

Rifkin’s Festival, which was shot in the Spanish city last year, chosen to headline annual film festivalRifkin’s Festival, the new film by Woody Allen, has been selected to open the San Sebastián film festival in Spain.Starring Elena Anaya, Louis Garrel and Gina Gershon, Rifkin’s Festival was shot in and around the city in 2019, and according to the plot synopsis takes place during the festival itself. “It tells the story of a married American couple who go to the San Sebastián festival and get caught up in the magic of the event, the beauty and charm of the city and the fantasy of movies. She has an affair with a brilliant French movie director, and he falls in love with a beautiful Spanish woman who lives there.” Continue reading...

Senior MP says questions remain over links between housing secretary and Richard DesmondBoris Johnson has full confidence in the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, Downing Street has insisted, despite fresh revelations about his relationship with the billionaire property developer Richard Desmond, in documents published this week.Pressed about Jenrick’s role in rushing through a decision on the development, allowing Desmond to avoid a £45m payment under the community infrastructure levy, Johnson’s official spokesman signalled that No 10 had no concerns. Continue reading...

Elena Yoncheva demands investigation into tape of man with voice like Boïko Borissov’sA Bulgarian MEP has demanded an investigation following the emergence of an audio recording of a man who sounds like the country’s prime minister, Boïko Borissov, vowing to “burn” her.Elena Yoncheva, a former journalist who has been engaged in a campaign to expose government corruption, said the public prosecutor needed to scrutinise the seven-minute recording, which has been heard by more than a million Bulgarians since it was posted anonymously on YouTube and other social media. Continue reading...

Poland’s public broadcaster has entered the paranoid realm of the far right. A presidential election shows what is at stakeAs Poland approaches the climax of a presidential election campaign on which the future of its democracy depends, and Donald Trump gives his fellow populist Andrzej Duda electoral help by receiving him in the White House, come with me on a tour through the magical world of the evening News programme on Polish state television (TVP).We start on Sunday 14 June. The first item marks the 80th anniversary of the first deportation of Poles to Auschwitz in 1940. This is indeed a moment worthy of the most solemn remembrance. Too many people around the world forget that innocent and sometimes heroic Poles were the first prisoners in Auschwitz. But in the entire news item, lasting more than four minutes, the words ‘Jewish victims’ do not appear once. Instead, the head of the Institute of National Remembrance tells viewers: “That was the purpose of Auschwitz – that there would never be an independent Poland; to murder it.” No other groups of victims are mentioned until the footage of a memorial ceremony in Berlin, where the Polish ambassador to Germany says that from the moment of the creation of Auschwitz “we talk of the Holocaust”. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Founder says another cancellation would ‘be curtains’ for festival and has hopes for testing scheme, with daughter Emily saying they will ‘mutate to survive’Glastonbury organisers Michael and Emily Eavis fear they could be in serious financial danger if the festival was cancelled again due to coronavirus.Speaking exclusively to the Guardian to mark the festival’s 50th anniversary, Michael said: “We have to run next year, otherwise we would seriously go bankrupt … It has to happen for us, we have to carry on. Otherwise it will be curtains. I don’t think we could wait another year.” Continue reading...

Of the 45 countries to have recorded more than 25,000 coronavirus cases to date, 21 currently have relaxed responses to the pandemic. Of these, 10 are reporting a rising number of cases

Emergency centers and fire agencies work to reduce the risk of spreading the virus as the west and south-west brace for the inevitableWildfires are searing through California and states in the US south-west, as the region braces for an intense fire season complicated by the coronavirus pandemic.With 2020 on track to be one of the hottest and driest years on record, the National Interagency Fire Center is warning of a higher potential for fires across much of America’s west and south-west. Continue reading...

Move comes after former CEO at payments firm held on suspicion of falsifying accountsGerman payments giant Wirecard has filed for insolvency in the midst of a major accounting scandal linked to a €1.9bn (£1.7bn) hole in its finances.The development comes just days after its former chief executive Markus Braun was arrested on suspicion of falsifying accounts at the company, which processes tens of billions of euros in credit and debit transactions every year. He was arrested after presenting himself to police, according to German media Continue reading...

The TV director and actor talk candidly about how racism is draining, limiting and ingrained. But is leaving to work in the US the answer?The director Christiana Ebohon-Green (EastEnders, Call the Midwife, Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle) and the actor Wunmi Mosaku, 33, (Luther, End of the F**king World and Jordan Peele’s upcoming HBO drama series, Lovecraft Country) have met before. In fact, they have worked together, on Ebohon-Green’s Bafta-longlisted short, Some Sweet Oblivious Antidote. They both have fond memories of the sun-dappled shoot by the Thames, with a (mostly black) cast of actors. But not every experience on set has been so joyful. Amid some laughter, a few tears and many weary sighs, they swap horror stories of industry racism, discuss solidarity among black creatives, and the opportunities and risks involved in a move to the US.CEG: I’ve worked on a lot of mainstream television drama, so I’ve often been the only [black person] on set. For me [having this wider conversation about racism] is a relief. Sometimes, you air issues and people are like: “Oh yeah, we know! We’ve solved that! Can you stop going on?” So I’ve been very careful about what I said and assumed people understood. Continue reading...

Evidence given to parliamentary committee sparks new calls to develop national capability to manufacture medicines and key suppliesAustralian companies were “shocked” to experience price-gouging and had trouble accessing critical supplies to make medicines and personal protective equipment at the height of the pandemic, a parliamentary committee has been told.It has prompted fresh calls for Australia to build up its ability to manufacture critical drugs “without reliance on opaque and fragile offshore supply chains”. Continue reading...

The government rescinded an earlier request for support in order for the defence force to assist with testing. Follow live

UK’s hot weather will turn wet from Thursday afternoon, forecasters warnSoaring temperatures across the UK will be followed by thunderstorms and torrential rain over coming days, forecasters have warned.Wednesday was the hottest day of the year so far but the Met Office said Thursday could beat that record, with temperatures expected to climb in the Midlands and Wales. Continue reading...

As the country reopens to tourism after the strictest lockdown in Europe, Spaniards are wary of Covid-19 taking hold againIn this first round of the Covid-19 pandemic, two countries vie for the gruesome title of having suffered the most deadly consequences – Britain and Spain. Between them, they currently share 107,000 dead, measured in terms of excess mortality.The comparisons end there. Spain had Europe’s strictest coronavirus lockdown, with children housebound for weeks and army patrols to enforce it. That has produced a dramatic tail-off. Spain’s mortality rate returned to normal on 10 May, after exactly two months of excess deaths compared with the same period over the previous five years. Britain continues to register excess deaths and, in the downward race to be the worst, has edged ahead. Continue reading...

Research into similar exercises in other countries has shown they lead to an exodus of talent and a loss of influence with key partnersAid experts have warned of a brain drain of senior staff from the Department for International Development when it merges with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which could damage the UK’s international standing.Downing Street is facing growing anger from DfID staff over the timing of the merger announcement last week, and the manner in which it was done. The merger had been long trailed, but was announced without union consultation and with many staff finding out from the media. Continue reading...

In our series of cross-generational conversations between black artists, the two rappers discuss racism, identity, police shootings – and how to create a better futureAlthough separated by generations, there is a shared sense of black empowerment and rebellion coursing through the music of Rodney P and Kojey Radical. At 50, Rodney P has been instrumental in the evolution of UK rap. Songs released as part of London Posse in the 80s and 90s, such as How’s Life in London, are among the earliest examples of British rappers using their own accents. Kojey Radical, 27, is among a generation of young British artists including Dave and Stormzy who have pushed black music in the UK into mass popularity. Blurring the boundaries of rap with everything from spoken word to funk, his work is an intense documentation of black life in Britain and beyond.The thing that struck me most about the George Floyd video was the lack of humanity. What ran through your head when you saw it? Continue reading...

Coronavirus cases rising by 1m per week; US has second-highest one-day total; Latin America ‘yet to reach peak’; Qantas sheds 6,000 jobs

As travel restrictions in response to the pandemic savagely cut the number of flights, airlines are scrambling to find places to park their redundant planes Continue reading...

Streaming service inserts two videos discussing the historical context of the 1939 civil war epic, including a panel discussion debating its ‘complicated legacy’Gone With The Wind has returned to the US streaming service HBO Max accompanied by a disclaimer saying the classic film “denies the horrors of slavery”.The 1939 civil war epic was removed from the service – Warner Bros’s recently launched rival to Netflix and Disney+ – following criticism of its “racist depictions” earlier this month. Continue reading...

Some Kiwis find a harsh homecoming amid concern about importing coronavirus after months of lockdown sacrifice by ‘team of 5 million’

Civil action claims Scottish club failed to protect them from paedophiles working around Celtic Boys’ ClubVictims of a number of paedophiles are to sue Celtic football club in a ground-breaking civil action amidst claims it failed to protect them from sex abusers working around Celtic Boys’ Club.Three victim-survivors aim to use a civil trial to “knock down the defence wall” they say Celtic has erected in order to distance itself from the Boys’ Club, the Guardian has learnt. Continue reading...

Thursday: Thousands of workers set to lose jobs if renewable energy target is not replaced. Plus, is the government’s arts boost too little, too late?Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 25 June. Continue reading...

Omar Radi says police questioning ‘clearly linked’ to Amnesty’s claim he was targeted by NSO Group spywareA Moroccan journalist has been summoned to the police just days after an investigation by Amnesty alleged that he had been repeatedly targeted with spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group.Omar Radi, an investigative reporter who has been critical of Morocco’s human rights record, was ordered to appear before the National Brigade of Judicial Police. Continue reading...

Aaron Zelinsky says prosecutors were under pressure to go easy on Stone because of his relationship with the presidentA federal prosecutor who was part of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation told Congress on Wednesday Roger Stone, a close ally of Donald Trump, was given special treatment before sentencing because of his relationship with the US president.Related: US appeals court orders judge to dismiss case against Michael Flynn Continue reading...

Michelle from North Carolina shared her recipe for ‘British tea’. An international incident followedThere have been more severe transatlantic bust-ups over a brew, such as the American Revolution, but few can have been quite so twee. Nearly 250 years after the Boston Tea Party, the British ambassador in Washington and her US counterpart in London are going at it over how to make a decent hot drink. And by Wednesday evening, the conflict was spilling over into mainland Europe.Like many tense diplomatic standoffs, it began with a deliberate provocation. An American TikTok user going by the name of Michelle from North Carolina posted a video showing how to make what she describes as “hot tea”, which entails mixing milk with powdered lemonade, cinnamon, cloves, sugar and Tang, which turns out to be a soft drink. Continue reading...