Scotland's first minister for Scotland Nicola Sturgeon has rebuffed the UK government's new coronavirus advice, saying that she doesn’t know what it means, and that her country would not use it. She also announced that people in Scotland would be able to exercise more than once a day
Concerns raised about ‘disproportionate’ use of force after young black man is seriously injuredThe police watchdog has launched an investigation into the conduct of three officers after a black man in his 20s was left with a life-changing injury in an incident in north London where he was shot with a stun gun.Police on patrol in Haringey chased the man on Monday after he ran away from them following an approach, it is understood. They used the stun gun as he jumped over a wall and he fell, suffering serious back injuries, which his family fear could leave him at least partially paralysed. Continue reading...
Jaston Khosa was one of 600,000 men from African countries who fought for Britain. He was quietly buried on VE Day after a life of abject povertyIn a crowded, Zambian slum on VE Day, a family gathered to bury one of the last veterans of Britain’s colonial army. Jaston Khosa of the Northern Rhodesia Regiment was laid to rest on the day the world commemorated the end of the war in which he fought.The 95-year-old great-grandfather was among 600,000 Africans who fought for the British during World War Two, on battlefields across their own continent as well as Asia and the Middle East. Although their service has largely been forgotten, the mobilisation of this huge army from Britain’s colonies triggered the largest single movement of African men overseas since the slave trade. Continue reading...
Caracas has accused Colombia and US of plotting to overthrow president Maduro; says military found abandoned vessels in Orinoco riverVenezuela’s military says it has seized three abandoned Colombian light combat vessels that soldiers found while patrolling the Orinoco river on Saturday, several days after the government accused its neighbour of aiding a failed invasion plot.In a statement, the defence ministry said the boats were equipped with machine guns and ammunition, but had no crew, adding they were discovered as part of a nationwide operation to guarantee Venezuela’s “freedom and sovereignty”. Continue reading...
The NSW premier is trying to project a sense of order during Covid-19 but the men in her team are indulging in a kind of sabotageSince well before Christmas the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has been dealing with crises: first the drought, then bushfires that ravaged her state, then the Covid-19 pandemic that has affected everyone.Every morning at 8am Berejiklian fronts the media for her Covid-19 briefing, trying to project a sense of calm, order and empathy, urging the people of NSW to stick with the restrictions. Continue reading...
Prosecutor rejects Australia’s argument International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction because Palestine is ‘not a state’The Australian government has told the International Criminal Court it should not investigate alleged war crimes in Palestine because Palestine is “not a state”, arguing the court prosecutor’s investigation into alleged attacks on civilians, torture, attacks on hospitals, and the use of human shields, should be halted on jurisdictional grounds.Australia was lobbied to make the submission to the court by Israel, which is not a party to the court. But the office of the prosecutor has rejected Australia’s argument, saying it had not formally challenged Palestine’s right to be a party to the court before. Continue reading...
Thousands of people, including elderly veterans of the second world war, turned out for Belarus’s Victory Day parade despite the coronavirus epidemic. Images from the parade showed large crowds as the country’s leader, Alexander Lukashenko, boasted of holding the only parade in the former Soviet Union to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany
Charlie, 13, starts his morning with 40 press-ups; William, 15, spends an hour a day working out. But when does a healthy interest become a dangerous obsession?Charlie is working on two things in lockdown. First, his studies: at 13, he’s the first to admit his focus is patchy. “I don’t do a lot of homework,” he says. “My mum complains about that all the time.” That isn’t to say he hasn’t thought about a career. “I wanted to be a game designer, but now I think the future’s in diseases, in microbiology, so I am also interested in that. A bit.”His other work requires hours of dedication and is something Charlie has genuine enthusiasm for: working on his body. His daily routine starts with 40 press-ups while his shower is running. He eats five eggs and four pieces of toast for breakfast. His ideal lunch would be grilled fish and rice, but when he is at school he typically has to eat pasta with tuna sauce, since the canteen’s focus is feeding children, not lean body sculpting. “He won’t eat sausages or any processed stuff,” says his mother, Helen. She is married and lives in Liverpool with the couple’s three children, aged five to 13. Continue reading...
Social distancing rules will ‘kill cities’, experts warn – and the future of mass transit hangs in the balanceThis is the second feature in our Life after lockdown series, which looks at how Covid-19 could change Australia for good
The legislative council descended into chaos for more than an hour on Friday as opposing lawmakers threw placards and scrambling over each other to take control of a house committee. Politicians rushed to take the seat left empty after the house was unable to elect a new chairperson. The incumbent, Starry Lee, reached the seat first as pro-Beijing and pro-democracy members crowded in
by Rebecca Ratcliffe South-east Asia correspondent on (#537A3)
Rights groups decry relocation of people picked up at sea after fleeing camps in Cox’s BazarHundreds of Rohingya Muslims, including children, have arrived at “a de facto detention island” in Bangladesh after being stranded at sea for weeks.Rights groups had warned that the refugees, who had been turned away from other countries in the region, were at risk of starvation and abuse by people traffickers. It is believed that other boats remain adrift. Continue reading...
Russian media pours scorn on Europe, but the only progressive way forward for our common continent is togetherIn the early 1990s Russia used to have a strong sense of belonging in Europe. This began to change: the post-Soviet shock therapy reforms were a punishing transition to a free-market society, when a kilogram of sausage cost about the same as a monthly pension and many families experienced malnutrition and hunger. The sudden shift to a more “westernised” way of running the economy left many impoverished, which was eventually capitalised on – after the oligarchic power wars – by a new political leader who embraced a conservative, nationalist rhetoric: Vladimir Putin.Today, Russian television presenters feed us stories about a European continent in decay, where “aggressive migrants” run amok, where social services take children away from their parents for being “slapped”, where “sexual minorities” destroy traditional families. Continue reading...
Lucie Oldale has been keeping the world’s largest indoor rainforest in check for when visitors returnHer only companions are darting lizards and the crested partridges that scrabble around her feet as she does the watering or tries to keep on top of the weeding. Background noise is the burble of a waterfall and birdsong.The lockdown has forced many people to work alone, but few can be operating in such splendid, spectacular isolation as Lucie Oldale at the Eden Project in Cornwall. Continue reading...
by John Bartlett and Charis McGowan in Santiago on (#536YY)
Macarena Santelices has praised the ‘good side’ of the 1973-90 dictatorship in which over 300 women were raped under tortureChile’s rightwing president, Sebastián Piñera, has prompted a firestorm of criticism after naming an open supporter of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship as the country’s new minister for women’s rights and gender equality.Controversy over the appointment of Macarena Santelices – who is also the dictators’s great-niece – has focused on a 2016 interview in which she praised the “good side” of the 1973-90 dictatorship in which more than 3,000 people were murdered or disappeared by security forces and many thousands more imprisoned and tortured. Continue reading...
Boris Johnson urges nation to unite in tribute as celebrations are adapted owing to Covid-19RAF jets will roar over Britain to mark the 75 anniversary of VE Day, as Boris Johnson urged the nation to unite in tribute to the achievement and sacrifice of the wartime generation.The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall will lead a two-minute silence from Scotland on a day of celebration and commemoration which also includes a “national toast”, an address by the Queen, and a nationwide sing-a-long of Vera Lynn’s We’ll Meet Again. Continue reading...
by Julian Borger in Washington, Joe Parkin Daniels in on (#536S8)
Deeply flawed from the start, the audacious plan to overthrow Nicolás Maduro unravelled spectacularlyAs get-rich-quick schemes go it was unusually complicated. Invade a foreign country you know little about. Abduct its president to the US. Collect a $15m bounty from the US government – and maybe an even bigger payoff from the people who then seize power.The plan to overthrow Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and bundle him off to Florida to face drug trafficking charges seemed foolproof to a former US army staff sergeant, Jordan Goudreau, as he mapped it out in a luxury Miami apartment in late 2019. The 43-year-old Canadian-American was certain his years as a green beret in Iraq and Afghanistan had prepared him for the task. Continue reading...
Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Doja Cat and tens of other female rappers are breaking through by embracing sisterhood and shaking off the prejudices of the past
Price’s body was found in her townhouse on Monday, sparking manhunt for Ricardo ‘Rick’ BarbaroThe missing Mercedes belonging to a woman found dead in her Melbourne home has been located.Ellie Price’s body was found in her South Melbourne townhouse on Monday, sparking a nationwide manhunt for Ricardo “Rick” Barbaro. Continue reading...
European committee says Britain should share same amount of fingerprint data as member statesThe UK should be denied access to an EU crime-fighting system until it agrees to share more fingerprint data with member states, a European parliamentary committee has said.The vote, in the European parliament’s justice and home affairs committee on Thursday, is not binding on EU decision-makers, but could prove influential as the UK seeks to negotiate a permanent deal on the exchange of fingerprint, DNA and other data as part of a long-term security relationship with the EU. Continue reading...
Rapper, who recorded several acclaimed albums, died of pneumonia as he was being treated for coronavirusTy, the acclaimed UK hip-hop star who was nominated for the Mercury prize for his album Upwards, has died aged 47 after contracting coronavirus.A fundraiser that was launched in early April said the rapper, born Ben Chijioke, was “admitted into the hospital with medical complications related to Covid-19. Shortly after, he was put in a medically induced coma to temporarily sedate to help his body receive the appropriate treatment”. Continue reading...
German journalist alleges VGE repeatedly touched her bottom during interviewThe former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing has been accused of sexual harassment in a legal complaint lodged by a German journalist.Ann-Kathrin Stracke claims VGE, as he is known, repeatedly touched her bottom during an interview at his office on Boulevard Saint-Germain, in Paris, at the end of 2018. She lodged a complaint on 10 March with the Paris public prosecutor’s office. Continue reading...
Confined by the threat of Covid-19, former servicemen and women are disappointed but stoicalSome will be alone, others with close family, and many in care homes, but all are confined by the threat of Covid-19.Seventy-five years on from one of the most memorable days of their lives, many of those who lived through the second world war and the euphoria of Victory in Europe are unable to celebrate VE Day as they planned or wished. Continue reading...
by Kyaw Ye Lynn, with additional reporting by Clare H on (#53582)
From jungle stakeouts to burning drug dealers’ property, a group of mothers is willing to do whatever it takes to free their community from addictionSister Ester keeps several small plastic bags of colourful methamphetamine – or meth – tablets beside her bed, along with a pistol and a plastic box of bullets.“All of these items were seized by our group in raids on houses selling drugs over the past few weeks,” she says. Continue reading...
For two and a half years the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s verdict on Pell has been like buried ordnance, exploding only nowThis is the portrait of a deceitful man.We have waited over two and a half years but now we can read the unflinching verdict reached by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Cardinal George Pell. Continue reading...
by By Elle Kurancid, photographs by Hamada Elrasam on (#5351G)
As the coronavirus lockdown clamps down on the informal economy and tourism dries up, Egypt’s most vulnerable are left without protection or food security Continue reading...
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