As he prepares to host The Big Flower Fight, the comedian born Jim Moir discusses his wild fame in the 90s – and why he now prefers a pork pie to a pintWere his twin 13-year-old daughters not studiously home-schooling themselves, or his twentysomething son not living at home, Vic Reeves might not have noticed the lockdown. Life, he says, has not really changed. Every day, as he always does, he gets up at 6am, has breakfast, then goes into his studio to paint, emerging around 4pm. “We don’t really go out much,” he says on the phone from his home in a Kent village.He is planning his next painting, a “still life” featuring a Renault 4, the German electronic band Kraftwerk, a goldfinch and a pineapple. “I love pineapple,” he says in his soothing north-east accent. “You know, pineapple’s great on ham, and just on its own, and in a drink.” The slightest, perfect pause. “It’s a very versatile fruit.” Continue reading...

After joining a meeting of Australia's national cabinet, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern explains the reasoning behind possibly easing travel restrictions between the two countries in a future trans-Tasman bubble. While Australia and New Zealand have both had success in slowing the spread of Covid-19, Ardern adds there remains a lot of work to be done before travel between the countries can recommence

Christian Porter has ordered that national security law be applied to court proceedingsThe federal government’s use of national security legislation to enforce secrecy on the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation case has prompted concern from transparency campaigners, who say such laws are undermining the democratic right to open justice.The attorney general, Christian Porter, has ordered provisions of the National Security Information Act be applied to civil proceedings between Roberts-Smith, a special forces veteran, and Nine Entertainment, which he accuses of defaming him as a war criminal in a series of news stories. Continue reading...

Industry reacts with shock and dismay after Sydney arts centre suffers ‘irreparable loss of income’

To maintain his strong public support the prime minister needs to keep consensus beyond the health crisisSupport for the prime minister and his government continues to surge, as the public endorses the fragile political consensus that has delivered the successful response to the global health crisis.Like a scorpion that has trained itself not to strike, the government is thriving politically by throwing away the political playbook. Continue reading...

Italians were allowed out as the toughest quarantine measures were lifted throughout the country after almost two months on 4 May.Around 4 million people returned to work as the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, appealed to the public in a Facebook post on Sunday night to 'act responsibly'.

Tuesday: Josh Frydenberg will reveal the scale of the economic shock in a speech today. Plus, the history of craftivismGood morning, this is Emilie Gramenz bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 5 May. Continue reading...

85-year-old Oscar-winner appears in the magazine’s June issueJudi Dench has become British Vogue’s oldest cover star, securing her first front page for the style arbiter at the age of 85.The Oscar-winning actor was photographed just before lockdown for the magazine’s June issue, but the accompanying interview explores her experiences self-isolating at home in Surrey. Continue reading...

Carrier will unlock government aid after winning support for debt-for-equity swap

Jordan Goudreau, who was linked to plot to topple Maduro, said his troops are still in action as government said it foiled ‘invasion’

Comments in authorised biography also associate gay marriage with the AntichristThe former pope Benedict XVI has accused opponents of wanting to silence him, while associating gay marriage with the Antichrist and attacking humanist ideologies in an authorised biography published in Germany.The 93-year-old, whose original name is Joseph Ratzinger, said in Benedict XVI – A Life he had fallen victim to a “malignant distortion of reality” in reactions to his interventions in theological debates. Continue reading...

A street artist called Msale has taken it upon himself to create giant murals bringing public health messages directly to the overcrowded Mathare slum in Nairobi. With half a million people living in such 'a squeezed area' social distancing is quite impossible to achieve, says Msale, so he is providing information for people on how to keep safe in the 'simplest, clearest' way he knows

Thae Yong-ho and Ji Seong-ho both said in South Korea that leader was gravely ill or dead

Watoto church investigated over decision not to pull out as 48 children are among those stuck abroad due to border closures

Is Australia flattening the curve? Look at the graph. We bring together all the Covid-19 confirmed cases, maps, stats and graphs from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, WA, Tasmania, ACT and NT to get a broad picture of the Australian outbreak and track the impact of government response.

With an artificial moon and flying taxis, Neom has been billed as humanity’s next chapter. But beneath the glitzy veneer lies a story of threats, forced eviction and bloodshed“The future has a new home,” proclaims the website.“It’s a virgin area that has a lot of beauty,” says the voice over a string section soundtrack as the promotional video tracks colour-tinted panoramic shots of picturesque desert expanses, and deep azure lagoons. Continue reading...

Monday: More cuts to broadcaster’s workforce and programming expected in next year. Plus, mysterious phenomenon seen in coronavirus patientsGood morning, this is Emilie Gramenz bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 4 April. Continue reading...

An experimental treatment for coronavirus called remdesivir, which will be trialled in Australia, was hailed as a breakthrough for Covid-19 treatment last week. But some experts urge caution and say serious questions remain to be answeredYou can read Melissa Davey’s explain on remdesivir here and her news on how the drug is being trialled in Australia here. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Two women from army and one from navy point to much lower conviction rate at courts martialThree women serving in the armed forces have begun legal action aimed at preventing the military courts from trying UK rape cases, complaining that the conviction rate is five to six times lower than in civilian courts.They are seeking a judicial review after the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said in February he was ignoring a recommendation that rape and other serious cases involving the military in the UK should routinely be handled by the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Continue reading...

Two of Europe’s worst affected countries begin careful process of opening up societies again

Hundreds more refugees still stranded on boats after being turned away by MalaysiaRohingya refugees believed to have spent weeks stranded on cramped boats at sea have been sent to a remote, uninhabited island by Bangladesh, while hundreds more remain adrift.Dozens of Rohingya landed on the coast of southern Bangladesh on Saturday, an official said, with some sent to Bhasan Char, a silt island in the estuary of Bangladesh’s Meghna river. Continue reading...

Fifteen years ago, when the word podcast was added to the dictionary, only the tech-savvy were listening. Now, as star names pile in, they’re big business. Can the quality survive?

As Accra and Kumasi’s markets and shops reopen, government defends decision to partially lift coronavirus restrictions

Egyptian government using pandemic to tighten control of media and quash dissent, rights group reportsJournalism in Egypt has effectively become a crime over the past four years, Amnesty International says, as authorities clamp down on media outlets and muzzle dissent.As the number of coronavirus infections in Egypt continues to rise, the government is strengthening its control over information instead of upholding transparency, the London-based rights group said in a report released on Sunday. Continue reading...

Somalia reports rapid rise in Covid-19 deaths; 98 people die in one New York nursing home; Singapore eases restrictions as second wave subsides

For the over-ambitious airline’s bondholders, investors and lessors, survival means the lesser of two evilly large lossesAs one of Norway’s greatest exports, A-ha, put it, in their classic 1980s hit Take on Me, it’s no better to be safe than sorry. This advice may appear ever more overwhelmingly wrong to those who bet their kroner on the vision of the two Bjorns, Kjos and Kise, the co-founders turned chief executive and chairman of Norwegian Air.The pair wisely exited the scene last year after an extraordinary ride during which they turned Norwegian from a small local carrier into a global pioneer of low-cost, long-haul air travel, and eventually established bases all around Europe. With half an eye on transatlantic links and another on a booming short-haul operation, Norwegian became a dizzying array of subsidiaries whose complexity could not disguise the fact that it was heading for financial disaster. Continue reading...

A shortage of technical experts in EU regulatory authorities means companies can carry on invading our privacyOn 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became law throughout the European Union. Because it’s a regulation rather than a directive, implementation is not left to the discretion of states; it became part of the legal code of every member of the EU, including the UK at the time. In essence, the GDPR is a set of rules designed to give EU citizens more control over their personal data. The drive behind the regulation was the need to bring the historical patchwork of laws and obligations around personal data, privacy and consent across Europe up to speed and make them fit for purpose in a world dominated by surveillance capitalism. On the face of it, the GDPR looks like a formidable legal instrument.At any rate, in the run-up to its implementation, the prospect of it seemed to scare the wits out of companies and organisations large and small. It was a gold mine for legal and data-protection consultants. Even amateurs such as me were often approached by small community groups terrified that their email list would get them into trouble because they hadn’t explicitly asked every individual on it for their approval. Continue reading...

UK refuses request from Brussels for Northern Ireland presence for second timeThe Irish border question threatens to derail Brexit talks again as the depth of the row over the EU’s desire to have an office in Belfast is revealed.The UK’s paymaster general, Penny Mordaunt, has written to the EU to firmly reject a repeated request for an office in Northern Ireland: “The UK cannot agree to the permanent EU presence based in Belfast,” she wrote. Continue reading...

In move condemned by UN, refugees including Rohingya detained amid rise in xenophobia

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has appeared in public for the first time in almost three weeks, according to state media, following speculation that he had been seriously ill following heart surgery. The authenticity of the images, taken at a fertiliser factory opening and published on the website of the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, could not be immediately verified

Other ideas to ease lockdown reportedly include wearing face masks and a reduction from 2 to 1 metres distancing

The three-time Hugo award winner is one of the biggest names in modern scifi. She talks about overcoming racism to rewrite the futureIn 2018, NK Jemisin became the first writer ever to win three consecutive Hugo best novel awards for science fiction and fantasy. Her first award had been in 2016, for her novel The Fifth Season, and its two sequels, The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky, won in the following years. Yet speaking on the phone from her home in coronavirus-hit Brooklyn, Jemisin says she never thought she’d be published. “I honestly didn’t think I had a chance. You just didn’t see characters like me in fiction,” she says.Growing up in Mobile, Alabama and New York, Jemisin was an avid reader, making up her own stories from the age of eight, but the lack of black women writing science fiction and fantasy, the genre she loved, made her believe it wasn’t for her. “We were all exposed to nothing but white dude fiction, occasionally young white women fiction, and if that’s how you’ve grown up, then that is what is normal.” Continue reading...

The Monty Python star accidentally started a fire in his home while recovering from surgery before being pulled to safetySir Michael Palin has revealed how an elderly neighbour pulled him to safety after he accidentally set fire to his house while recovering from heart surgery.The Monty Python star, 76, said he had open-heart surgery in September to repair two valves and was told by doctors to relax at home. Continue reading...

With TV sport firmly on the bench, can Zoom darts, Ukrainian table tennis and backyard basketball help armchair fans get their fix?For fans of televised sport, there will always be that golden Sunday, in July last year, when the broadcast of a topsy-turvy Wimbledon final overlapped with a British Grand Prix and England’s blockbuster victory in the Cricket World Cup. Oh my Djokovic: an unimprovable time to be an armchair spectator, an afternoon of channel-hopping and ad-dodging, hurrying wees and tea brews, juggling screens and streams and replays till we sweated like athletes ourselves.Unthinkable, then, that 10 months on, the sport schedules would be empty. Wimbledon 2020 is off. The cricket season has been picked apart. Everything from motorsport to football to darts has been put on hold while the world deals with coronavirus. Continue reading...

We asked Guardian readers about their experiences as New Zealand entered level 3 of its coronavirus lockdownI went back to work on Tuesday. It was exciting to start the day with a sense of purpose after five weeks of time melting into itself. It was a little discombobulating to dust off my clothes, boots and tool belt, and hunt out my bag and lunch box. It was so nice to be in my car, music turned up and travelling fast. I was nearly skipping when I got to work. It was exciting to see my work colleagues – we are a small team of three and we spend long hours working together, arguing and laughing. The first day was very physical – ripping out a wire fence, moving a cut-down tree – it’s going to take at least two weeks for my body to get used to the work again. Kylie Toka, fencer, Marton, Rangetikei Continue reading...

North Korean state media has released pictures purportedly showing the leader attending the opening of a fertiliser factoryThe North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has appeared in public for the first time in almost three weeks, according to state media, following speculation that he had been seriously ill following heart surgery.The state news agency KCNA released photographs purportedly showing Kim opening a fertilizer plant in Sunchon, north of the capital Pyongyang. Continue reading...

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau announced that assault-style weapons will be banned after the murder of 22 people in the worst mass shooting in the country’s history in Nova Scotia last week. The government gun control campaign had initially been derailed by the coronavirus pandemic Continue reading...

Sajid Hussain, who wrote about human rights violations, went missing in MarchA Pakistani journalist living in exile in Sweden and who had been missing since March has been found dead in a river.Sajid Hussain, who was granted political asylum in Sweden in 2019 after fleeing Pakistan, had been missing since 2 March. He was last seen boarding a train to Uppsala, a city 35 miles (56km) north of Stockholm. Continue reading...

NHS launches inquiry after Guardian investigation exposes senior official trading protective gear amid pandemic

Few signs yet that PM’s coronavirus illness and new baby have made him a different leader

Emergency food drops for thousands of young people unable to work or fly home

The coronavirus response in South Africa is an eerie throwback to apartheid. State control needs to be carefully monitored across the continent

Bamber is serving life sentence for killing his parents, sister and her twin boys in 1985Lawyers representing Jeremy Bamber, who is serving a whole life sentence for killing five members of his family in 1985, will ask the high court to review the refusal of the Crown Prosecution Service to disclose evidence they believe could undermine his conviction.They claim the material was made available to an author working on a televised drama about the killings, but not to his defence team. Continue reading...

All plans are on hold now and I can’t work out if I need a bit more or a bit less of my mother’s spiritAnxiety is still the first feeling of which I am aware every morning. First as a sense of unease as I regain consciousness and then physical and mental distress as I reconnect with the reality of the new normal. It can still take me a couple of hours of hiding under the duvet before I feel brave enough to get up and have breakfast. Some things have changed, though. Thankfully my dreams are no longer quite so terrifying. Rather, they have switched into something more distant and desolate where I am disconnected from the present. One night I dreamed first I was with my son, who was learning to fly in the Lofoten Islands – somewhere I’ve never been (nor have I watched the TV series Twin) and would not be unable to place on a map of Norway – and then that I was in a spaceship with Buzz Aldrin as we were flying to the edge of the solar system. Buzz didn’t seem that pleased to have me for company. What’s also changed is that during the day some of the anxiety now dissipates into sadness and depression. Sadness both at the scale of the crisis – we are now well past the chief scientific adviser’s “best result” death toll of 20,000, with no end in sight – and at my own personal losses. In particular the separation from my family, friends and colleagues. In the early days of the lockdown I was somehow able to kid myself that maybe the quarantine wouldn’t last that long. But now it’s sunk in that the government is making things up as it goes along, life may not return to normal for many months and that all plans will have to be put on hold. I remember my mother telling me how she and some friends danced down Piccadilly during an air raid in the second world war (I’m assuming they were a bit pissed) before a warden angrily shepherded them into a shelter. I can’t quite work out whether I need a bit more or a bit less of that sort of spirit. Continue reading...

Sydney aged care home reports 13th coronavirus-related death as three more residents test positive, while Tasmania to lift north-west lockdown. Follow live• Sign up to get coronavirus updates delivered to your email every weekday evening

Wild bison could once again roam over Saskatchewan after a herd welcomed its first calf since 1876When Europeans settlers first set their eyes upon North America’s Great Plains, vast seas of bison stretched as far as the horizon. But, more than a century ago, the last of the thundering herds that stampeded across the grasslands disappeared.But the birth of a wild bison calf has renewed hopes that rebuilding sustainable herds is now a step closer. On 22 April, a herd in Wanuskewin heritage park, an Indigenous-run conservation area in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, grew by one member — the first time a calf had been born on the territory since 1876. Continue reading...

Hundreds of indigenous queens are elected each year in Guatemala. Photographer Julia Zabrodzka presents this little-known part of modern Mayan cultureAngelica Cardona, with a microphone in her hand, stands among a group of candidates. Her voice reverberates firmly from the stage: “The art of weaving forms part of our Mayan identity. Nowadays, however, cheap printed fabrics are replacing our ancestral hand-woven textiles. This is how capitalism is killing our culture and preventing us from putting our heart in each artisanal piece we produce.” Her last words sound like a cry of protest. Seems rather like a leftwing party’s rally than a beauty pageant, doesn’t it? Well, indigenous queen elections are not typical beauty contests. Continue reading...

Family provides details of Errol Graham’s fatal decline as part of court action against DWPErrol Graham, a 57-year-old grandfather who died of starvation when his benefits were cut off, had become so mentally ill that his family believe he pulled out two of his own teeth with pliers, they have revealed.Fresh details of Graham’s decline, and the traumatic impact on his relatives of his lonely death and subsequent inquest, are revealed in a witness statement filed as part of the latest phase of a legal action taken by the family against the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Continue reading...

Many of China’s ambitions are in clear conflict with our national interests. It’s time to reshape our relationship with BeijingThe last time Australia had a coherent and effective policy on China was when John Howard was prime minister. Howard emphasised the positives in what was then a much simpler trading relationship.Then, in Deng Xiaoping’s famous words, China was hiding its capabilities and biding its time. The Peoples’ Liberation Army was nowhere near the military powerhouse it is today. The Communist party’s forced annexation of much of the South China Sea was two decades in the future. Continue reading...

He’s played a revolutionary hero, a horny teen – now Gael García Bernal is a reptilian choreographer in Ema, and locked down in Mexico city. Just don’t ask him to move to LA when all this is overAt the start of the century, the director Alfonso Cuarón was casting Y Tu Mamá También, the bawdy but plangent road movie he had written with his brother Carlos about two oversexed Mexican teenagers, the wealthy Tenoch and his poorer, grungier friend Julio. “Alfonso called me very excitedly,” recalls Carlos Cuarón. “He said: ‘I know who’s going to play Julio! I’ve seen him in Alejandro’s movie.’” Alejandro González Iñárritu, that is, whose ferocious dog-fighting drama Amores Perros was about to be released. “I said: ‘No, no, I’ve found Julio; I saw the perfect actor in this short film, De Tripas, Corazón. He’s incredible: his eyes, the way he manages silence ...’”Eventually, the brothers realised they were talking about the same person: Gael García Bernal, who was then just 21. The son of theatre actors, he had become a star in his early teens on the Mexican soap opera El Abuelo y Yo (Grandpa and I) before decamping to London to study at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Iñárritu plucked him out mid-term for Amores Perros and he stole that movie as the twitchy-hipped tearaway who was every bit as feral as his champion rottweiler. His mutable features could switch from cherubic to lupine to gravely smouldering; his nerve endings felt exposed like frayed electrical wires. Continue reading...