Bong becomes second film-maker to win directing prize for a foreign language film at the Academy awardsSouth Korean film-maker Bong Joon-ho has become the second director of a foreign-language film to win the best director Oscar at the 92nd Academy Awards. Bong follows Alfonso Cuarón (who won for Roma in 2018) as a foreign-language winner with Parasite, seeing off competition from the likes of Quentin Tarantino (for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Todd Phillips for Joker and the pre-ceremony favourite Sam Mendes (for 1917).Related: Parasite director Bong Joon-ho: 'Korea seems glamorous, but the young are in despair' Continue reading...

Mayor Ben Houchen wants to force three Thai banks to sell crucial plot on mothballed siteA David v Goliath-style battle will begin in the north-east of England on Tuesday as the mayor of the Tees Valley (population: 700,000) goes to battle with the government of Thailand (population: 69 million) over the future of the former Redcar steelworks.Ben Houchen, the Tory mayor of the industrial Tees Valley, wants to force three Thai banks, including one owned by the Thai state, to sell him a crucial 352-hectare (870-acre) plot on the 1,820-hectare Redcar site. Continue reading...

Death toll at 26 after sergeant major killed commanding officer then attacked Terminal 21 complex in Nakhon Ratchasima cityA Thai soldier who shot dead 26 people and wounded 57 others was killed by police on Sunday morning after an overnight operation to end what has been described as an unprecedented attack.Eight people were reportedly held hostage by the gunman, who had holed himself inside a shopping mall after firing at drivers, pedestrians and shoppers. Scores more were trapped for hours on Saturday night as police attempted to regain control of the seven-floor shopping centre in Nakhon Ratchasima, which is more than 155 miles (250km) from Bangkok. Continue reading...

Ellis Genge drove over for the only try of the game as England won in apocalyptic weather conditions at Murrayfield

Body of woman found at house in Northwood and police are treating death as unexplainedPolice believe the sudden death of a woman whose body was found in a house may have involved hazardous materials.Emergency services were called to a house in Northwood, Stoke-on-Trent, at 5.45pm on Friday, Staffordshire police said. Continue reading...

The actor has channelled Bob Dylan and received an honour at just 29. Now she’s finally ready for primetimeSheila Atim would not call it a shrine, exactly, but in her London flat, there is a mantelpiece on which she has placed a few commemorative bits and bobs. There’s an Olivier award here, an MBE there. “My friend did say it looked like a shrine,” she admits, laughing. “But it’s not because I want people to walk into the flat and be blinded by the lights of Sheila’s achievements. These things are just nice! They’re little milestones. I look at them and go, whoa. What?!”There’s a lovely, knockabout energy to Atim, balanced by a deeply serious side. More than almost anyone I’ve interviewed, she really, properly, thoroughly considers every angle of every question she is asked, as if she’s been set a puzzle to solve. Perhaps that’s why casting agents spot a kind of otherworldliness in her. “A little bit, not bang in the middle of the mainstream, just slightly to the left,” as she puts it. Atim has been a powerful presence in the theatre world: she won the Olivier in 2018 for her role in the Bob Dylan-inspired musical Girl From The North Country, and has done almost every interesting, just-slightly-to-the-left production of Shakespeare going. Then, in December, she was awarded the MBE – at the age of 29. Now she’s moving on to the small screen with a BBC primetime debut in which she’ll be playing a witch. In The Pale Horse, a list of names is found on the body of a woman who has been murdered; a man who finds his own name there becomes obsessed with a trio of spooky women in a leafy suburban village. It’s an Agatha Christie adaptation, which means Atim can’t tell me anything else about it. “It’s quite hard, isn’t it, with a whodunnit? But I am playing a witch. That much I can tell you.” Continue reading...

Sports rorts. Unlawful robodebts. More than $80m in election donations. Is this the governance we want?The federal election, the one that delivered the miracle, took place in May 2019. But because our disclosure system is deeply suboptimal, voters had to wait until February 2020 to learn where the money came from.When the Australian Electoral Commission finally published the returns at the start of this week, we were able see that the mining magnate Clive Palmer invested $83.3m in fronting, but more importantly, influencing in the political contest that returned the Coalition to power. Let me just say that again – $83.3m. Continue reading...

Now in their 90s, Yulia and Rozalina Kharitonova were split in Stalingrad evacuation

Joshua Spencer, 25, attended Cooper’s election count after arrest and received character reference from Tory MPA Conservative activist who sent messages claiming to have paid “crackheads” £100 to beat up the Labour MP Yvette Cooper and warned that “if you make peaceful revolution difficult you make a violent one inevitable” has been jailed for nine weeks.Joshua Spencer, who received a character reference from the Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns, attended Cooper’s general election count in December as a representative of the Conservative party despite being under investigation by West Yorkshire police following his arrest. Continue reading...

Fire service chief Shane Fitzsimmons says days of rain is helping dampen fire grounds – but now floods are the new threatTorrential rain in New South Wales has reduced the number of active fires in the state by a third, from more than 60 down to 42, but parts of the east coast now face a new threat from flooding, with Sydney facing one of its wettest three-day periods in years.The commissioner of the NSW Rural Fire Service, Shane Fitzsimmons, said on Friday there had been a “dramatic shift” in the hot, dry and windy conditions that have driven the unprecedented fire season for months. Continue reading...

Jonty Bravery allegedly told staff he wanted to visit central London to push someone off a tall buildingThe teenager who threw a six-year-old boy from the viewing platform of the Tate Modern gallery in London told of plans to push someone off a high building a year earlier, it has been reported.Jonty Bravery, 18, admitted pushing the French child from the tourist attraction’s 10th floor on 4 August last year. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Program to fund female changerooms and swimming pool upgrades never opened to public applicationsThe Coalition has quietly spent another $150m sports grant fund promised in last year’s budget without opening up the process to public applications.The $150m female facilities and water safety stream program, announced by the Coalition less than two months before the election, was funded in the 2019 budget for the purpose of female changerooms and swimming pool upgrades. Continue reading...

The scrawny son of Jewish immigrants transformed himself into an icon of US manhood – a narrative the nation is forgetting in the Trump era. Yet a darker side lurked tooHandsome, muscular, noble – not words that would automatically have been associated with a Yiddish-speaking schmutter-seller’s son whose family were not long off the boat from what is now Belarus. But we know better: in these nativist times, it is worth remembering that Izzy Demsky was the beneficiary of the ultimate Hollywood makeover: the scrawny, hustling scion of immigrants who evolved into Kirk Douglas, the acme of all-American manhood, and evolved once again into a sensitive, politically conscious standard-bearer for liberalism.Douglas, who has died aged 103, became an unrecognisable figure from that of his childhood. His story follows a near-mythic immigrant arc that the US has chosen to ignore in the Trump era. In this he was aided by physiognomy: like Bernie Schwartz (AKA Tony Curtis), his smooth good looks opened doors closed to the likes of Manny Goldenberg (AKA Edward G Robinson). Douglas became an authentic star in 1949 with the brawling boxing picture Champion, only two years after Hollywood nervously tackled the subject of antisemitism in Gentleman’s Agreement and Crossfire, and fully two decades before ethnic minority-looking actors such as Dustin Hoffman were able to play romantic leads. Continue reading...

Activists handed long prison sentences or death penalty by court set up for terror casesSaudi Arabia is using a secretive special court set up for terrorism-related cases to systematically prosecute human rights activists and other dissenting voices who defy the country’s absolute monarchy, a new report has found.The human rights watchdog Amnesty International spent five years investigating 95 cases heard at the Specialised Criminal court (SCC) in Riyadh, concluding in a report published on Thursday that the court is routinely used as a weapon to silence criticism despite the kingdom’s recent attempts to cultivate a reformist image. Continue reading...

Thousands on board Diamond Princess cruise ship in offshore quarantine in Japan after 10 people test positive, as China death toll passes 490

Run-up to Thursday’s commemorations are usually marked by clashes over Indigenous rights, but this year has been differentThe days and hours leading up to New Zealand’s national commemoration day at Waitangi have often been fraught with tension: Māori leaders have a moment in the spotlight to call the government to account, and politicians compete to woo them – while trying to seem as though they are above politics.But the Māori leaders who gathered in Northland’s Bay of Islands on Wednesday – where they met prime minister Jacinda Ardern to discuss the most pressing issues – said the mood at Waitangi had been the most optimistic and positive they could remember, for some in decades of attendance. Continue reading...

Trial resets traffic lights to red when the noise from car horns goes beyond 85 decibelsThere is a truth universally acknowledged by drivers in India: honk your horn loud enough and the traffic lights will surely change to green.But, fed up of impatient drivers inflicting a deafening roar every time they are forced to stop, police in Mumbai have come up with a new system to punish those who cannot wait at traffic lights in silence. Continue reading...

Rape trial continued with cross-examination of accuser who suffered a panic attack under questioning on MondayThe dramatic rape trial of Harvey Weinstein continued on Tuesday with the cross-examination of an accuser who suffered a panic attack under questioning the day before.The 34-year-old witness alleges she was violently raped twice by the film producer in 2013. Her claims form a central pillar of the prosecution’s case. Continue reading...

Advice comes after 39-year-old man in Hong Kong dies of the virus as WHO says outbreak is not yet a pandemic

The signing of the treaty marks the point at which Māori women began to be written out of historyThis week, to mark Waitangi Day, the Guardian is publishing five pieces of commentary from Māori writers.This year I’m not interested in the symbolism of what Jacinda Ardern does or doesn’t do or say at Waitangi. I’m looking to the Mana Wāhine Kaupapa inquiry. Nearly 30 years since it was instigated, the inquiry investigates the role of the Crown in contributing to the disadvantage that has inequitably burdened wāhine Māori since the Treaty was signed. At the end of this month a judicial conference will be held to consider the claims. Continue reading...

Paris reportedly opposes deal that would put Hayange plant in hands of China’s JingyeThe government must act fast to prevent the French government from scuppering a deal to save British Steel, Labour has urged, amid opposition in Paris to a sale that would put a key national asset in Chinese hands.Chinese industrial firm Jingye, run by a former Communist party official, is in the final stages of negotiations to buy British Steel, including the Hayange plant in northern France. Continue reading...

Hashem Abedi accused of helping to plan attack that killed 22 people at Ariana Grande concertThe brother of the Manchester Arena bomber was accused of being “just as guilty of the murder” of the 22 people killed in the terror attack, as he went on trial for multiple murders.Hashem Abedi is accused of helping to plan the attack and build the bomb that killed his brother Salman Abedi and 22 people, including teenagers and a child, when Salman detonated a bomb in the foyer outside Manchester Arena after the end of a concert by the singer Ariana Grande. Continue reading...

More than 80,000 African students are in China, with 5,000 thought to be in WuhanCoronavirus – latest updatesThousands of African students in Wuhan, the centre of the coronavirus epidemic, face dwindling food supplies, limited information and lockdowns restricting them to their campuses or hostels.Two weeks after restrictions on movement were imposed, residents are running short of basic necessities, say students in the central Chinese city. Continue reading...

Residents of camp in Agadez continue to live in fear after their tents burned down last monthSudanese refugees in Niger say they have been living in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation after security forces cracked down on protests calling for better living conditions.Refugees have been sleeping in the desert despite low temperatures since their camp in Agadez was almost completely burned down last month after a sit-in was forcibly dispersed by Nigerien security forces. The Nigerien authorities said they arrested 355 people immediately after the fire. Continue reading...

Charter flight carrying 72 people is first of four flights taking evacuees from WA to the island where they will be quarantined for two weeks• Death toll passes 360 in China, passing Sars fatalities – follow latest updatesThe first Australians evacuated from the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, have touched down on Christmas Island.Seventy-two people were on board the first of four charter flights expected to take more than 240 evacuees to the Indian Ocean island. Continue reading...

Tuesday: Michael McCormack faces challenge for leadership of the Nationals with a partyroom spill. Plus: decision time for the Democrats in IowaGood morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 4 February. Continue reading...

Jessica Breeze wept in the dock after being acquitted of murder and manslaughterA woman who stabbed her abusive father to death has been acquitted of his murder and manslaughter.Jessica Breeze, 20, from Middlesbrough, denied murdering Colin Brady, 49, at their family home in June after a violent argument. Continue reading...

Ruling describes widespread irregularities including use of correction fluid to alter votesJudges in Malawi have annulled last year’s elections and called for a new ballot within 150 days.In a landmark judgment that experts hailed as a step forward for democracy, the country’s constitutional court found that evidence of fraud and malpractice meant the results of the poll could not be allowed to stand. Continue reading...

Journalists in Downing Street walk out after Johnson aide tries to exclude some reportersPolitical journalists boycotted a Downing Street briefing on Monday after one of Boris Johnson’s aides banned selected reporters from attending.The confrontation took place inside No 10 after Lee Cain, Johnson’s most senior communications adviser, tried to exclude reporters from the Mirror, the i, HuffPost, PoliticsHome, the Independent and others from an official government briefing. Continue reading...

EU chief negotiator responds to PM as Brussels sets out initial position on future relationshipMichel Barnier has reminded Boris Johnson that he has already agreed in a “very important” declaration to stay true to EU rules on subsidies and standards, as Brussels staked out its opening position on the EU’s future relationship with the UK.Responding to the prime minister’s claim that there would be no need for Britain to continue to respect EU regulations under a trade deal, the EU’s chief negotiator pointed to the “political declaration” agreed last year with Johnson, while admitting alignment was a “red rag” to Westminster. Continue reading...

True identity of sitter found to be 17th-century lord mayor of London, and not French princeA colossal portrait long thought to be of France’s Grand Dauphin that hung for a century in a corridor of the central bank in Paris has been revealed to be British.The true identity of the sitter, with elaborate regalia and pearl-mounted sword, is not the son of Louis XIV but a lord mayor of London from the late 17th century. Continue reading...

Child had been taken by her family to have the procedure, still prevalent in the country despite new laws to combat itA doctor has been arrested after the death of a 12-year-old girl he had performed female genital mutilation (FGM) on.Nada Hassan Abdel-Maqsoud bled to death at a private clinic in Manfalout, close to the city of Assiut, after her parents, uncle and aunt took her for the procedure. Continue reading...

Suppression order blocks hearing in which ex-officer Gary Jubelin hoped ‘full facts’ would be airedAn inability to show secret documents to a magistrate has delayed the case against the former senior police officer who led the inquiry into William Tyrrell’s disappearance.Former NSW homicide detective Gary Kevin Jubelin, 57, is accused of illegally recording four conversations in 2017 and 2018 as he investigated how the three-year-old boy went missing from a home in Kendall in September 2014. Continue reading...

Prime minister’s vision on future trading relationship will clash with that of EU leadersBoris Johnson will issue a direct warning on Monday that the UK will refuse close alignment of rules and reject the jurisdiction of the European courts in any trade deal as EU leaders prepare to give his plans a frosty reception.In a bullish speech setting out the government’s negotiating position, the prime minister will set out his vision for future relations with the trading bloc and reject accepting similar rules over competition, welfare spending and environmental standards. Continue reading...

Local and central government officials face growing wave of anger over handling of coronavirus outbreakFootage of government officials in Wuhan appearing to take face masks intended for health workers battling the highly infectious coronavirus has fuelled a growing wave of anger over how Chinese authorities have handled the outbreak.Images of medical staff making protective equipment out of rubbish bags, sleeping in hospitals, and crying in frustration and exhaustion have dominated Chinese social media over the last two weeks, inspiring an outpouring of sympathy and donations of supplies. Continue reading...

‘Happy Brexit Day’ sign at Norwich flats said foreign tongues would not be toleratedThe distribution of “Brexit day” posters that warned residents of a block of flats to speak only English is being investigated as a racially aggravated incident, police have said.The printed posters, with the title “Happy Brexit Day”, were stuck to doors on all 15 floors of Winchester Tower in Norwich on Friday morning, the day the UK formally left the European Union. Continue reading...

They’re up before dawn to track traffic on the busy strait – and their sightings of warships can help to predict Russian strategy. The Observer meets ‘a nerdy little community’The Bosphorus, the magnificent strait dividing Istanbul in two, is named after Io, a mortal lover of the god Zeus, who was cursed by his wife Hera to wander the earth in the form of a white heifer: the name comes from the Greek boûs, cow, and poros, passage.Io may have been the first to cross the waterway dividing Europe from Asia, but she was certainly not the last. As the route from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, the Bosphorus offers enormous geopolitical power to whoever controls it. The city of Constantinople was founded on either side of its shores, successively the seat of the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires. Today, the Bosphorus breathes calmly and quietly beneath the hills of modern Istanbul, but its waters are still full of international intrigue. Continue reading...

The cynical logic goes like this: it’s in the country’s interest that you stay in power, so any means to achieve that end is justified

Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings contemplate what comes next•You can buy your own print of this cartoon Continue reading...

Last year the CEO of McDonald’s lost his job over a consensual affair. Has the workplace crush had its day?Jenny had been living in Hong Kong for a couple of weeks when she fell “head over heels” in love with Christine, the creative director of a small fashion company. But there was a problem: Christine already had a girlfriend. And another problem: Christine was interviewing Jenny for a job at the company at the time. “The first thing she did when she came in was to sit in her chair and say to me: ‘So you’re the English girl,’” Jenny recalls. “She was very direct – it wasn’t something I was used to. It felt strong.”Jenny, whose parents are from Hong Kong, had decided to move there after graduating from university in 2018, to learn more about her culture. She was 22, and describes herself as extremely shy. She applied for a series of positions at creative companies, but Christine’s firm was the first to invite her for an interview; Jenny landed an entry-level position, reporting directly to Christine. Her new boss wasn’t like anyone she’d met before. She was powerful and direct in business meetings, but playful, disarming, even confessional one-to-one. She worked out and channelled a masculine, minimalist style: white shirts, blazers, black turtlenecks. She seemed to take a special interest in the English girl. Continue reading...

The swamp near my home has been dry for two years, and fires burn down to the beaches

While the fires rage on, residents of neighbouring towns in New South Wales look to the future

Build-up of contaminated water from wrecked nuclear plant has been sticking point in clean-up likely to take decadesA panel of experts advising Japan’s government on a disposal method for radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant has recommended releasing it into the ocean, a move likely to alarm neighbouring countries.Related: Fukushima fishermen concerned for future over release of radioactive water Continue reading...

As some take to the streets to celebrate leaving the EU, others mourn the loss of an old friendHow does a nation say goodbye to its neighbours? With a lump in its throat and a poignant song of farewell – or with cheers and a raised middle finger of defiant good riddance? The answer that Britain gave at 11pm on Friday 31 January 2020 was: both. The UK broke from the European Union on a late winter’s night with both jubilation and regret, as divided on the day of leaving as it had been in deciding to leave. For some Britons, this was Independence Day. For others, it was a national bereavement.In Westminster, Nigel Farage exulted with his fellow Brexiters in Parliament Square, delighted that a prize they had sought for a quarter century, and that once seemed laughably improbable, was in their hands at last. “We did it,” he told the ecstatic crowd. “We transformed the landscape of our country.” At the stroke of 11pm, he led a chorus of the national anthem. Continue reading...

First cases reported in Russia, UK and Spain as US bars most travellers from China. Follow live updates and latest news

Suspected infection of taxi driver by traveller raises fears virus could reach tourist areas

The union flag has been removed from the esplanade outside the European parliament building, where the flags of all member states are displayed. It was replaced by the EU flag featuring a circle of 12 yellow stars. Britain will become the first country to leave the European Union at 11pm on Friday, after 47 years as a member

The boys, then 14 and 15, had bought the drug with bitcoin and sold it to Hannah BraggTwo teenage boys from a rural community in Devon bought illegal drugs from the dark web and sold them to children, including a 15-year-old girl who died after taking ecstasy.The pair, aged 14 and 15, purchased the drugs using the cryptocurrency bitcoin and passed them on to children as young as 12. Continue reading...