Labour says decline in suspects being charged or summonsed is ‘indictment’ of Tory cutsThe proportion of recorded crimes in England and Wales that resulted in a suspect being charged or summonsed to court has fallen again, figures reveal, as knife crime surges to a record high.In the year to March 2019, 7.8% of all recorded offences resulted in a charge or a summons, against 9.1% the previous year, figures on crime outcomes from the Home Office show. Continue reading...

Martial arts star Tony Jaa joins the zany police franchise as our heroes head to Tokyo for more no-holds-barred slapstick actionAsian cinema’s wackiest buddy-comedy action franchise is now at the threequel stage and after a period of bewilderment I’ve begun to enjoy its eccentric hyperactivity. The two zany Chinese cops, Qin Feng (Haoran Liu) and Tang Ren (Baoqiang Wang), have already clocked up some misadventures in Bangkok for the first film and New York for the second (which featured a peculiar cameo from Michael Pitt); now the daffy duo rock up in Tokyo, where they have been summoned to tackle a bizarre crime.A local gang boss has been murdered, apparently by a turf rival called Watanabe (Miura Tomokazu) over dinner, but this man insists he’s innocent and demands our heroes find the evidence that will acquit him. The rest of the film is one bonkers digression after another, concerning some strange criminal conspiracies and the shadowy motivations of the victim’s assistant Anna Kobayashi (Masami Nagasawa). Continue reading...

Royal to warn against hatred and intolerance in speech at Holocaust forum in JerusalemPrince Charles is to warn that lessons of the Holocaust are “searingly relevant to this day” as “hatred and intolerance still lurk in the human heart”.He is due to address world leaders gathered in Jerusalem on Thursday to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Continue reading...

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian expresses condolences to families of the firefighters on boardThree American firefighters have died after a waterbombing air tanker crashed while fighting fires in New South Wales.The NSW Rural Fire Service said in a statement that “contact had been lost with a Large Air Tanker which was working in the Snowy Monaro area” on Thursday afternoon. Continue reading...

Australia can still qualify for the 2020 Olympics if they beat Uzbekistan in the third place playoff on SaturdayA marauding South Korean frontline lead by Kim Dae-won has cut strips through a timid Olyroos defence to seal a 2-0 victory in their AFC U-23 Championship semi-final and deny Australia their first chance to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.The Olyroos could have qualified for the Games for the first time in 12 years by beating South Korea, but their opponents had other ideas at Bangkok’s Thammasat Stadium on Wednesday night. Continue reading...

Former Scottish first minister faces 14 charges including attempted rape

Tory MPs urge prime minister to deliver project as transport secretary asks for more dataGrant Shapps, the transport secretary, has cast further doubt on whether the government will go ahead with the HS2 rail line by stressing the problem was about capacity rather than speed and making clear he was examining alternatives.Confirming a final decision would be made in February, Shapps said it was essential to get the facts right before embarking on “maybe the biggest infrastructure project, certainly in Europe, and the biggest this country’s ever taken, certainly in peacetime”. Continue reading...

Here we have a government found to have misused taxpayer money to further its political interests. It raises serious integrity issuesThe pressure on Bridget McKenzie over the government’s sport grant program is far from subsiding.It’s been seven days since the auditor general released his damning report, but the calls for McKenzie’s resignation have only intensified. Continue reading...

Duchess of Sussex’s estranged father apologises to the Queen in extracts from documentary to be aired on WednesdayThe estranged father of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has sought to defend his reputation in a new documentary to be broadcast on Wednesday, but said he fears he will never speak to his daughter or Prince Harry again.Thomas Markle, 75, has already accused his daughter of “cheapening” the British royal family in part of an interview released on Sunday, a day after Buckingham Palace said Harry and Meghan would no longer be working members of the monarchy. Continue reading...

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT OF DEAD ANIMALSAn estimated 1 billion animals have been killed during or as a result of Australia’s catastrophic bushfire season, and experts fear some species now face extinction. Huge numbers of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects and other species have been lost, with images of burned koalas and kangaroos fleeing the fire front beamed around the world. Slow-moving native animals have been hit particularly hard.

The Australian government says the case is a ‘very high priority’, but human rights campaigners say quiet diplomacy has failedHuman rights groups and advocates for political prisoners in Iran have urged the Australian government to take a more forceful position in negotiating with Iran for the release of detained academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, but the Australian government continues to insist quiet diplomacy will be most effective.On Tuesday, the Guardian revealed a series of letters hand-written by Moore-Gilbert in Farsi and smuggled out of Evin prison’s notorious Ward 2A, an isolated wing run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. Continue reading...

Talks in Davos raise hope of agreement to find multilateral solution to taxing digital firmsFrance is poised to announce on Wednesday that it is dropping its go-it-alone plan to tax big US tech companies in exchange for Washington’s agreement to press ahead with attempts to find a multilateral solution.Hopes of an agreement were rising in Davos after several days of intense talks involving the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, the US treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, and Ángel Gurria, the head of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Continue reading...

Magistrate dismisses police contention Prof Dianne Jolley is a threat to public safety, after she spends two weeks in jailPolice have been accused of acting in “secret” to obtain key documents in the case of a Sydney professor’s alleged fake harassment campaign.Prof Dianne Jolley, the dean of science at the University of Technology Sydney, was arrested in November for allegedly sending fake threats to herself after the university planned to cancel a Chinese medicine course. Continue reading...

Housewives, grandmothers and students in Delhi at centre of resistance to new citizenship lawsWith a toothless grin and a clenched fist raised to the heavens, 90-year-old Asma Khatun chanted exuberantly. “Azadi,” she cried, using the Hindi word for freedom and joining a loud chorus that rang out across Shaheen Bagh, a neighbourhood in South Delhi that over the past few weeks has become a nationwide symbol of resistance.In her nine decades, Khatun has lived through British colonial rule, the war of independence and India’s bloody partition with Pakistan, but as a housewife she had always stayed behind closed doors and barely brushed with politics. That was until last month. Continue reading...

Men in New Zealand and Spain calculated longitude and latitude to perfectly align both slicesAn Auckland university student has created an “earth sandwich” with a stranger in Spain, after a long search for an accomplice.Etienne Naude, 19, placed a slice of white bread on the ground at Bucklands Beach in Auckland, using longitude and latitude to ensure he was precisely opposite a volunteer he had found in the south of Spain after posting for help on Reddit. Continue reading...

Authorities on alert ahead of lunar new year holiday as 139 new cases of strain detectedChina’s National Health Commission has confirmed human-to-human transmission of a mysterious Sars-like virus that has spread across the country and fuelled anxiety about the prospect of a major outbreak as millions begin travelling for lunar new year celebrations.Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory expert and head of the health commission team investigating the outbreak, confirmed that two cases of infection in China’s Guangdong province had been caused by human-to-human transmission and medical staff had been infected, China’s official Xinhua news agency said on Monday. Continue reading...

Leak has shown how Africa’s richest woman built her empire, but how did it happen?Isabel dos Santos, the billionaire daughter of the former president of Angola, claims to be a self-made businesswoman, but a cache of documents investigated by the Guardian and partners appears to tell a different story.The Luanda Leaks are a trove of 715,000 emails, charts, contracts, audits, and accounts that help explain how Dos Santos built a business empire worth an estimated $2bn. Continue reading...

Only known painting by Dutch master while he had psychosis is ‘unmistakably’ his workAfter decades of doubt, a gloomy self-portrait has been authenticated as a genuine work by Vincent van Gogh and the only known work painted while he had psychosis.Self-Portrait (1889) has been in Norway’s national collection since 1910 but its authenticity has been openly questioned since 1970. On Monday, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam announced it was “unmistakably” a work by the artist. Continue reading...

Future of name in doubt after Queen bans pair from using HRH titlesThe Duke and Duchess of Sussex face an “expensive and complicated” battle if forced to change their Sussex Royal brand, experts have said.The future of the brand name is in doubt after the Queen banned Harry and Meghan from using their HRH styles, and announced they would no longer act as official representatives of the royal family. Continue reading...

Ghent’s transformation produced shorter journeys, cleaner air and a cycling explosion

Johnson says international peacekeeping force could monitor the proposed ceasefire

Pitched battles between police and demonstrators as leaders fail to form new governmentProtesters hurled fireworks and ripped branches from trees to use against security forces who fired rubber bullets and teargas during the most violent weekend of protests in Beirut since the beginning of mass anti-government demonstrations across Lebanon three months ago.Lebanese medical groups said at least 377 people were injured on Saturday, including 80 who were taken to hospital, during the culmination of days of unrest that organisers called a “week of anger” after a relative lull. Continue reading...

The start of the American presidential race next month may seem more alluring. But the Irish general election is of more immediate importance for BritainBritain’s political class is insular. It rarely shows any interest in foreign elections. That general rule may get bent as the United States presidential election gets into gear in the coming weeks. But the evidence of this country’s default inwardness is that there is an election on this side of the Atlantic in less than three weeks with a far more immediate bearing on Britain than the one in America. This one will get only a fraction of the attention that will be expended on the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. But then this one is in Ireland.Why does Ireland’s 8 February election matter to Britain? Partly for the obvious reason that Ireland is one of Britain’s nearest neighbours. Partly because the peoples of these islands are so intermingled. But more than anything it matters because of Brexit. Continue reading...

Inquiry into Isabel dos Santos’s management of Sonangol turns on a series of events before her sackingThe transfers began on 16 November 2017, with $38m wired to a bank account in Dubai. A little later another sum, this time $15m, exited, followed by a third for $4m. At the start of the day, the bank account of Sonangol, Angola’s state oil company, had contained $57m. By sunset, it had just $309.The story of these payments, as told by a Sonangol bank statement and internal report, lies at the centre of an Angolan government investigation into Africa’s richest woman. Continue reading...

Officials believed complicit in escape of at least 75 prisoners, including members of notorious Brazilian gang

Families feel they have fallen down agenda amid row over inquiry panel memberGrenfell survivors have accused Boris Johnson of downgrading the government’s interest in the disaster and said he is out of touch with what they are going through.As pressure rose on the prime minister to rescind his appointment of a public inquiry panel member revealed to have links to the combustible cladding company involved in the tower’s refurbishment, community leaders said: “Grenfell families have dropped down the agenda for Downing Street.” Continue reading...

The Pacific island nation of Nauru is well-known for its role in Australia’s offshore detention regime. But what’s less well known is Nauru’s treatment of its own citizens. Today on Full Story, how the former president of Nauru and 18 other protesters became embroiled in a four-year legal battle for their freedom Continue reading...

Fires the latest in a string of bad economic news, Deloitte says, as government extends $2bn package to businessesBusinesses damaged by bushfires will be eligible for additional grants of up to $50,000 in the latest pledge from the Morrison government’s $2bn disaster relief package.Businesses will also be able to access concessional loans of up to $500,000 if they have suffered significant loss of revenue or asset loss, opening the door to those indirectly affected by a business downturn rather than fire damage. Continue reading...

Rachel Boyle described actor as a ‘white privileged male’ in row over media coverage of Duchess of SussexA mixed-race university lecturer accused of being racist by the white actor Laurence Fox has been bombarded with hate messages via social media, she has told the Observer.Rachel Boyle, a researcher on race and ethnicity at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, clashed with Fox during a television discussion about press coverage of the Duchess of Sussex. Continue reading...

Move comes in wake of landmark Samira Ahmed case and amid increasing scrutiny of paying practicesThe BBC will consider waiving controversial confidentiality clauses that employees were previously forced to sign as part of settlements for equal pay disputes, amid rising scrutiny and in the wake of Samira Ahmed’s landmark tribunal victory against the broadcaster.Employees who brought complaints against the BBC before 2016 were required to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) preventing them from discussing their settlement with colleagues, friends, or the media. Continue reading...

Surrogacy between friends can be life-changing. The people who have done it talk emotions, legal hurdles – and WhatsApp birthing groups

Seat became hotly contested once the then National MP quit after allegations of improper conduct on a work tripThe Morrison government awarded a $500,000 sports grant in the rural Victorian seat of Mallee a year and a half after it was first rejected – when the seat became hotly contested due to the resignation of Nationals MP Andrew Broad.The Northern Grampians shire council applied for the grant in September 2018 and was rejected in the first round of the controversial community sport infrastructure grant program, only to see the $500,000 Lord Nelson Park project in St Arnaud approved in April 2019, just weeks out from the election. Continue reading...

Inquest told teenager from Barry was unlawfully killed by serial offender David Braddon

City’s municipal credit bank will cancel some debt if young adults engage with training schemesThe city of Amsterdam is taking over the debts of its young adults as part of a drive to liberate people who are struggling to get into work or education.A growth in borrowing among young Dutch adults – a trend echoed elsewhere in Europe, including the UK – is said to be standing in the way of them joining the marketplace or completing higher education courses. Continue reading...

Airline says that, contrary to reports, only a small amount of tax bill has been deferredFlybe has admitted to having secured a £10m tax holiday and confirmed ongoing negotiations over a state loan, as rival airlines stepped up attacks on the government’s rescue of the struggling carrier.The Exeter-based airline said that, contrary to reports, only a small amount of its annual air passenger duty (APD) bill – believed to be £106m – had been deferred, in what it said was a standard arrangement for businesses in difficulty. Continue reading...

Economic hardship is hurting ordinary people while experts fear downturn might consolidate power in hands of hardlinersScrap metal dumped in piles around Tehran has traditionally been good business for Jaafar. For nearly three decades, the Afghan migrant has sold what he finds to small factories, sending most of what he earns to his family back home. Lately, that hasn’t been much. “I can only afford enough bread for myself,” he says.The waste picker, 50, is one of millions of people in Iran caught in the jaws of Donald Trump’s policy of enforcing “maximum pressure” on the country by suffocating its economy with sanctions. He could return home, he says, but there he would collide with another overseas American project. Continue reading...

Move in effect dashes migrants’ plans to travel together in a ‘caravan’ to the United StatesGuatemalan police accompanied by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have swept up hundreds of migrants, returning them to the Honduran border and in effect dashing their plans to travel together in a “caravan” to the United States.Other, smaller groups traveled on in dribs and drabs in a movement involving several thousand people but very different from previous caravans. Continue reading...

North Wales crime team say birds killed on impact, possibly escaping a predatorMore than 200 starlings found dead on a road in Anglesey may have taken “avoiding action”, possibly from a bird of prey, and then failed to pull up in time, say police.Officers from North Wales police’s rural crime team initially said the deaths were a mystery following the discovery near Llyn Llywenan in Bodedern on December 10. Most of the starlings were found on a 100-metre stretch of the road, with others on a nearby hedgerow, but none in the surrounding fields. Continue reading...

Duke conducts Rugby League World Cup draw while Meghan visits women’s organisations in VancouverThe Duke of Sussex has appeared in public for the first time since announcing he and his wife are to step back as frontline royals.Prince Harry returned to Buckingham Palace, the heart of the institution rocked by the bombshell announcement last week that he and Meghan would leave their senior roles as full-time royals and move part-time to Canada. Continue reading...

A proposal for bushfire-threatened koalas to be introduced is generous but ultimately misguided – they should be conserved inside AustraliaA petition currently doing the rounds on the internet advocates for koalas to be introduced to New Zealand, in response to the horrific scenes of native animals suffering in the Australian bushfires. New Zealand has more than 23,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations so why not? Isn’t that the spirit of Anzac cooperation?This is not the first time an Australian marsupial has been introduced into New Zealand. In 1837, the brushtail possum was brought across, and that introduction worked extremely well. In fact, a little too well. Continue reading...

Leicestershire police called to property after reports of two men injured during break-inA murder investigation has been launched after the death of a man following an aggravated burglary.Officers were called to an address in Wigston, Leicestershire, at about 3.45pm on Monday after a report that two men were injured during a break-in. Leicestershire police said a man entered the house in Gibson Close and assaulted the men inside before taking cash and leaving the property. Continue reading...

Japanese court convicted Scott McIntyre of trespassing in attempt to find childrenScott McIntyre, a former sports reporter for Australia’s SBS network, has been given a suspended prison sentence in Tokyo after being found guilty of trespassing during an attempt to locate his children, whom he has not seen for eight months.The Australian freelance journalist, who is based in the Japanese capital, was arrested in late November, a month after allegedly gaining unauthorised access to the common area of the apartment building where his parents-in-law live. Continue reading...

Peter Barnes says board has not talked about Rupert Murdoch’s son’s attack on Fox News and News Corp’s climate coverageThe lead independent director of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, Peter Barnes, says the media group’s board has yet to discuss James Murdoch’s attack on the company over its stance on the climate crisis.On Wednesday James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s son and a News Corp director, issued a joint statement with his wife, Kathryn Murdoch, in which the couple said they were frustrated by coverage of the climate crisis by Fox News and News Corp. Continue reading...

UK also must maintain higher labour and environmental standards, EU tells diplomatsThe EU will tell the UK that it must maintain higher labour and environmental standards than some of its own member states and that it will put the socioeconomic interests of its fishing communities at the centre of its post-Brexit negotiating strategy, diplomats have heard.Diplomats briefed by the European commission on Tuesday were informed that the UK would need to commit to staying beyond the common basic minimum of standards applied to EU member states. Continue reading...

The French president must learn the lessons of the concession he has made on pension reform – or he risks the far right exploiting this battle at the next electionIn the end, Emmanuel Macron seems prepared to compromise. After six weeks of strikes involving rail employees, teachers, nurses, ballet dancers, lawyers, concierges, pilots and drivers on the Paris Métro, the French government has announced a major concession to unions: the withdrawal of a proposal to raise the country’s full benefits retirement age from 62 to 64. Mr Macron described the concession as a “constructive compromise”, following the longest mass walkout by transport workers since 1968.The strike is not over yet. But the French president, above all, does not want a galling defeat for the Élysée. Projecting an air of steely resolution, Mr Macron has made it his mission to challenge some of the cherished securities of France’s postwar economic settlement. His labour market reforms have made it easier to hire and fire workers. Benefits to the jobless have been cut, as unemployment has come down. More low-wage jobs have been created. Continue reading...

• World’s No 1 chess player makes it 111 games without defeat

Comments come as report finds police failings allowed many abusers to escape justiceSenior police officers should be prosecuted for mishandling a Greater Manchester sexual abuse scandal that resulted in most offenders getting away with their crimes, a whistleblower has said.Margaret Oliver, a former detective constable who led Greater Manchester police’s investigation into child sexual exploitation, said the force had spent years trying to cover up its failures. Continue reading...

End obsession with balancing the books, and cut taxes and boost infrastructure instead, government toldAngela Merkel’s government is coming under increasing pressure to spend some of its record budget surplus on tax cuts and investment in Germany’s ageing infrastructure.Despite months of weakening economic growth, the German state had a surplus of €13.5bn (£11.6bn) of income over expenditure at the end of 2019, thanks to increased tax revenues and a low interest rate. Continue reading...

Inspector says it’s too early to confirm if case of Victorian found alive on Monday after vanishing in rainforest weeks ago is ‘remarkable story of survival’A man who spent three weeks in Queensland’s Daintree rainforest may have been deliberately hiding from authorities who were searching for him.Victorian man Milan Lemic vanished on 22 December after walking away from his bogged ute at Bairds Crossing near the Upper Daintree village. Continue reading...

It is not clear Trump is ready to adapt any US policies based on latest developments in TehranDonald Trump hailed footage of Tehran students refusing to walk over a US flag as “big progress”, but there is little sign his administration is prepared to offer more than verbal encouragement to what the US president called “wonderful Iranian protesters”.Amid the furious popular backlash to the shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, students at Shahid Beheshti University took pains to walk around the big US and Israeli flags painted on a concrete campus thoroughfare, a gesture of defiance to all-pervasive state propaganda. Continue reading...