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Arthur do Val heard in leaked audio messages calling women fleeing war ‘easy because they’re poor’

French interior minister writes to Priti Patel urging government to set up proper consular services in Calais

Sir Tony Radakin says it would be unlawful for individuals to travel to offer military help

Last year’s festival saw a hat-trick of awards for a feature telling the true story of Fahrije Hoti, a Kosovan war widow who rebelled against her village patriarchy. Director Blerta Basholli and Hoti talk about bringing it to the screenOn 25 March 1999, everything changed for the small Kosovan village of Krushë e Madhe when Serbian troops moved in and forced the villagers to move out. They were searched for gold and jewellery and herded towards the mosque, where the men were separated from the women. Nearly 250 men and boys were killed or disappeared in what was to become one of the worst massacres of the Kosovo war. Fahrije Hoti’s husband was among 64 whose bodies were never found.Hoti, a handsome and composed woman with neatly cropped grey hair, recalls the terrible days that followed with a chilling clarity, as if every detail of the 15-month war between Kosovo and Serbia-Montenegro were seared into her memory. “They told us they had dug a mass grave and were going to execute us all and throw us into it. Everyone was crying and yelling,” she tells me on Zoom from her home, a short distance from where it all happened. In the confusion, she became separated from her three-year-old daughter and thought her three-month-old son was dead, after he was seized from her arms and hurled on to a concrete floor. But somehow, all three of them survived, along with her father-in-law, who was too old and frail to be taken off with the younger men. Continue reading...

The actor, best known for her role as Lavender Brown, says her symptoms have lasted for weeks

Deputy PM says Nato will need ‘strategic stamina’ as Starmer accuses ministers of moving too slowly on sanctions

Staff at an independent Russian TV station, Dozhd (TV Rain), walked out live on air while declaring 'No to war' after being shut down over their coverage of the Ukraine invasion. The decade-long defiance of Dozhd was silenced, at least for a while, by a brutal new law, passed unanimously in the Russian parliament, which bans news organisations from reporting anything about the war except state-approved press releases. Journalists and media owners who contravene the new legislation could be jailed for up to 15 years

Disinformation and fake accounts were used against the west for years – now the Kremlin is under attack• Russia-Ukraine war latest

Bookshelves today are full of true-life stories of marital discord but a former Observer columnist pioneered the genre 25 years agoIt’s 25 years since I accidentally turned a travel article for the Observer about a “romantic” weekend in Bruges into a niche journalistic genre – the misery travel memoir. The trip was scheduled a few days after my (spoiler alert!) soon-to-be-ex-husband had told me he was leaving me… and we went anyway. This tiny slice of misery-memoir histoire was entitled “By Waterloo Station I Sat Down and Wept”.While the travel-article-as-anatomy-of-a-marital-breakdown sub-genre never really caught fire, the article went off to live its best life out in the journo-sphere. After reading it, I heard subsequently, plenty of people specifically booked Suite 50 at Die Swaene hotel in Bruges. For a year or so after its publication, I documented the fallout in my weekly Observer magazine column, before being commissioned to turn it all into a book, The Heart-Shaped Bullet (Picador, 1999). Continue reading...

Cricket star’s former fiancee among many to pay tribute to bowler after suspected heart attackActor Elizabeth Hurley paid tribute to her former fiance and “beloved Lionheart”, Shane Warne, as fresh details of the Australian cricket star’s sudden death in Thailand emerged.Hurley, who was engaged to Warne for more than two years until they split in December 2013, said that “the sun has gone behind a cloud forever”. Continue reading...

The 90s pop star on rapping with Public Enemy, her inspirational activist granny, and the joy of making music again in her 50sAlison Clarkson, AKA Betty Boo, 52, grew up in west London with her Scottish mother, Malaysian father and brother. At 17, she ran away to New York with her rap trio, the She Rockers, and by 21 she had three Top 10 singles and a platinum debut album, Boomania. At 24, Madonna offered to sign her to her label, Maverick Records, but Clarkson quit performing instead. Later, she co-wrote Hear’Say’s Pure and Simple and worked with Girls Aloud, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Blur’s Alex James. Now living in Wiltshire with film producer husband, Paul Toogood, she has just released her first solo single in 29 years, Get Me to the Weekend. An album follows this summer.The Boo is back. Why now?

Former Observer journalist was perhaps best known for his courageous coverage of Pinochet’s brutal coup in Chile in 1973Hugh O’Shaughnessy, the admired journalist known for his reporting on Latin America, has died aged 87.The former Observer correspondent won a series of awards during an illustrious career largely spent covering the rapidly changing social and political landscape of South America. Continue reading...

Anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate says extremists present self-improvement as part of wider political struggleThe far right is increasingly recruiting via online fitness groups, whose popularity soared during the pandemic, prompting fears that new members are being radicalised to commit acts of violence, new analysis shows.Researchers have detected a network of online “fascist fitness” chat groups on the messaging app Telegram with a large number directly linked to the neo-Nazi Patriotic Alternative, Britain’s biggest extreme right group. Continue reading...

At 80, Britain’s queen of cookery has written a surprising new book about spirituality that was turned down by six publishers. She talks about meditation, MasterChef and her beloved Norwich FCWhy is it so exciting – and so nerve-racking – to be meeting Delia Smith? Down the years, I’ve interviewed a lot of famous and important people (and three prime ministers), and yet I can’t remember any of them having induced this combination of extreme eagerness and mortal fear. Is it because when I was a teenager, she was one of the very few truly successful women then in public life? I suppose it must be. It’s no exaggeration to say that she was up there with the Queen, Mrs Thatcher and Madonna – and just like them, her word was The Law. For my 21st birthday, my parents gave me a cheque and a copy of Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course, and for all that I was still in my radical feminist stage, I hardly batted an eyelid. Simone de Beauvoir was all very well, but did she have any advice on roasting times or how to make sure your yorkshire puddings rise? No, she did not.Anyway, one result of this desperate, anxious state was that I stupidly decided to bake a cake for her – my God, even to write such words – and when I arrive at her cottage, the conservatory of which I recognise from the TV shows she once presented there, the very first thing I do is hand it over. “It’s a bit … flat,” I say, mournfully (for those who are interested, it’s Nigella’s ordinarily easy-peasy cardamon and marzipan loaf). But it seems that I’m worrying unnecessarily. Delia looks completely delighted by my foil-wrapped house brick, cradling it in her arms as if it was a newborn baby. “You used good ingredients,” she says, kindly. “It will still taste nice.” Cooking isn’t about perfection, she tells me; it’s about achievability. “I once went to a Women’s Institute thing, and I remember thinking: I’m not at all sure my jam would pass muster here.” Continue reading...

Zoë Kravitz was born with a name to live up to. But as an actor, director and performer she has made it her own. She talks about fame, the perils of cancel culture and embracing her inner catZoë Kravitz is show-business royalty, the daughter of actor Lisa Bonet and musician Lenny Kravitz. I expected her to be candid – throughout her career she’s been outspoken: on race and Hollywood, on body image and politics. In 2017, she starred in a British Vogue video in which she yelled, while sharing odd items she keeps in her handbag, “Fuck Trump!” And when we meet one evening via Zoom – me in London, her in LA – she doesn’t disappoint. Here she is, easygoing and thoughtful in conversation, an A-lister speaking her mind rather than the asinine niceties offered by more careful celebrities. “I’m just a fucking nerd,” she says at one point, though only half-convincingly. “A weirdo!” She’s bundled up in a hoodie and beanie hat, makeup free apart from a delicate cat-eye flick of eyeliner, which feels appropriate.We’re meeting to discuss The Batman, her new film, in which she stars as Selena Kyle, otherwise known as Catwoman, opposite Robert Pattinson. The Batman is made by the American director Matt Reeves, who has described Kravitz as “smart, funny, honest, unpretentious”, and “a great creative partner”. To get into character, Kravitz watched videos of big cats and gradually adopted their physical attributes. “It was fun to play with different ways of walking, of being agile,” she says. “You know, you can’t read cats, which is why a lot of people feel uncomfortable around them.” Kravitz conceptualised Kyle as someone who is “tough, a street-smart person. Her life has been really difficult and she’s figured out a way to survive this far and take care of herself, and she really cares about other people in similar situations.” Continue reading...

Exhibited artists cover up their work in protest after piece portraying ultra-Orthodox Jewish man is removedFour overlapping black and white rectangles make up Israeli artist David Reeb’s painting Jerusalem. On two, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man is portrayed praying at the Western Wall – known also as the Wailing Wall – from two different angles, his hands pressed against the stone. Opposite the images, thick brushstrokes spell out phrases in Hebrew: “Jerusalem of gold”, the title of a nationalistic song – and “Jerusalem of shit”.The work was among several explicitly political, daring pieces featured in an exhibition that opened in December at the newly renovated Ramat Gan Museum of Israeli Art near Tel Aviv. Continue reading...

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy discusses more support with US leader Joe Biden as Russia’s attacks on Ukraine intensify

All Premier League matches on Saturday were preceded by a show of solidarity for the people of Ukraine. The captains of all teams wore armbands in Ukraine's blue and yellow colours, while before kick-off players, managers and fans were united in showing their support for those who are suffering amid Russia's ongoing invasion.The only notable exception was at Turf Moor, where Chelsea supporters disrupted the minute's applause with chants in support of their Russian owner, Roman Abramovich. Afterwards, Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel criticised the chants, saying: 'It’s not the moment to do this. If we show solidarity, we should show solidarity together.' Continue reading...

Hardened by a history of floods, residents are ‘getting on’ with the clean-up while waiting for politicians to address climate change

Marae embody deep connections to the land and are a statement of indigeneity – but Māori aren’t indigenous in AustraliaWhen most New Zealanders hear the term “marae” they think of the typical Māori meeting house.The angular facade, decorated in red and white carvings, and the open space for the “encounter” where guests arrive in the warmth of welcome, in the grief of a tangi (funeral), or in the uncertainty of a disagreement. Continue reading...

Setting off on your first big bushwalk can be intimidating but good planning (and the right gear) pays offThere are plenty of reasons to take up hiking holidays, from getting some fresh air and exercise to untethering yourself from your devices. Done right, it can be a joyful and liberating experience, but embarking on your first multi-day hike is daunting.Putting in the effort to be well prepared will become worthwhile on the trail as you disconnect and let your mind wander. Simply wake up and eat, and start walking when you’re ready. Knowing you’ve already made most of the important decisions, you’re free to just enjoy the experience. Continue reading...

United Nations calling exodus Europe’s fastest-moving refugee crisis since end of second world war

Local authorities in Ukrainian city ask residents to return to shelters and wait for further information

They say the best thing about being a grandparent is ‘giving them back’. But that’s not true. Ian Martin, grandfather of four, counts the blessings of looking after his children’s kidsOur eldest grandchild just celebrated his birthday and, as ever, that meant a bonus unbirthday gift for me. I’ve been a grandfather for 12 years now and oh, my tottering days, what a laugh it all is.Cynic Laureate Philip Larkin may have had a point about mums and dads, but let’s be honest, he was clueless about grandparents. The thing is, they don’t fuck you up, your gran and gramps. They do not mean to, and they don’t. It’s easy to fall short as a parent, but almost impossible to be a terrible grandparent. I’ve done both, trust me. Continue reading...

William Warrington, 40, remanded into custody after Clive and Valerie Warrington found dead with stab wounds at separate addressesA 40-year-old man has appeared in court accused of murdering his parents.The victims, who were divorced, were found dead with stab wounds at two separate addresses in Gloucestershire on Wednesday morning. Continue reading...

Maddalena Casulana’s newly rediscovered songs will feature on BBC Radio 3 to mark International Women’s DaySixteenth-century madrigals written by an Italian Renaissance female composer are to be performed for the first time in 400 years after the discovery of missing parts of the original music.Maddalena Casulana became the first female composer to publish her own music at a time when such creativity was far from encouraged in women. She believed that men were making a “futile error” in assuming that women could not compose as well as they could and she brought out three books of madrigals under her name between 1568 and 1583, although only one of those collections has survived complete. Continue reading...

Footage released by the Ukrainian national police shows burning debris and damaged buildings after an airstrike on the town of Bila Tserkva, just over 60 miles from Kyiv

Downdraft toppled 87-year-old on footpath near Derriford hospital helipad and injured one other womanAn 87-year-old woman has died after being blown over by a helicopter landing at a hospital, police have confirmed.Devon and Cornwall police said two people were thought to have been injured as the helicopter landed at a helipad at Derriford hospital in Plymouth on Friday. Continue reading...

Authorities clamp down on wealthy individuals placed on EU sanctions list over Russian invasion of UkraineItalian police have seized villas and yachts worth at least €140m (£126m) from four high-profile Russians who were placed on an EU sanctions list after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sources said on Saturday.A police source said a villa owned by the billionaire businessman Alisher Usmanov on Sardinia, and a villa on Lake Como owned by the Russian state TV host Vladimir Soloviev, had both been seized. Continue reading...

Racial inequality is behind the huge maternity care bills affecting vulnerable mothers and their babies, campaigners sayThe health of pregnant migrant women and their unborn babies is being put at risk due to fears around NHS charging, with some trusts demanding upfront fees for maternity care or wrongly charging those who are exempt, it has been claimed.Vulnerable migrant and asylum-seeking women with no recourse to public funds are frequently being issued huge bills ahead of giving birth or aggressively pursued for payments during their pregnancy against current guidance, maternity rights groups have warned. Continue reading...

Former UK foreign secretary calls on European countries to step up and agree a refugee resettlement frameworkDavid Miliband, the head of one of the world’s largest humanitarian aid groups, has called on western governments to meet their moral responsibilities amid the massive exodus of refugees from Ukraine, singling out the UK for its restrictive visa policy which he called unjustifiable and “quite wrong”.In an interview with the Guardian, the former British foreign secretary warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was likely to cause “much, much more suffering”. He said the lightning speed of the refugee exodus, with 1 million Ukrainians having fled the country in just one week, had added to the trauma. Continue reading...

A deft and fascinating account of British prime ministers’ flawed interventions in the region, from Suez to IraqEvery postwar British leader has seen the Middle East as a threatening place. They worried about the loss of empire and the risk of having oil supplies cut off; made bombastic claims about new Hitlers and transnational terrorism. But whatever the specific issues of the day, one thing has been remarkably consistent: most prime ministers since the second world war have overseen some kind of military intervention in the Middle East. That is one of the most striking themes of Nigel Ashton’s fascinating book on the beliefs and relationships that shaped British prime ministers’ policies in the region, from the Suez crisis to the Arab uprisings.Diary entries, telegrams, diplomatic records and, where possible, interviews with aides and advisers help bring out the psychology, preoccupations and prejudices that framed British decision making. The result is an empathetic but not a sympathetic account. In almost every chapter Ashton identifies a tendency to approach the Middle East with a mix of fear and hubris. Even as they saw the region as dangerous, British leaders ensured that their troops and officials were frequently entangled in it. Long after the formal structures of empire came to an end, an assumption persisted that Britain should and would have a role in shaping the region. In the early 1950s, a diplomat wrote of lying awake at night, fearing that all of Asia was moving out of Britain’s orbit, and that “our western civilisation will be soon strangled and subjected, with its bombs unusable in its pocket”. Continue reading...

Queensland announces financial support of $558.5m for flood-affected communities as insurance claims estimated to have hit $1bn. Follow live

Now a refugee in the UK, Joya and her all-female Rukhshana Media agency defied threats to report on life for women under the TalibanThe Afghan journalist Zahra Joya has been named as one of Time’s women of the year 2022 for her reporting of women’s lives in Afghanistan through her news agency, Rukhshana Media.Now living as a refugee in the UK, Joya continues to run the all-female Rukhshana Media from exile, publishing the reporting of her team of female journalists across Afghanistan on life for women under Taliban rule. Continue reading...

Juan Carlos Muñiz, who covered crime for Testigo Minero, killed in Fresnillo as website says ‘this social breakdown …is out of control’A journalist has been killed in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas, becoming the seventh killed in the country so far this year.Juan Carlos Muñiz, who covered crime for the online news site Testigo Minero in Fresnillo, was killed on Friday, according to the state governor David Monreal. Continue reading...

Move to block Facebook retaliates against platform placing restrictions on state-owned media

Russian forces in Ukraine have been shelling the Zaporizhzhia power plant, the largest nuclear plant of its kind in Europe

Footage shows damage to a walkway at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after it was attacked by Russia.The footage was posted by Energoatom, the Ukrainian state enterprise that operates all four nuclear power stations in Ukraine. It shows a hole in the roof of the walkway, a smashed window and damage to pipes, as well as what appears to be a shell casing

The shipbuilding city of Mykolaiv seen as next key stepping stone for Russian forces in Ukraine

The number of people finding resonance with the ‘freedom’ message of Clive Palmer’s United Australia party cannot be ignoredJulian Fayad describes himself as a “regular” guy. The 29-year-old second-generation Australian with a Lebanese background runs a finance business in western Sydney, has a young family and has lived in Parramatta his entire life.Like many Australians, he had only a passing interest in politics, until the impact of Covid restrictions on his community lit a spark. Continue reading...

At all levels and in every corner of football, allegations of harassment and worse are being uncovered. But Fifa and the game’s authorities are ill-equipped to tackle them“Sometimes, I have regrets. There have been very tough moments when I felt abandoned. I still feel abandoned. I received threats, I was intimidated and my whole life was compromised.”After everything she has been through, Roseline (not her real name) is just thankful to be alive. At the start of October 2020, the young Haitian referee says she was threatened by the man she accused of sexually abusing her. It was two days after she had given evidence against Rosnick Grant, a former international referee who was vice-president of the Haitian Football Federation and president of its referees’ commission, to members of Fifa’s “ad hoc panel” investigating claims of sexual abuse. “They assured me it was confidential but there was a leak somehow,” Roseline says. “I received death threats.” Continue reading...

Analysis: police, social workers and other agencies missed chances to intervene in abuse, case review findsWith the awful fates of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and toddler Star Hobson still vivid in memory, we have another terrible child killing: two-year-old Kyrell Matthews, who died after sustaining “blunt force trauma” over a period of weeks, according to a local safeguarding review, at the hands of his mother and her boyfriend.Kyrell, of Thornton Heath, south London, died in October 2019. He had suffered 41 rib fractures, internal bleeding, and injuries and bruising to his liver and his penis. On Friday, his mother, Phylesia Shirley, 24, and her then-partner Kemar Brown, 28, were found guilty, respectively, of manslaughter and murder. Continue reading...

A new documentary explores a common experience of many immigrant children – working at the family’s takeway shop“The customers teach me about life. Working teaches me about life. Basically, everything here at the restaurant is life,” says Rama Bani Khalid, a charismatic, curly-haired 12-year-old. Rama is a takeout kid: one of many New Zealand children who work in the country’s innumerable takeaway and fast food joints. There, she mans the phones and till, hustles for tips and tops up the water bottles.“I’m a waiter and I help out a lot,” says Rama, who spends much of her days in her family’s Jordanian restaurant, Petra Shawarma, in Auckland. “I think I know pretty much everyone on the street.” Continue reading...

Data comes as UK’s scientific advisers to no longer meet on regular basis to discuss pandemic

Jens Stoltenberg says Georgia and Bosnia-Herzegovina may be at risk from Putin

Volunteers in the German capital greet war-weary refugees with offers of accommodation, food and clothing

Pop star challenges perceptions of pregnancy by wearing black negligee to Dior show at Paris fashion weekIt was a moment of pure joy at a Paris fashion week sobered by the shadow of war. Rihanna sailed into the Dior show like a galleon in full sail, pregnancy bump lightly veiled in a sheer black negligee of lace-trimmed dotted Swiss tulle. The veteran fashion critic Tim Blanks, who quizzed the pop star backstage as to whether she was expecting a boy or a girl – she wasn’t telling – described her as “the most radiant expectant mother … a real ray of light on a dark joy.”

Residents say shelling of Schastia and Volnovakha is revenge for standing up to ‘Russian aggression’

Team GB Paralympic swimmer Ellie Robinson on whether she thinks a combined Games would be a good thingIn our age of inclusion, is holding two separate events – the Olympics and the Paralympics – outdated? Could combining them give world-class Paralympians the widespread exposure they deserve? I spoke to Ellie Robinson, Team GB Paralympic swimmer and one of the presenting team for the Paralympic Games on Channel 4.Hi Ellie! How’s today going?

An exhibit invites visitors to imagine how it may have felt to live on the brink of nuclear annihilation. I don’t want toMondayThe nearest thing New York has to the Imperial War Museum in London is the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, built on and around the USS Intrepid, a hulking great aircraft carrier parked at Pier 86 on the Hudson River. It is the obligation of every school age-child in greater New York to attend this museum at least once a year, and on the last day of mid-winter recess, we do. Continue reading...