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The actor talks about joining the MCU, his friendships with BTS’s V and the rest of the ‘Wooga Squad’, and the social and economic issues behind his TV hits Itaewon Class and Fight for My WayIn an early scene of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, a brief conversation between rich student Min-hyuk and his friend Ki-woo proves a crucial moment in the multi-Oscar winning film. “Tutor a rich kid. It pays well,” the scooter-riding Min-hyuk tells the impoverished Ki-woo, who lives in a semi-basement home with his family. And when Min-hyuk offers Ki-woo the opportunity to take over his job as a tutor for the rich Park family, he acts as a bridge between the two worlds, and sets the plot of the film in motion.Min-hyuk is played by Park Seo-joon, and despite the brevity of Park’s appearance in Parasite, it will have been the first time most international audiences will have got a good look at him. Park is a big name in South Korea however, thanks to a string of successful domestic TV series – mostly romantic comedies such as She Was Pretty and Fight for My Way – and the Netflix hit Itaewon Class. Now his international profile is about to be raised, after it was confirmed he will be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe for Captain Marvel 2: The Marvels, appearing alongside Brie Larson, Iman Vellani and Zawe Ashton, making him the third South Korean actor to join the MCU. Continue reading...

The two-time attorney general portrays himself as a bulwark against his former boss – but his accounts are highly selectiveIn his new book, Donald Trump’s former attorney general William Barr complains that in the US, the “most educated and influential people are more attached to self-serving narratives than to factual truth”.But in his own narrative of his tumultuous time as Trump’s top lawyer, Barr regularly omits inconvenient truths or includes self-serving versions of events previously reported with his evident input. Continue reading...

Court closures, defunded legal aid and barrister shortages are adding to an already excruciating ordeal, while invasive investigations are leading many to drop proceedings altogetherFor Nina, the prospect of walking into a police station and reporting her stepfather for child sexual abuse was, she says, her “worst nightmare ... It was something I’d dreaded my whole life,” she says. She had been raped by her stepfather for years when she was a child – and he had promised all sorts of consequences if she ever told anyone. Her mother, he told her, would kill herself. He implied that he might, too – but one thing he always assured her was that he would never go to jail.When she was in her late teens, Nina finally told her mum, who was devastated, but believed her. It took years, however, before she felt ready to press charges. “One of the things that stopped me from telling anyone that it was happening at the time was the terror of standing in a courtroom putting all that shame on show – and that felt even worse the older I got. Continue reading...

‘We miss her all the time,’ say relatives of woman killed by serving Met police officer Wayne CouzensThe family of Sarah Everard have paid tribute to her on the first anniversary of her murder by a police officer, saying she was “wonderful and we miss her all the time” and that they “live with the sadness of our loss”.Everard, 33 was abducted, raped and killed by serving Met officer Wayne Couzens as she walked home in south London on 3 March last year. Continue reading...

International criminal court inquiry has been expedited by unprecedented number of countries backing move

Sydney spared worst of rain but Newcastle still under threat as new NSW flood warning issued; south-east Queensland on alert as thunderstorms loom; Labor and LNP clash over Services Australia flood assistance; nation records at least 47 Covid-related deaths with one fatality in WA as border reopens. This blog is now closed

Energy and banking giants Gazprom and Sberbank plus EN+, Lukoil and Polyus among firms

Mateo Sobode Chiqueno’s lifelong project compiling cassettes of the Ayoreo people’s stories, songs and struggles to survive is now the subject of an award-winning film, Nothing but the SunIn a tattered cardboard box in Mateo Sobode Chiqueno’s home, hundreds of plastic cassette cases contain four decades of memories. “Here in my house, I have more than 1,000 cassettes of Ayoreo histories and songs,” says Chiqueno, who keeps them alongside his tape recorder at his wooden shack in Campo Loro, Paraguay. Many of the voices belong to people who are dead.Chiqueno began compiling his interviews with the Ayoreo, hunter-gatherers of the Chaco Forest, in 1979, after seeing missionaries using tape recorders to document their experiences. His tapes partially preserve a fast-disappearing culture. Continue reading...

Expectant couple cut off from hospital by deluge saved by community kindness and a ‘little adventure’

Communications minister writes to tech giants about ‘content promoting violence, extremism and disinformation in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine’

Dissident couple say their lives would be under threat if returned from Bosnia to Kuwait, as rights groups claim notice undermines refugee lawA Kuwaiti princess seeking asylum in Bosnia-Herzegovina has claimed the Kuwaiti state is using an Interpol red notice to intimidate and harass her and force the extradition of her partner, a prominent dissident blogger, back to the country.Sheikha Moneera Fahad al-Sabah and Mesaed al-Mesaileem, said they face torture and threats to their lives if they are returned to Kuwait due to their political activism. Continue reading...

Putin believed he could invade Ukraine because everything we failed to do over the last 22 years taught him that we are weakTwenty-two years ago, a vicious war brought Vladimir Putin to power. Ever since, war has remained one of his main tools, which he has used without flinching throughout his reign. Vladimir Putin exists thanks to war, has thrived through war. Let us now hope that a war will finally bring him down.In August 1999, a then-unknown Vladimir Putin was named prime minister when his predecessor refused to condone a full reinvasion of Chechnya. Putin, however, was ready, and in return for their unconditional support he granted the military a free rein, allowing them to avenge their humiliating 1996 defeat in blood and fire. On the night of 31 December, an ageing and broken Boris Yeltsin stepped down, handing the presidency like a gift to the newcomer. In March 2000, after famously promising to “grease the terrorists even in the outhouse”, Putin was triumphally elected president. With the exception of his four years as prime minister (2008-2012), he has ruled Russia ever since. Continue reading...

The pair, arrested in connection with the killing of a police officer during pro-democracy protests, are reportedly being denied visits and medical helpAmnesty International has called for the release of two teenagers who have been detained and allegedly tortured in Sudan in connection with the killing of a police officer during pro-democracy protests in Khartoum.Mohamed Adam, known as Tupac, 17, and Mohamed al-Fateh, 18, have been held without charge since 15 January. Continue reading...

Matching rich verse with great scenery, these strolls follow in the footsteps of some of our greatest wordsmiths, from William Blake to Carol Ann DuffyYou can stride energetically across lonely crags, declaiming in a grand Tennysonian voice about “always roaming with a hungry heart”, or you might shuffle up High Holborn, thinking of Celia with “nothing on”, as did Adrian Henri. Poetry walks take many forms: some places demand epic stanzas; others respond to limericks. You can walk for a few minutes, or weeks. The point is that walking with poetry is great fun. Maybe it’s the rhythm thing: our language must have been invented and honed by miles of walking. In fact, as soon as we were walking long distances and trying to remember routes, poetry probably began to be useful as a navigational mnemonic. Walking does lend itself perfectly to learning lines and recitation, something kids are good at and enjoy. John Cooper Clarke said you learn the lines at 12 and find out what they mean 30 years later (he also said “I hate walking”, but we’ll step over that). If there is a prepared route, fine. Some of these 10 suggestions have that, and others make use of existing footpaths, but they all share a link between landscape and poet.There are many more poetic walks available (try Simon Armitage’s brilliant Stanza Stones around the Pennine Way), but too few dedicated to female poets. Isn’t it time we had a Stevie Smith Way in north London, or a Barrett Browning Trail around Ledbury? The following collection features walks that are ready to roll, best done with headphones and an audio link to the poems where possible. Spotify has poetry from all these choices, sometimes read by the poets themselves. Other sources can also be found online. Continue reading...

IOPC has been investigating how force handled claims made days before Sarah Everard’s murderThe Metropolitan police made errors after receiving claims that Wayne Couzens had indecently exposed himself days before he attacked Sarah Everard, an official report is expected to find.Exactly one year ago Couzens, then a serving firearms officer in the Metropolitan police, kidnapped Everard, 33, off a south London street as she walked home. Continue reading...

Russian troops took control of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson after forcing their way into the council building, the mayor said in an update. In a Facebook post written about 10pm on Wednesday, Kherson’s mayor, Igor Kolykhaiev, said: 'There were armed visitors in the city council today. My team and I are peaceful people, we had no weapons or aggression on our side.' The development followed conflicting claims over whether Moscow had made its first major gain by taking over a significant Ukrainian city.

Were the protesters motivated by valid concerns, radicalisation or was this simply the fist-shaking of a fringe minority?The protest outside parliament in Wellington has prompted fears of a mass radicalisation of militant actors prepared to use violence to achieve their aims. Although people may dismiss the idea that it could cause real damage to society in New Zealand, where support for the government’s pandemic response is still high, anger has spilt over into explicit hate messaging and actions, both online and in real-life.Now that the protesters have been dispersed, we need to examine what was behind their loose coalition of grievances: was it the transitory fist-shaking of a fringe minority, a valid concern, or actual radicalisation? If so, what can we do about it? The answer is complex and incomplete, but there are some clues about what caused this impasse and what can be done. Continue reading...

These interactive graphics show the unprecedented rain causing the 2022 eastern Australia floods

‘We have witnessed an exodus,’ says UN; people in crucial Black Sea port of Kherson told to follow Russian measures; 38 countries refer reports of atrocities to ICC, the largest referral in court’s history

People told to work from home, walk or cycle as next 24-hour RMT walkout beginsLondon faced a third day of severe disruption as London Underground workers went on strike for the second time this week.Transport for London (TfL) said people should expect all tube services across the capital to be suspended on Thursday, and advised passengers to work from home or walk or cycle where possible, or plan for crowding and delay if using other trains or buses for essential journeys. Continue reading...

Tokyo court gives US citizen Greg Kelly, who was arrested in 2018, six-month suspended sentence for aiding the now-fugitive GhosnGreg Kelly, a former Nissan executive accused of helping the automaker’s one-time saviour, Carlos Ghosn, commit financial crimes has been given a suspended prison sentence by a court in Tokyo.Kelly, 65, was detained in November 2018, at the same time police arrested Ghosn on suspicion of understating his income by millions of dollars, for which he faced a maximum sentence of 10 years. Continue reading...

Corruption-fighting body urges citizens to ‘continue to defend the motherland’ while easing any concerns about ‘significant changes in the property status’

The US-born producer and writer was best known for films such as State of the Nation and Police, and for producing the first Comic ReliefThe veteran documentary maker Roger Graef has died aged 85, Channel 4 has announced on behalf of his family.The award-winning producer and writer had a successful career in both the US and UK, making films on a wide range of social justice topics for every major British broadcaster. Continue reading...

‘Australia is now finally back together’ as final jurisdiction welcomes vaccinated travellers

The films he produced or greenlit won more than 50 Oscars and 150 nominationsAlan Ladd Jr, the Oscar-winning producer and studio boss who as a 20th Century Fox executive greenlit Star Wars, has died. He was 84.Ladd died Wednesday, his daughter Amanda Ladd-Jones, who directed the documentary Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies, wrote in a Facebook post. No cause of death was given. Continue reading...

Five children aged seven to 11 with peace signs held for hours while two women face trial on unspecified charges

Researchers find women hit harder by negative social and economic impacts of the pandemic than menThe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to reverse decades of progress made towards gender equality, according to a global study that reveals women have been hit much harder socially and economically than men.Previously, coronavirus-related gender disparity studies have focused on the direct health impacts of the crisis. It is well known, for example, that across the globe men have experienced higher rates of Covid cases, hospitalisation and death. However, until now, few studies have examined how gender inequalities have been affected by the many indirect social and economic effects of the pandemic worldwide. Continue reading...

Video shows Russian strikes hitting residential buildings in Ukraine, adding to mounting evidence of war crimes to be investigated by The Hague.

Ships scheduled to dock in UK because of a sanctions loophole are thought to include at least one carrying gas for Centrica• Russia-Ukraine crisis: live newsAngry dockers have vowed not to unload cargoes of Russian oil and gas, as it emerged that shipments were en route to British ports because of an apparent loophole in a government ban and could even be used to heat UK homes.The government imposed a ban on Russian vessels docking in the UK on Tuesday, in response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Continue reading...

Analysis: From a no-fly zone to sanctions, the options that are on and off the table

Sanctions debate rapidly heading towards energy sanctions in Ukraine-Russia crisisAt the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a week ago, almost every analyst agreed that Russian oil and gas would keep flowing westwards. The state of mutual energy dependence seemed too entrenched. On one side, the EU could not decouple itself easily from the source of 38% of its natural gas imports. On the other, Russia under financial sanctions would need cash. Old hands reflected that, even in the long decades of the cold war, the Soviet Union and Europe maintained commercial relationships in energy.A week later, such thinking looks naive. The “shock and awe” financial sanctions, especially those aimed at Russia’s central bank, exceed anything previously seen, but the shortcoming is obvious: if you really want to hit the Russian economy hard, the place to aim is its energy export sector, a part that has been spared sanctions so far and generates hundreds of millions of dollars daily. The point is made repeatedly by Ukrainian officials in their appeals for the trade to cease, and its moral force is hammered home with every fresh Russian atrocity. Continue reading...

Nazism is born in silence, says Volodymyr Zelenskiy, after missile struck close to Holocaust memorial site

In an emergency session, 141 of the 193 member states voted for the resolution, 35 abstained and five voted against

‘Test to treat’ model will offer free anti-viral pills after a positive test as part of four-pronged approach• US politics liveThe White House released a 96-page plan on Wednesday to shift the fight against Covid-19 and “help move America forward safely”, past a crisis footing to a new “normal”.Announcement of the plan follows promises made in Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech late on Tuesday, which emphasized rapid rollout of a new “test to treat” model with free anti-viral pills after a positive test. Continue reading...

Thousands of Ukrainians have volunteered to defend their country and to fight Russia’s invasion. ‘History is happening right now. I don’t want to be on the sidelines,’ Vitali, the 35-year-old boss of a Lviv startup, said at an assembly point. ‘The truth, the good, everything is on our side. We have the whole world’s support.’ Vitali said he and his company’s 15 employees had begun weapons training five days before Russia’s attack. He volunteered on the day of the invasion

The HBO teen drama’s second season is either a glorious mess or an excessive fantasy of high school. Either way, it’s a record-breaking hitIf you were anywhere near social media this past Sunday night, you probably at least glimpsed the divisive mess that was the second season finale of Euphoria, HBO’s technicolor, gleefully excessive soap on the outsized trials and tribulations of suburban California teens. After a buzzy and acclaimed but modestly watched debut in 2019, the show’s second season has blown up: HBO announced Tuesday that Euphoria, with help from its new streaming home on HBO Max, is now its second most watched show since 2004. It averaged 16.3 million viewers an episode this season, behind only OG HBO juggernaut Game of Thrones, which drew an average of 44.2 million viewers during its final season in 2019.But perhaps more impressive, and telling, than its 2022 viewing stats is Euphoria’s digital footprint. According to Twitter, the drama is the most tweeted-about show of the (still young) decade, with 34m tweets in the US alone. This is by design: Euphoria, adapted by Sam Levinson from the Israeli show of the same name, is audacious in style, almost pugnaciously provocative in substance, with imitable peacocking fashion and easily memeable cutaways. In other words, catnip for the online crowd. Continue reading...

Push to knock off the Victorian gains traction amid speculation first-term senator Kimberley Kitching could also face a contest

Site in Nihewan Basin shows, ‘a potential signpost of a migration event of our species’, says Australian researcher

Officials say Russian troops shelling civilian sites, including residential blocks and hospitals

Authorities fear that thousands of tons of fuel carried onboard could leak and pollute the oceanAn abandoned ship carrying an estimated $401m (£295m) worth of cars, including Porsche, Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini models, has sunk nearly two weeks after a fire broke out onboard.The Felicity Ace sank on Tuesday about 400 kilometers (250 miles) off Portugal’s Azores Islands as it was being towed, MOL Ship Management in Singapore said in a statement. A salvage team had put out the fire which had burned for days, fueled by lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles onboard. Continue reading...

Teenager in serious but stable condition in hospital following ‘cowardly’ drive-by shooting in ToxtethPolice have said it was an “absolute miracle” that a 15-year-old girl survived after she was shot in a hail of bullets at a bus stop in Liverpool.The teenager is in a serious but stable condition in hospital following the “cowardly” drive-by shooting in the Toxteth area of the city on Tuesday, detectives said. Continue reading...

Ukraine crisis pushes government to be united after decision to send weapons

Capitalism and Slavery, by the future first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago Eric Williams, argues that the abolition of slavery was motivated by economic, not moral, concernsA book of unpalatable truths about Britain’s slave trade has become a UK bestseller, almost 80 years after author Eric Williams was told by a British publisher: “I would never publish such a book, for it would be contrary to the British tradition.”Capitalism and Slavery was first published in the US in 1944, and although it was briefly printed in the UK 20 years later by André Deutsch, it has remained largely out of print here ever since. Continue reading...

Authorities in Kherson deny Russian claims forces have captured first city of invasion, Russian paratroopers have landed in Kharkiv, and Joe Biden attacks Putin in his State of the Union address

Despite nearly a third of shark species nearing extinction, Spain supplied 51,000 tonnes of shark fins from 2003-20, says IFAWEuropean countries are selling so many shark fins to Asia that they dominate nearly half the trade, a study has found.Shark populations continue to decline, driven by the global shark fin trade. Last year, scientists found a third of sharks and ray species have been overfished to near-extinction, jeopardising the health of entire ocean ecosystems and food security for many countries. Continue reading...

Despite more than 100 screen credits of his own, the actor sounded pretty confused about the basics on Marc Maron’s podcast

Ben Wallace says air exclusion zone would ‘lead to war against Russia across whole of Europe’

Presidential candidate criticised over campaign leaflet featuring her with Russian leader