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More than 30 elders were arrested on Mauna Kea in 2019 in dramatic scenes, but many are still waiting for their day in courtOn a cold morning in July 2019, more than 30 Native Hawaiian elders gathered on top of a mountain, committed to getting arrested.“I wasn’t afraid,” says 83-year-old Maxine Kahaulelio. “The moment when the kahea [the call] went out, they said the big machines were coming and they were going to start the desecration … We stood there from 2:30 in the morning … freezing, 9,000 feet above sea level. They had all their gear but we didn’t have anything, just blankets and sweaters.” Continue reading...

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MPs defend PM’s wife after criticism of her in extracts from book by Conservative peer Michael AshcroftSenior political figures, from Keir Starmer to Sajid Javid, have criticised negative briefings that suggest Carrie Johnson is partly to blame for the troubles of her husband’s premiership.MPs came to the defence of the prime minister’s wife after the publication of extracts from a new book by the Conservative peer Michael Ashcroft which suggested her “behaviour is preventing [Boris Johnson] from leading Britain as effectively as the voters deserve”. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson criticised after anti-vax protesters shout ‘traitor’ and ‘Jimmy Savile’ at Labour leaderMPs from all sides angrily rounded on Boris Johnson and accused him of whipping up political poison after the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, was set upon by protesters who accused him of protecting the paedophile Jimmy Savile.Johnson provoked widespread fury last week when he suggested Starmer had protected Savile during his time as director of public prosecutions. The comments drew criticism from two former Tory chief whips and prompted the resignation of a long-serving aide. Continue reading...

Reports say troops and weapons are leaving their bases for forward staging posts in Kursk and VoronezhThe military train lurched into the rail depot at Kursk on a recent afternoon, carrying more snow-dusted main battle tanks, self-propelled artillery, and other heavy weapons to within a few hours’ drive by car of the Ukrainian border.At the depot, the flatbed railcars parked between heavy containers carrying chemical products, leaving them visible only from a small pedestrian footbridge overhead. There, military police with red armbands kept watch as locals looked on curiously at the latest arrivals in Russia’s vast military buildup. Continue reading...

Stuart Garner admitted three offences of illegally investing millions of pounds of pension savings into his businessThe former owner of Norton Motorcycles faces up to two years in prison after pleading guilty to illegally investing millions of pounds of people’s retirement savings into his own businesses.Stuart Garner, who acquired the classic marque in 2008 and was feted by a series of UK government ministers including the MP Stephen Barclay, the prime minister’s new chief of staff since Saturday, admitted three offences at Derby magistrates court on Monday. Continue reading...

Eric Zemmour says foreign leader he feels ‘culturally and intellectually’ closest to is the British PMThe far-right French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour has said of all world leaders he is compared to he feels most like the British prime minister, Boris Johnson.The former journalist, who is often compared to Donald Trump, was speaking on France Inter’s morning news programme when asked about “populist” foreign leaders. The interviewer mentioned Trump, the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, and Italy’s former prime minister Matteo Salvini and asked if they were models for Zemmour. Continue reading...

Newspaper claims businesspeople, politicians, activists and Netanyahu’s son were targeted by phone interceptsIsrael’s police minister has announced the formation of a cabinet-level inquiry after a newspaper alleged that police had used powerful Pegasus spyware against a wide range of public figures including politicians from the left and right, businessmen, officials and activists.Pegasus, a mobile phone hacking tool made by Israel’s NSO Group, was used to “phish for intelligence even before any investigation had been opened against the targets, and without judicial warrants”, Calcalist newspaper said in an unsourced report. Continue reading...

Police chief decries ‘siege’ after thousands of protesters join rallies against Covid restrictions

Officials confirm 614 new cases but insist outbreak can be controlled if people stay at home

The 90s pop star recreates an old photograph and talks food, fame, family – and taking his top offBorn Peter James Andrea in Harrow, London, in 1973, and raised in Sydney, Australia, Andre is one of the quintessential 90s pop stars. After winning the TV talent show New Faces in Australia aged 16, he signed to a record label and launched his career in the UK, finding fame with the breakout hit Mysterious Girl and the accompanying video in which Andre body-rolls in a pair of jeans in the tropical sea.After two No 1 singles, Andre retreated from the limelight before appearing on I’m a Celebrity … in 2004. On the show he met model and entrepreneur Katie Price, whom he married in 2005 and divorced in 2009. After a decade of reality TV, with multiple fly-on-the-wall franchises, Peter now lives in Surrey with his wife, NHS doctor Emily MacDonagh, and children. He is the co-founder of the “no guilt” health and fitness app #itsfine, available via Apple App Store and Google Play. Continue reading...

Scientist who worked on jab criticises ‘bad behaviour’ by scientists and politicians who damaged reputation of Covid vaccine

Tying gender to military intervention has often been disastrous. Is there another way?From Laura Bush’s famous radio speech declaring that the invasion of Afghanistan would liberate its women, to the Trump administration’s invocation of women’s rights as it pulled out of the nuclear deal with Iran, war-making in the modern world is often linked to gender equality. Those who push the west to take a muscular approach to advancing its interests in distant places, through bombing, droning or economic warfare, like to weave sepia-tinted images of women in miniskirts into their advocacy. Whatever the actual motives, accompanying them with rhetoric about securing women’s freedom has become standard practice during western interventions.These cynical moves are often what come to mind when we hear the words “ethical foreign policy”. But a whole realm of quiet work lies beyond them. As it stands, much of western foreign policy is concerned with shoring up peace and stability in areas of strategic interest to governments. That includes dispatching advisers to improve developing countries’ militaries, supporting healthcare and education through development aid, and doing diplomatic work to get disagreeing parties to negotiate before things deteriorate too far. For years now, various governments have woven gender equality into these efforts. When development aid sits formally in the same department as foreign policy, as it now does in Britain, those efforts can get serious political backing. Continue reading...

Health secretary joins condemnation of comedian’s comment about Holocaust deaths in Netflix showPeople should consider boycotting the comedian Jimmy Carr because of his widely criticised comment about the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities in a Netflix special, the UK health secretary, Sajid Javid, has suggested.Carr has been condemned by groups including the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Auschwitz Memorial and Hope Not Hate for comments he made in the His Dark Material section of his show. Continue reading...

‘It will be welcome - even if it’s a bit late, and by the time they get in there, more than 500 people have already died’, union chief says

‘Dystopian’ reversal of 1999 cult film’s ending showed police winning outThe Chinese streaming platform Tencent Video has restored the original ending to the film Fight Club after it amended the Chinese edition to tell viewers police had “rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals”, prompting a widespread backlash.The wholesale reversal of the anti-capitalist, anarchist denouement to the 1999 hit film, which stars Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter, made international headlines last month. Continue reading...

Scott Morrison confirms international borders will reopen to double-vaccinated visa holders from 21 February; defence force personnel to support aged care sector; Craig Kelly says UAP financially backing Canberra protests; Queensland scraps check-ins as nation records at least 46 Covid-19 deaths; Bridget Archer to vote against religious discrimination bill – follow all the day’s news live

Durham police confirm they will take no further action against Labour leader over April 2021 incident

As temperatures fall below freezing, children as young as four trying to make a living on the Afghan capital’s streets are all that stand between their family and starvationAmid the roadside restaurants and bustling crowds in one of Kabul’s busiest markets, a 10-year-old girl is trying to sell plastic bags to shoppers squeezing past her. “If I don’t work, we will go hungry,” Shaista says. Shops in the Afghan capital are stacked with food, but her family cannot afford any of it.Each morning, Shaista buys a few shopping bags for 5 afghani (4p) each, then goes to the market to sell them for double that. As the UN predicts that 97% of Afghans could be living below the poverty line by June, the number of child labourers and beggars has tripled in Kabul, aid workers say. Many are fighting just to survive. Continue reading...

Grief is EXHAUSTING so give yourself a break. Or if you can’t do that leave me alone I am tired

The actor, who broke through in 1983 playing a welder who dreamed of being a dancer, reflects on a life of activism, why gen Z give her hope and joining the Star Wars universeJennifer Beals is talking to me by Zoom from … “Do I have to say?” she asks. Not really, I tell her. “I can tell you there’s a blizzard outside and it’s really beautiful.” Her reticence, which lasts about 30 seconds, is because she is in New York, filming a yet to be announced new season of Law & Order. You could imagine her taking a friend’s secret to the grave; she is very cagey about where she lives, tending to call herself “nomadic” and describing her home as “the middle of nowhere” (in reality, somewhere near Los Angeles). Commercial discretion, though? Not so much.It is creepy to go on about how young actors still look, as though that were a goal in itself, but Beals, 58, is so unchanged – since she first played Bette in The L Word in 2004; since Devil in a Blue Dress in 1995 – that my brain thinks it is making a mistake. She definitely, positively starred in Flashdance in 1983, her breakthrough role after a tiny part in My Bodyguard three years earlier, yet that can’t be right – it was 40 years ago! It is like walking past someone you think you knew at school, then realising that it can’t be them because this person is 21. Continue reading...

Samiel Asghedom, Nipsey’s brother, also told the Guardian of plans for a free music program for youth at Crenshaw and Slauson

Urine and faeces creating nitrogen and phosphorus levels that would be illegal on farms, scientists calculateDog faeces and urine are being deposited in nature reserves in such quantities that it is likely to be damaging wildlife, according to a new study.The analysis found that the resulting overfertilisation of the ground with nitrogen and phosphorus by footpaths could reach levels that would be illegal on farmland. Continue reading...

Theodor Lessing’s newly collected early writings shine light on writer who later prophesied climate changeIn a nation of great thinkers who preferred the clean air of ivory towers over the hubbub of the streets, Theodor Lessing stood out for digging his knuckles into the dust.The great brawler of early 20th-century German philosophy picked fights with those he dismissed as “self-hating” fellow Jewish intellectuals, challenged the towering man-of-letters Thomas Mann to a duel, and skewered the holy cows of the Nazis, who brutally murdered him shortly after seizing power in 1933. Continue reading...

Australia’s borders will open to all visa holders from 21 February on the provision that they are double vaccinated. 'Events earlier in the year would have made Australia’s position on vaccination clear', Australian prime minister Scott Morrison said referring to the debacle involving tennis player Novak Djokovic. Morrison also announced 'a package of measures; so the ADF can support the health department and support the aged care sector. 'I want to be very clear about this ... the defence force are not a surrogate workforce for the aged care sector'► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube

French leader, who will travel to Kyiv on Tuesday, is optimistic he can secure peace, despite the US saying Russia could invade ‘tomorrow’French president Emmanuel Macron believes he can deliver “a historic solution” to the Ukraine crisis ahead of his arrival in Moscow for talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin.After a flurry of diplomatic activity that included talks with US president Joe Biden this weekend and three phone calls with Putin, Macron will land in Moscow on Monday seeking a “de-escalation” of the tense standoff on Ukraine’s eastern borders. Continue reading...

Damage from the storm compounded the destruction wreaked by Cyclone Ana, which hit the island two weeks agoA cyclone has killed at least 10 people in southeastern Madagascar, the second to hit the Indian Ocean island in just two weeks, triggering floods, bringing down buildings and cutting power.One of the worst-hit towns was Nosy Varika on the east coast where almost 95% of buildings were destroyed “as if we had just been bombed” and floods cut access, an official said. Continue reading...

Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi said the move was ‘an opportunity to reimagine a more meaningful and fulfilling partnership’The Māori party of New Zealand has called for a “divorce” from the crown and removal of the British royal family as New Zealand’s head of state.The call came on the 182nd anniversary of the signing of the treaty of Waitangi, or Te Tiriti o Waitangi, New Zealand’s foundational legal document. Continue reading...

Accord signed by Alberto Fernández and Xi Jinping at Winter Olympics also supports Chinese claim to TaiwanLiz Truss has defended the Falklands as “part of the British family” after China backed Argentina’s claim over the South American islands.The foreign secretary tweeted that “China must respect the Falklands’ sovereignty” after the Argentinian president, Alberto Fernández, met China’s President Xi on the fringes of the Beijing Winter Olympics. Continue reading...

City in Guangxi, with population of 3.7 million, reportedly under lockdown; James Marape tests positive on arrival at Winter Olympics

Prime minister’s wife insists she is a ‘private individual who plays no role in government’Carrie Johnson has denied that she has any role in shaping government policy and claimed she has been targeted by enemies of the prime minister in a “brutal campaign”.Boris Johnson’s wife took the unusual step of issuing a statement through her spokesperson on Sunday evening after months of claims that she is a “Lady Macbeth” figure behind government decision-making in Downing Street. Continue reading...

White House believes Moscow has amassed at least 70% of firepower needed for mid-February invasionRussia has enough troops in place to seize Kyiv or another Ukrainian city but not yet sufficient numbers for a full takeover and occupation of the country, Ukraine’s former defence minister has said, as Washington warned that an invasion could take place at any time.Andriy Zagorodnyuk said in an interview with the Guardian that the situation looked “pretty dire”. “Russia could now seize any city in Ukraine. But we still don’t see the 200,000 troops needed for a full-scale invasion,” he said. Continue reading...

Prime minister may still face more letters of no confidence and revelations from Dominic CummingsAllies of Boris Johnson have insisted that “grownups” are now in charge of his operation as he heads into critical week for his beleaguered premiership that could see him face a confidence vote and the threat of further damaging revelations.Tory MPs said Johnson may have bought some time by bringing a new team into No 10. One major Conservative donor, Alexander Temerko, told the Guardian that the prime minister should now take the opportunity to “purge” the cabinet of disloyal leadership rivals. Continue reading...

Singer’s upbeat and socially conscious songwriting appears on tracks by Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy and Kanye WestSyl Johnson, the blues, funk and soul singer whose work was much sampled in US hip-hop, has died aged 85.No cause of death was announced by his family, who said of Johnson: “He lived his life as a singer, musician and entrepreneur who loved black music … A fiery, fierce, fighter, always standing for the pursuit of justice as it related to his music and sound, he will truly be missed by all who crossed his path.” Continue reading...

Rayan Oram, five, was found dead after four-day operation to rescue him from shaft 32 metres deepTributes have been paid to Rayan Oram, the five-year-old Moroccan boy whose body was recovered from a well on Saturday, and whose plight had moved his country and the world.News of Rayan’s death after a massive four-day rescue operation pitched Morocco into deep grief and prompted condolences and expressions of gratitude to the search teams. Continue reading...

Kristina O’Connor says detective who was investigating after men tried to steal her phone asked her outA woman is taking legal action against the Metropolitan police after a detective who told her she was “amazingly hot” while investigating her attack kept his job.Kristina O’Connor, now 33, said she was sent inappropriate messages by DCI James Mason after he responded to her report of an attempted robbery in October 2011. Continue reading...

Longest-running programme in Australian television history loses out to homegrown British dramaThe residents of Ramsay Street have survived almost four decades of affairs, disasters and terrible haircuts – but in the end it might be the popularity of a 1930s Yorkshire vet that finally kills off Neighbours.The long-running soap opera that launched the careers of Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce and Margot Robbie faces the axe after Channel 5 confirmed it would stop airing the series this summer. The broadcaster no longer wants to spend millions of pounds a year on the show and is instead looking to use its programme budget to reach upmarket audiences with original British dramas – driven by the success of All Creatures Great And Small, its hit revival of the series about rural life in the Yorkshire Dales. Continue reading...

Serial killer reportedly wrote letter detailing 1996 murders of mother and daughter in KentThe serial killer Levi Bellfield has reportedly penned a letter confessing to the murders of mother and daughter Lin and Megan Russell in 1996.The Sun revealed that lawyers acting for Michael Stone, who has twice been found guilty of the murders of Lin and Megan in Kent, have claimed to have received a statement written by Bellfield detailing the killings. Continue reading...

Advocates say the legislation will be ‘life changing’ for workers who currently face rampant discrimination in all aspects of their lives

Homelessness report reveals health and discrimination issues as authors call for new national strategyLeigh Jorey was pretty successful in his mid-30s. A panel beater by trade, he’d completed an apprenticeship, owned his own tow truck company, and worked at it hard. His success didn’t stop him becoming homeless. In fact, it may have contributed to the problem.Under pressure, Jorey began to turn to less healthy ways of coping, which led him into a downward spiral. Continue reading...

Journalist Fahad Shah detained on Friday under terrorism and sedition laws in disputed Indian regionA prominent journalist has been arrested under terrorism and sedition laws, as a crackdown on the press in Indian-administered Kashmir continues to escalate.Fahad Shah, the founder and editor of the widely read local news website The Kashmir Walla, was arrested on Friday evening when he was summoned to a police station in the southern district of Pulwama. Continue reading...

Relief for many as department says post-Brexit applications received before 29 March deadline will be processedBritish citizens who want to return permanently visa-free to the UK with EU families post-Brexit will not be penalised by Home Office delays as long as they apply for their paperwork within the next two months, the government has said.The confirmation will come as a relief to British citizens suffering anxiety and distress over Home Office delays because of the looming 29 March deadline to apply for the EU settlement scheme (EUSS). Continue reading...

First in line to throne thanks Duchess of Cornwall for support as royal family paves way for her to take title of queenThe Prince of Wales has paid tribute to his “darling wife” the Duchess of Cornwall for her “steadfast support” after the Queen announced that Camilla will be known as “Queen Consort” when Charles becomes king.In a statement released on Sunday, Charles heralded the Queen for the way her “devotion to the welfare of all her people inspires still greater admiration with each passing year”. Continue reading...

Spending time high above the ground allowed me a unique view of the land and my relationship with itClimbing, I once thought, was a very manly activity. A pursuit for macho adventurers on a mission to conquer – conquer the mountain, conquer their fear, conquer themselves. That may be the story for some climbers, but as I found my way into this activity, I came to see that something quite different happens on the rock.Like wild swimming, rock climbing immerses you within the landscape. On the rock, I am fully present. Eyes pay close attention, scanning the details of the rock, trying to read the passage up the cliff. Ears are alert, tuned in to the sounds of the stone, my partner and the environment. Hands roam across the surface, feeling for features while the whole body works to stay within balance, coordinating itself around the various forms of the cliff. Unlike walking, where I could happily trundle absent-mindedly through the landscape, in climbing, attentive observation is essential. Continue reading...

The Queen’s platinum jubilee message in full

Monarch expresses ‘sincere wish’ in candid message marking 70th anniversary of her accessionThe Queen has expressed her “sincere wish” that the Duchess of Cornwall becomes Queen Consort when Charles becomes king.In a candid message marking the 70th anniversary of her accession, the monarch made clear her desire, unambiguously paving the way for Queen Camilla. Continue reading...

A large swing against Liberals may create ‘uncomfortable questions’ before the next state election

Podcast host says sorry for ‘most regretful and shameful thing I’ve ever had to talk about’ but says remarks were taken out of contextThe podcast host Joe Rogan has offered “sincere and humble apologies” after footage emerged of him repeatedly using the N-word on his hit show.The comedian, 54, who has a lucrative deal with the streaming giant Spotify, said it was the “most regretful and shameful thing” he has ever had to speak about, but stressed the clips were “taken out of context”. Continue reading...