by Toby Helm, Mark Townsend and James Tapper on (#5VTVE)
More MPs set to submit resignation demands as No 10 rejigs teamBoris Johnson’s desperate efforts to save his premiership were undermined on Saturday as one of his most loyal backbench supporters said it was now “inevitable” that Tory MPs would remove him from office over the “partygate” scandal.In an interview with the Observer, Sir Charles Walker, a former vice-chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs, implored the prime minister to go of his own accord in the national interest, and likened the events in the Tory party to a Greek tragedy. Continue reading...
Host nation’s speedskating win overshadowed by criticism for using athlete from a persecuted minority to light the Olympic flameGlory on the track. Growing criticism off it. China ended day one of these Winter Olympics by celebrating a thrilling first gold medal, while also finding itself facing growing condemnation from human rights groups after selecting a Uyghur to light the Olympic flame.The small number of fans in the Capital Indoor Stadium because of Covid-19 regulations certainly made themselves heard as China’s mixed relay quartet held off Italy by the width of a blade in a dramatic short-track speedskating final. Continue reading...
Long gone are the steel works, and the coalfields are on notice. Newcastle is a city in transitionIt’s not quite yet the new Berlin, as some have whispered, but a tipping point might have been reached as Australia’s sixth-largest city is being reimagined to embrace a very different future.Not that Newcastle can ever escape its industrial past. Coal will forever occasionally wash on to its beaches from exposed coastal seams, while Newcomen Street, Bolton Street and Watt Street in the city centre salute 18th century giants of power generation. And though there’s no Pitt Street, there is a Pit Street. Continue reading...
11-year-old boy left in Trafford hotel room while man went drinking after victory against Manchester UnitedA Middlesbrough supporter has been arrested after leaving his 11-year-old son at a hotel while celebrating his side’s FA Cup victory against Manchester United.Greater Manchester police used a Twitter post to confirm news of the man’s arrest on suspicion of child neglect. Continue reading...
Rescuers have entered a tunnel to free a five-year-old boy who has been trapped for days after falling into a well in northern Morocco. Workers with mechanical diggers have been trying round the clock to rescue five-year-old Rayan after he fell into a well 32 metres (105ft) deep in the hills near Chefchaouen on Tuesday
Woman who helped perfect dish served to guests at 1953 coronation meets monarch at platinum jubilee eventThe Queen has met a former cookery school student who helped create coronation chicken on the eve of her platinum jubilee.The monarch, hours away from becoming the first British sovereign to reach a historic 70 years on the throne, came face to face with Angela Wood, who helped to perfect the dish served to guests after the Queen’s 1953 coronation ceremony. Continue reading...
by Mark Townsend Home Affairs Editor and Kiyya Baloch on (#5VTJE)
Exiles advised to keep a low profile as hitman is convicted in LondonPakistani exiles seeking refuge in the UK are being advised by counter-terrorism police to keep a low profile following warnings that their lives may be at risk after criticising Pakistan’s powerful military.Counter Terrorism Policing, a collaboration of UK police forces and the security services, has told possible targets that they need to inform police if they intend to travel within the UK. Continue reading...
Non-English speakers may soon rival the millions playing the original version of the viral word gameIt only took two days for Louan Bengmah’s French-language version of the viral Wordle game to run into trouble. His online dictionary threw up “slush”, Québécois slang that was essentially an English word co-opted in North America.French players hoping to join the hundreds of thousands of English speakers cluttering up social media with boastful grids showing how quickly they had guessed a mystery word, were frustrated. Continue reading...
Maureen Lipman criticised decision to cast Mirren as former Israeli prime minister as she is not JewishDame Helen Mirren has said questions over the choice to have her play Israel’s first female prime minister, Golda Meir, are “utterly legitimate”.The Academy award-winning actress said there was “a discussion to be had” about the suitability of certain actors for certain roles. Continue reading...
President Gabriel Boric has brought renowned named climate scientist Maisa Rojas into government to help ensure a greener futureHidden behind the Andes in a quiet corner of South America, a formidable generation of former student leaders are putting together one of the world’s most exciting progressive movements.On 11 March, Gabriel Boric, 35, a tattooed leftist with a steely resolve to reform Chile from the bottom up, will become the country’s youngest ever president – and his green agenda is echoing across the world as time ticks away on an impending climate catastrophe. Continue reading...
At first, I could hardly get through a novel. But slowly reading – and writing – saved me from a life of drugs, rehab and jailWhen I was in tenth grade in Tampa, Florida, I was, like millions of other high school students, assigned to read The Catcher in the Rye for English class. Like millions of other high school students, I was extremely fragile. I was holding on by a thread. I was 15 and spent much of my time at school, on the days I would go, doing OxyContin, Xanax, cocaine and speed in the bathroom. I jittered and itched through class, and my internal life was, to say the least, stifled. It would continue to be stifled for the next few years, until it became so claustrophobic that I attempted suicide. Needless to say, I was pretty hit or miss with school assignments. But I had always liked to read. I decided to crack Salinger’s book and read a chapter or two. I stayed up all night and finished it. I came into class the next day wired, eyes wide: it felt as if I had been hooked up to a car battery. I remember walking into the classroom and saying to my English teacher, “What the hell was that?”I didn’t know anything about the book. I didn’t know that the men who shot John Lennon and Ronald Reagan were both obsessed with it. I didn’t know that it was the subject of endless think pieces debating the ethical ramifications of Holden Caulfield’s character. I didn’t know Salinger stormed the beaches on D-Day, carried scars from his years in war. I just got sucked in. It is a funny, polarising little book. I remember my girlfriend at the time saying she hated it, that she couldn’t get through it. But my teacher told me that every year at least one person does what I did, gets hooked up to the car battery. Looking back, it makes sense that someone in my particular situation would have this reaction to it. In fact, it is almost embarrassing just how cliched it is. But that’s what happened. And, in what would become a theme of my life, what stuck with me more than any of the particular content of the book was the feeling of being sucked in, of losing time trapped in someone else’s words and turbulent emotions. Continue reading...
Recipes for Superbowl 56 next weekend from the kitchen of Joe Allen in Covent Garden: slow-braised smoked baby back ribs and vegetarian hot dogs with quinoa chilli. Touchdown!I’m a huge sports fan, so revel in everything around a big sporting event: getting friends over, the TV set up and, of course, prepping the ultimate game-day spread. The Super Bowl next weekend is the perfect excuse to get some American-style dishes on the go, and it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t make a couple of Joe Allen classics. Today’s recipes have been a closely guarded secret – or at least until now – and, regardless of whether or not you’re a meat eater, together they make the perfect finger food for everyone who can’t take their eyes off the screen.UK readers: click to buy these ingredients from OcadoUK readers: click to buy these ingredients from Ocado Continue reading...
Repatriating the spoils of empire is stuck in all manner of legal and historical impasses that preserve the status quoThose who would see the Parthenon marbles return to Greece sense change in the air. As the politics of identity resurge, as the legacies of colonialism are scrutinised, Benin bronzes held in Aberdeen and Cambridge have been sent back to Nigeria, those in Glasgow are the subject of a formal request, and those in Germany are to return too. The Benin bronzes – looted by the British in a punitive raid on Benin City in 1897 – are a very different case from the sculptures that once adorned the great temple of Athens’ patron goddess on the city’s Acropolis, acquired (or so it is argued) legally by Lord Elgin in 1801. But still: Palermo’s Archaeological Museum has just sent its share of the Parthenon sculptures to the Acropolis Museum – on loan, but with talk of a permanent arrangement.The Palermo sculpture is a shoe-box-size fragment showing part of the goddess Artemis’s foot, rather than the 75m of frieze plus magnificent pediment held in the British Museum, but still, it’s a precedent of sorts. The Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, made return of the Parthenon marbles a talking point on a recent visit to London. Even the Times has reversed its leader line to support repatriation. “Separating components of an artistic whole is like tearing Hamlet out of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s works,” says its editorial – though bringing the Bloomsbury sculptures to Athens would not complete anything at all, since half of the stonework is destroyed, and they will never be intact again.Charlotte Higgins is the Guardian’s chief culture writer Continue reading...
Homophobic murder of a consultant psychiatrist in July 2021 was among several crimes recorded at that timeCampaigners in Cardiff are calling for the police and other authorities to do more to protect LGBTQ+ people after it emerged the sadistic homophobic murder of a consultant psychiatrist was only one of a spate of hate crimes recorded at the time.A vigil is to be held near Bute Park in the city on Sunday after a 17-year-old girl and two men were found guilty of murdering Dr Gary Jenkins by beating him and stamping on his head for 15 minutes in the early hours of a morning in July last year. Continue reading...
From the DJ fined £12,000 to the host of a small new year’s gathering – the people who did get busted for breaking lockdown restrictions tell their storiesThe knock on the door came just before midnight on New Year’s Eve. Chloé Gardiner and her boyfriend were at home, but not alone. After a hard year, they had invited two friends over to see in 2021 with them, breaking strict rules in force in her area as the UK entered its second wave of the pandemic.“There were three carloads of police in the end,” says Gardiner, a 23-year-old care assistant from the small town of Portstewart in Northern Ireland. “And there were only four of us.” It was hardly a wild party, she says – they were just hanging out, listening to music and posting the odd picture to social media – and she doesn’t know who reported them; they weren’t being loud, and they have no close neighbours. They were fined £200 each for breaching Covid regulations, deducted automatically in her case from her wages. Gardiner, who works two jobs, says money went from both pay packets, and she is still trying to recoup £100 she thinks was wrongly deducted in the confusion. Continue reading...
Andy Haldane says city’s crucible-like atmosphere created ‘combustion’ for economic prosperityThe government’s new levelling-up strategy should help Britain’s left-behind towns and cities emulate Renaissance Florence in cooking up the “secret sauce” of economic success, according to its co-author Andy Haldane.The hefty report, published on Wednesday, was mocked by some for its frequent historical references – including to 15th-century Florence under the Medici – but Haldane, a former Bank of England chief economist, is deadly serious. Continue reading...
In Cameroon’s Minawao refugee camp, young Nigerians use the game to help rebuild lives put in danger by Boko HaramLucy is the team’s captain, so she looks after the ball. Her family’s house is about 10 minutes’ walk from the pitch: it is one of the more established dwellings in Minawao, a permanent structure largely screened behind a high mud wall. She greets her mother, who is sitting outside with an aunt, in Hausa before disappearing inside. Once she has retrieved what she came for, the day’s training can begin. “We play football with our friends to ease our minds,” she says. “That’s why they give girls this ball to play with: to forget about what happened to us.”This could barely seem further from Yaounde, where the Africa Cup of Nations final will take place on Sunday. We are 500 miles away in Cameroon’s extreme north region, tropical greenery having given way to the parched fringes of the Sahel. Continue reading...
Since his early days in the underground comix scene, Spiegleman has reveled in ‘saying the unsayable’ and subverting conventionIn 1985, at the height of popularity for the faddish baby dolls, the Cabbage Patch Kids, the cartoonist Art Spiegelman debuted a subversive line of trading cards, the Garbage Pail Kids.Featuring viscerally queasy drawings of, say, a mushroom cloud detonating from the roof of a cheery toddler’s skull, or a Raggedy Ann facsimile barfing up dinner into a pot, the Garbage Pail Kids were a sensation among edgy preteens all over the world. They were also swiftly banned in a slew of schools. To this day, Mexico has a law restricting the import and export of Garbage Pail Kids material. Continue reading...
Many of the thousands of people who attempt the deadly Channel crossing in tiny boats land in towns like Folkestone. Local resident James Harkin meets some on the shoreOnly the hardy wade into the Channel in winter, and this year I’m one of them. Nearing the end of my stone-cold morning swim at Mermaid Beach in Folkestone, Kent, I notice something out of the ordinary. A commotion has broken out around a small inflatable dinghy a few beaches away as it skirts a vicious pile of rock groynes there to protect the shingle beach. Shortly afterwards, a fellow swimmer hollers in my direction, wondering whether I’ve seen the arrivals. They tossed their lifejackets in the water when they landed, he says, with what sounds like disdain.I swim back to shore and walk up the beach, following a coastguard car. The dinghy is still bobbing up and down on the rocks, surrounded by military-looking jetskis; by the time I get there, it’s empty. Six men sit, soaking, on two semicircular stone banquettes adjoining the beach, surrounded by police and medics. According to the chatter on police radios, other men might have fled into a nearby coastal park, perhaps because they had contact information for people to help them. All six have been handed rugs and bottles of water; they look stunned, and a little sheepish. I ask a police officer if I can talk to the men and he shrugs his shoulders. “They haven’t been checked for Covid,” he says. Continue reading...
Taipei calls ‘no limits’ agreement announced after Xi-Putin summit an insult to the Olympic spiritTaiwan has condemned as “contemptible” the timing of China and Russia’s “no limits” partnership at the start of the Winter Olympics, saying the Chinese government was bringing shame to the spirit of the Games.China and Russia, at a meeting of their leaders hours before the Winter Olympics officially opened, backed each other over standoffs on Ukraine and Taiwan with a promise to collaborate more against the west. Continue reading...
Environmentalists spot floating carpet of blue whiting covering thousands of square metres after spill from the FV MargirisDutch-owned trawler FV Margiris, the world’s second-biggest fishing vessel, has shed more than 100,000 dead fish into the Atlantic Ocean off France.France’s maritime minister, Annick Girardin, called the images of the dead fish – which formed a floating carpet of carcasses spotted by environmental campaigners – “shocking” and has asked the national fishing surveillance authority to launch an investigation. Continue reading...
From honjok – taking part in activities alone – to bihon – pledging never to marry – a pushback against the traditional family unit is reshaping societyMin Kyeong-seok is not shy about eating in restaurants alone, or staying in luxury hotels by himself, and shares his experiences online in his blog “One happy person”.“I want to show people that I am living a happy life despite being single,” says Min, 37. Continue reading...
After refusing to sign a statement condemning North Korea’s latest missile tests, China called for US to create ‘attractive and practical’ solutionsChina’s ambassador to the UN has called on the United States to be more flexible in its dealings with North Korea, as Beijing joined others in refusing to sign a US-drafted security council joint statement condemning Pyongyang’s missile launches.Kim Jong-un’s regime conducted an unprecedented seven weapons tests in January, including launching its most powerful missile since 2017 as it hinted it could restart long-range and nuclear testing. Continue reading...
by Gwyn Topham Transport correspondent on (#5VSG2)
RMT members will walk out on 1 and 3 March, as TfL and government extend funding arrangement for two weeksTube workers are to go on strike for two days next month over fears for jobs, pensions and working conditions, threatening widespread disruption across London.The RMT union announced that its members on the tube would walk out on 1 and 3 March. Continue reading...
Sajid Javid has joined Rishi Sunak in rejecting slur on Keir Starmer as two more MPs call for PM to goBoris Johnson’s attempts to rally his dilapidated top team floundered on Friday after a second cabinet minister distanced himself from the prime minister and two more Conservative MPs called for him to go.In a bid to shore up support, Johnson wrote to MPs promising them a “direct line to Downing Street”, but his move came as Sajid Javid followed the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, in rejecting Johnson’s remarks linking Starmer with the failure to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile. Continue reading...
Parliament backs no-confidence motion after internal disputes and weeks of political deadlockMontenegro’s conservative pro-Serbian governing coalition collapsed on Friday amid internal disputes, after parliament backed a no-confidence motion tabled by a junior coalition partner.Lawmakers voted 43-11 in favour of the motion against prime minister Zdravko Krivokapić’s government after weeks of political deadlock. Other lawmakers in the 81-seat parliament either abstained or left the session before the vote. Continue reading...
Letter to former Afghan guard at British embassy in Kabul says measures will come into effect on 11 FebruaryAsylum seekers staying in hotels have been told by the Home Office that it will stop providing them with free access to non-basic toiletries and over-the-counter medication from next week.According to a letter seen by the PA news agency, the measures will come into effect on 11 February. Continue reading...
Deceased included three Dutch tourists, two Chilean tourists and two Peruvian members of crew, local police saidA light plane carrying sightseers for a tour of the Nazca lines in the Peruvian desert has crashed, killing all seven people onboard.Local police said that the deceased included three Dutch tourists, two Chilean tourists and two Peruvian members of crew. Continue reading...
Official says separatists’ assault timed to ‘sabotage’ prime minister Imran Khan’s visit to ChinaPakistani troops battled separatist militants for a third day on Friday in the troubled province of Balochistan, where hundreds of residents in a town near the Iranian border remained trapped by shellfire and heavy fighting.The violence erupted on Wednesday when insurgents from the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) launched twin assaults on bases of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in the Naushki and Panjgur districts, leading to the deaths of at least 12 soldiers and nine militants. Continue reading...
This week’s intransigent gestures on Brexit from Northern Ireland’s largest party suggest it is facing electoral defeat in MayThe Democratic Unionist party pulled the plug on post-Brexit Irish Sea border checks this week and then resigned its joint leadership of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing executive. These were dramatic gestures. They are a reminder of the chronic instability that has continued to dog Northern Ireland governance, in spite of the Good Friday agreement. They are also a reminder of the particularly destabilising effects of Brexit for Ireland as a whole.But they are, above all, a sign of DUP political weakness, not strength. They are a foolish gamble that the DUP can get its way in a Brexit argument to which compromise is, in the long run, the only solution. In the short term, however, the DUP’s action has been provoked by electoral fear. An assembly election is due in Northern Ireland in three months’ time. The DUP’s positions as both the dominant unionist party and as the largest party in the assembly are under threat amid the anxieties triggered by Brexit. The party has been losing support to more moderate and more fundamentalist rivals alike. Continue reading...
by Leyland Cecco in Toronto and Tracey Lindeman in Ot on (#5VSV1)
Ottawa police announce 150 more officers will be deployed as 400 more trucks and 2,000 protesters expected to arrivePolice in Canada have promised tougher action against the “unlawful and unacceptably dangerous” protests paralyzing the nation’s capital, but admitted the situation was increasingly out of their control.With 400 more trucks and 2,000 protesters expected to arrive in the city this weekend, Ottawa police on Friday announced that 150 additional officers will be deployed and concrete barricades set up to prevent more vehicles from reaching the city’s downtown core. Illegally parked vehicles will be towed and highways and bridges could be closed. Continue reading...
The playwright found acclaim with works about the devastation caused by austerity. He returns with a drama exploring the realities of ageingThere is one no-no in an Alexander Zeldin rehearsal, and that’s being theatrical. As the cast of his first French play, A Death in the Family, rehearses carefully choreographed entrances set in a care home, the British playwright and director keeps returning to the theme. “Factual, simple. No theatre here,” he tells one actor. “You’re wonderful as you are,” he says to another. “If you do more, it becomes theatre.”It’s a delightful paradox for someone who is singularly obsessed with theatre, as I realise when I meet him close to his Paris flat. The 36-year-old, who found international success with an arresting trilogy, The Inequalities (Beyond Caring, Love, and Faith, Hope and Charity) that laid bare the human cost of austerity in Britain, moved here temporarily last September. Continue reading...
Chinese and Russian leaders call on west to abandon ‘cold war’ approach at pre-Olympic meetingChina’s Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin of Russia have signed a joint statement calling on the west to “abandon the ideologised approaches of the cold war”, as the two leaders showcased their warming relationship in Beijing at the start of the Winter Olympics.The politicans also said the bonds between the two countries had “no limits”. “[T]here are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation’,” they declared. Continue reading...
Protesters lead by Women’s Equality party want government to launch full inquiry into police misogynyMock “appeals for information” posters highlighting misogynistic, racist and homophobic comments made by police officers in the Charing Cross police station have been erected in London to increase pressure on the government to launch an inquiry into misogyny within the police.A-board signs were put up on Friday mimicking those used by police after a serious incident, which protesters lead by the Women’s Equality party said was an exchange that took place between police officers, in which one said: “Knock a bird about and she will love you. Human nature. They are biologically programmed to like that s***.” Continue reading...
Analysis: Social democratic parties that have adapted to the political landscape are winning elections againThe unexpected triumph of António Costa’s Socialist party in Portugal’s elections this week continues a cautious comeback by Europe’s centre-left – and, analysts say, may hold some lessons in what remains a mixed picture for the continent’s social democrats.After wins last autumn by Germany’s SPD and Norway’s Labour party, the Portuguese prime minister’s unexpected victory – with 41.7% of the vote, five points up on 2019 – was further good news for a movement that five years ago looked in terminal decline. Continue reading...
by Tom Phillips and Wilfredo Miranda in San José on (#5VSNR)
Dora María Téllez and Lesther Alemán found guilty in trials campaigners called a shamTwo of the most emblematic figures of Nicaragua’s beleaguered opposition are facing years behind bars after being convicted of alleged acts of political conspiracy in trials campaigners and members of the international community called a sham.Dora María Téllez, a legendary guerrilla leader during the Sandinista revolution, was found guilty during a closed-door trial at the notorious El Chipote political prison in Nicaragua’s capital Managua on Thursday. Continue reading...
Victim, ‘used and exploited’ for 40 years, was found living in a squalid shed north of CarlisleA man who exploited a modern slavery victim found living in a squalid shed has been given a suspended prison sentence.Peter Swailes Jr, 56, was sentenced to a nine-month jail term, suspended for 18 months, at Carlisle crown court on Friday. Continue reading...
Former boxer Agustín Álvarez jailed for piloting a sub carrying 3,000kg of cocaine across the AtlanticTwenty-eight months after it began in a clandestine shipyard deep in the Brazilian Amazon, one of the more unlikely criminal voyages of all time came to an end on Tuesday with the seven sentences handed down by a court in north-west Spain.Agustín Álvarez, a 31-year-old former Spanish amateur boxing champion, was jailed for 11 years for piloting a semi-submersible “narco-submarine” carrying 3,068kg of cocaine worth an estimated €123m (£104m) across the Atlantic. His two crewmates, Ecuadorian cousins Luis Tomás Benítez Manzaba and Pedro Roberto Delgado Manzaba, received the same sentence, while four Spaniards who conspired with Álvarez to help guide the sub ashore were jailed for between seven and nine years. Continue reading...
The opening ceremony for the Beijing Winter Olympics is underway at the distinctive Bird’s Nest stadium, its rim bedecked with the flags of the 91 competing nations and regions. The ceremony, a spectacle of music, choreography and technology, will culminate in the lighting of the Olympic cauldron
Like other modern entertainment, a self-help script aims to lift the evening from merely diverting to inspirationalAt the weekend, we went to the Big Apple Circus, and let me tell you those places have changed. Instead of a sad elephant chained up outside the Big Top – standard in my childhood, unthinkable today – there is “Diana Vedyashkina and her adorable dachshunds!” Creepy clowns are out; Jim Carrey-type stuntmen are in. The ringmaster is called Alan and delivers a long speech about realising one’s dreams and the tightrope artist brings on his 70-year-old mother, who, he informs us, has just had a hip replacement, and has her do a quick turn on the wire. It is an extremely satisfying night out. Continue reading...
They were invented so surfers and swimmers could get undressed without flashing. So why are Dryrobes – half-towel, half-jacket – taking over our high streets?During the spring lockdown in 2020, Christopher Sloman was walking down a street in Hove when he saw what looked like a green dinosaur looming towards him. The 48-year-old charity shop worker was baffled by the figure in the distance – until he realised it was a woman whose coat was so oversized that her hands (one carrying a phone, the other a coffee) “looked really small,” Sloman says. “I thought: My God, what on earth is that?”“That” turned out to be a Dryrobe – the £160 ankle-length, waterproof robe designed as an outdoor changing robe for surfers in 2010 which has become the go-to piece of kit for any half-serious outdoor swimmer. Continue reading...
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