Admission follows allegations of snooping on mobile phones of protesters, politicians and criminal suspectsIsrael’s national police force has found evidence pointing to improper use of spyware by its own investigators to snoop on Israeli citizens’ phones.The announcement on Tuesday came two weeks after an Israeli newspaper reported a string of allegations that the police had used the NSO Group’s Pegasus software to surveil protesters, politicians and criminal suspects without authorisation from a judge. Continue reading...
Footage shows plane almost toppling on to its side as its tail appears to make contact with the groundA British Airways jet had a near-miss when the pilot was forced to abort a landing attempt at Heathrow airport as it was buffeted by high winds during Storm Corrie.Footage captured by plane spotters on Monday showed the jet, which had departed from Aberdeen, sway heavily on to its left side as it approached the runway. Continue reading...
In its second season, the hit HBO drama on drugged-out and love-crazed teens has finally tipped into too much style over substanceEuphoria, the slick, explicit, high-budget teen drama halfway through its second season on HBO, has from the start been a soap layered in heady seriousness. The show, adapted by Sam Levinson from an Israeli series of the same name and co-produced by Drake, took on a near encyclopedia of Today’s Teen Issues – sex shaming, drug addiction, body insecurity, web personas, revenge porn, pregnancy and abortion, emotional abuse, toxic masculinity, self-harm and depression, and more – with a bracing, revelatory frankness and thick lacquer of gloss (and full-frontal nudity).By its first season finale in 2019, in which main character Rue (Zendaya, who won an Emmy for the role) nearly dies in a graphic drug overdose, Euphoria had drawn a legion of fans (the finale drew 1.2 million night-of viewers and became HBO’s most second-most tweeted-about series ever, behind Game of Thrones) and managed to balance shock with sensitivity. It established beloved characters – in particular the fragile, alchemical bond between Rue and Jules (Hunter Schafer), a trans character – as well as a distinctive visual palette: saturated color, shimmery beats, high-voltage fantasy, meta narration, a zeitgeist-aiming show with a small hint of irony and a large dollop of excess. Continue reading...
If Boris Johnson is serious about helping Ukraine, the most resolute action he can take is at homeThe prospect of war in our continent is more than enough to avert our gaze from the latest Whitehall troubles.However, a prime minister who has found it so hard to speak the truth throughout his career surprised us all with a hard dose of it when he stood before parliament last week to address the situation in Ukraine, saying: “Ukraine asks for nothing except to be allowed to live in peace and to seek her own alliances, as every sovereign country has a right to do.” It was a sentiment echoed by the leader of the opposition, by my own party’s Westminster group leader, Ian Blackford MP, and by every other SNP MP who responded to the statement.Nicola Sturgeon is first minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National party Continue reading...
Protests against the coup mean hospitals and schools are on the brink of collapse, while workers have left their homes to avoid arrest and interrogation
Israel calls for report to be withdrawn and accuses human rights group of antisemitismAmnesty International has joined other leading human rights groups in stating that Israel’s “system of oppression and domination” over the Palestinians amounts to the international definition of apartheid.The report immediately prompted fury among Israeli politicians who called for it to be withdrawn. Continue reading...
He was the fake medium from Florida whose scandalous cons almost got him shot. So why did M Lamar Keene then blow the whistle on psychic swindlers? A new podcast finds outWhat does it take for someone to impersonate a dead teenager to the grieving mother of the deceased? For M Lamar Keene, a prominent Tampa-based medium in the 1960s and 70s, it was a cinch – all it required was a cocktail of cunning, charisma and sheer audacity. In front of the congregation of his spiritualist church, Keene would enter a trance state and appear to speak as the deceased 17-year-old, Jack, and ask Jack’s mother, Lona, to donate thousands of dollars to the church. One day, Lona asked Jack about the secret name he used for her, to prove it was really him, and Keene was stumped – until he attended a gathering at her house and feigned a headache. While pretending to rest in her bedroom, he searched her belongings and found the name scribbled in a family Bible: “Appleonia”. He pulled it off.Keene confessed to being a conman in his 1976 book, The Psychic Mafia. Jack and Lona’s was just one of many audacious cases he revealed in the exposé, which shook the world of spiritualism so much that it led to an attempt on his life. Someone took a shot at him on his lawn but missed, leaving a bullet in the side of his house. In the book, Keene described how mediums shared client information so that they could conduct “hot readings” based on solid facts. He recounted how they would steal jewellery from clients for a few months, only to pretend a dead family member’s spirit had made it reappear (which usually resulted in generous tips). Ultimately, he confirmed that mediums formed a vast network to fraudulently monetise people’s grief. So why did Keene – the so-called Prince of the Spiritualists – choose to blow the whistle on everyone? Continue reading...
China has been repressing minorities and targeting dissenters but anyone who chooses to speak out faces the threat of reprisal from a hostile regimeZumretay Arkin is remembering the day she thought she might change the International Olympic Committee’s mind. It was October 2020, and human rights groups, representing Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans, and the democracy movement in Hong Kong, were granted a meeting with senior IOC figures to discuss their concerns about the Winter Olympics in Beijing.“I explained how millions of Uyghurs are being arbitrarily detained in concentration camps,” she says. “The IOC was told survivors’ stories of rapes and torture, forced sterilisation and repression. And about families who have not heard from relatives for years. Continue reading...
With confidence in public health system high, 95% of kids aged 2-18 are fully vaccinated and Omicron infection rates are lowThe Swedes have rejected it, Dr Fauci says the US may soon approve it, the Chinese have started, but the Cubans have already vaccinated almost all young children against Covid.The island is the only country vaccinating toddlers as young as two against the disease, and more than 95% of two- to 18-year-olds have now been fully vaccinated, according to the ministry of public health. Continue reading...
Debate over treatment of people with mental illness revived as authorities launch investigationA video of a woman apparently locked against her will in a filthy shack has gone viral in China, prompting an investigation as well as a conversation about the country’s treatment of people with mental illness.The footage, taken on 26 January, was posted to the video-sharing site Douyin the following day by a man who was shocked to find the woman locked in the rubbish-filled building in a village in Jiangsu province in the east of the country. Continue reading...
The Danish synth star was nearly broken by years of gruelling tours and stepped back from the business. But now, she says, the planets are aligning for her againNO!” cries MØ in mock defeat, clutching the purple beret she was crocheting before our conversation, hook and half-constructed hat held to heart. I have just told her that Mercury retrograde is set to fall this week: a celestial event believed to throw certain star signs into flux. MØ, a Leo and Gemini rising sign, is among those potentially affected by this planetary shift. I assure her that it’s actually good given her circumstances: it’s supposed to facilitate new beginnings. Fitting, as she is on the cusp of releasing her make-or-break third album Motordrome.MØ is in London to shoot a music video for the aptly titled New Moon. It’s the central banger on the album, which articulates the past two years spent taking back control of her life and work. “I was super burnt-out at the beginning of 2019,” the Danish singer says. “I was having panic attacks. My voice was broken. Everything was spinning.” Continue reading...
by Mostafa Rachwani and Matilda Boseley on (#5VMJS)
Scott Morrison announces packages for aged care and NDIS as anti-vaccine protesters mass outside the National Press Club; 77 Covid deaths recorded across NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. This blog is now closed
by Josh Halliday North of England correspondent on (#5VMZ3)
Questions of fairness and trust linger for constituents in Tonge Fold, in the most marginal of Tory-won red wall seatsWhen Boris Johnson addressed MPs an hour after the release of Sue Gray’s redacted report, he will have hoped his apology would travel far beyond the Commons chamber and reached places like Tonge Fold, on the outskirts of Bolton.But the immediate reaction suggests the prime minister might be in trouble. “It’s just extremely disappointing and very frustrating. There’s no other words for it,” said Adele Warren, a Conservative councillor, after watching Johnson’s Commons statement with some of her party colleagues. Continue reading...
He escaped death, fled across the Baltic, and eventually found love and a new life. Jonas Poher Rasmussen describes how he turned Amin’s often harrowing story into an uplifting, award-winning animationWhen the Danish film-maker Jonas Poher Rasmussen was 15, an Afghan refugee moved to his small village. Rumours circulated about how the boy, Amin, had got there. Some said he had walked all the way from Kabul, others that he had seen his whole family slaughtered. Rasmussen became the newcomer’s friend and confidant – Amin even came out to him as gay when they were teenagers – and their closeness endured into adulthood. When they both suffered bad break-ups in their 20s, for instance, Rasmussen went to stay with Amin; they refer to that period now as “the heartbreak summer”. He still didn’t know the truth about how his friend came to Denmark, though, so he did what any documentarist might do: he proposed making a film about him. Amin refused to reveal his identity on screen – but what if the film were animated?The result is Flee, which alternates between scenes of Rasmussen interviewing his friend, dramatisations of Amin’s perilous journey to Copenhagen via Moscow, and present-day interludes showing him househunting with his boyfriend in which the concept of settling down presents unique challenges for someone who has spent his life running. Aside from the occasional excerpt of archive footage – the war-scarred streets of Kabul, the unruly waves seen from a boat smuggling people across the Baltic – every frame of the movie is animated, most of it in a simple, straightforwardly realistic fashion that matches Amin’s narration. Continue reading...
Figures represent first time abuse allegations against the church in New Zealand have been collated in one placeNew Zealand’s Catholic church has admitted that 14% of its diocesan clergy have been accused of abusing children and adults since 1950.The church released the figures at the request of the royal commission on abuse in care, set up in 2018 by prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who said the country needed to confront “a dark chapter” in its history, and later expanded it to include churches and other faith-based institutions. Continue reading...
Antony Blinken pressed to investigate West Bank death of 78-year-old who was handcuffed, gagged and left by soldiers last monthIsrael’s military has said it is dismissing two officers and would reprimand a battalion commander over the death of a Palestinian-American at a West Bank checkpoint after he was stopped by Israeli troops.The death of Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad, who had lived in Milwaukee before retiring to his native village of Jiljilya, resulted from “a moral failure and poor decision-making”, it added. Continue reading...
Roberto Toledo was shot dead by three gunmen in a carpark in Zitácuaro, where he reported for a local news outletJournalists in Mexico have responded with fury and despair at the murder of a fourth reporter in the country this year, cementing its reputation as the world’s most murderous country for media workers.Roberto Toledo was shot dead by three gunmen on Monday afternoon in a carpark in the city of Zitácuaro, where he reported for a local news outlet, Monitor Michoacán. Zitácuaro is best known for the nearby monarch butterfly reserves, but the region is rife with violence as drug cartels and criminal groups fight to control illegal logging. Continue reading...
Effortlessly chic, completely unexpected and with a knowing wink, music’s perennially best-dressed couple reinvent genreThe glossy, posed, era of celebrity pregnancy announcement photo in effect ended last September when Gen Z’s imp prince Lil Nas X expertly parodied the genre with a People magazine exclusive in which Nas posed with a baby bump to announce the release of his debut album Montero.Leave it to music’s perennially best-dressed couple, Bajan superstar Rihanna and her boyfriend, rapper A$AP Rocky, to reinvent the genre; “papped” by the fashion-friendly photographer Miles Diggs; walking the streets of Harlem, where Rocky grew up, in a snowstorm wearing a hot pink archive Chanel coat fastened with a single button and a Christian Lacroix necklace draped over her bare stomach, in what can only be described as the most Rihanna way to let the world know she is expecting a baby. Continue reading...
by Helen Pidd, North of England editor, and Josh Hall on (#5VKT3)
Thousands of homes still without power, transport severely affected and some schools to remain closed on Tuesday after back-to-back stormsThousands of people are facing another night without power in Scotland and north-east England after two storms battered parts of the UK.Some schools in Scotland will remain closed on Tuesday after winds of up to 92mph were recorded in northern parts of the UK over the weekend as the storms Malik and Corrie hurtled in from the Atlantic. Continue reading...
Foreign secretary echoes US plans for sanctions on Russian elite but offers no new curbs on money laundering in UKLiz Truss, the British foreign secretary, has said Russian oligarchs and key supporters of Vladimir Putin will be targeted by UK sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine, but left Britain’s existing much-criticised anti-corruption laws largely untouched.Insisting that the Russian president’s allies would have nowhere to hide their assets if an invasion went ahead, the Foreign Office, clearly working in lockstep with the US, threatened to seize the wealth of Putin’s inner political circle and business backers. Continue reading...
by Beatriz Ramalho da Silva in Lisbon and Sam Jones i on (#5VMCK)
Ruling Socialist party wins absolute majority in snap election, as populist anti-Roma party also increases sharePortugal’s ruling Socialists are preparing for a third consecutive term after winning a surprise absolute majority in a snap general election that confounded predictions, pundits and pollsters and saw the far-right become the third-largest group in parliament.The prime minister, António Costa, has pledged to use his unexpectedly large mandate to bring in reforms and investments that will make Portugal “more prosperous, fairer, and more innovative”. Continue reading...
Manchester United footballer was arrested on Saturday after a woman made claims on social mediaPolice have been given extra time to question the Manchester United footballer Mason Greenwood on suspicion of rape and sexual assault.The 20-year-old was arrested on Sunday afternoon after a woman posted images, a video and audio online alleging he had assaulted her. Continue reading...
France requires wet signatures on post-Brexit paperwork even though much is produced digitally, says BCCDemands by French customs officials over the type of signature they will accept on post-Brexit paperwork has been blamed by UK business leaders for causing long queues of lorries on approach roads to Dover.Two year after Boris Johnson smiled for the cameras, fountain pen in hand over the EU withdrawal agreement, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said a minor disagreement over signatures on customs paperwork had arisen between Britain and France. Continue reading...
War photographer David Douglas Duncan rang bell of artist’s home one day, leading to 17-year friendshipOne hundred photographs chronicling the private world of Pablo Picasso up to and after his death in 1973 at the age of 91 have been donated to the Musée de l’Élysée in Switzerland.The pictures are a sample of 25,000 taken of the artist by David Douglas Duncan, an American war photographer who first met Picasso in Cannes in 1956. Continue reading...
The west must stop dithering and reaffirm that all European states – including Ukraine – should be independent and freeAs Russian troops mass on the frontiers of Ukraine, threatening the largest war in Europe since 1945, the whole world is trying to guess Vladimir Putin’s intentions. But the strategic question the democracies of Europe and North America need to ask is: what are our intentions?Putin’s long-term goal in eastern Europe is, in fact, perfectly clear. He wants to restore as much as possible of the empire, great power status and sphere of influence that Russia lost so dramatically 30 years ago, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union in December 1991. It is only his tactics that keep us guessing. Since 2008, when he secured two secessionist chunks of Georgia by force, and most certainly since his seizure of Crimea in 2014, it has been evident that he is ready to use any and all means, from diplomacy and disinformation to cyber-attacks and outright war.Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnistGuardian Newsroom: Will Russia invade Ukraine? Join Mark Rice-Oxley, Andrew Roth, Luke Harding, Nataliya Gumenyuk and Orysia Lutsevych discussing the developments with Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday 8 February, 8pm GMT | 9pm CET. Book tickets here Continue reading...
Law allows 65,000 federal workers to make themselves unavailable outside normal working hoursBelgian civil servants will no longer need to answer emails or phone calls out of hours after the country became the latest in Europe to offer workers the right to disconnect.The law, which comes into effect on Tuesday, means 65,000 federal officials are able to make themselves unavailable at the end of the normal working day unless there are “exceptional” reasons for not doing so. Continue reading...
Cypriot supreme court throws out case, acknowledging 21-year-old was not given fair trial two years agoA British woman found guilty of fabricating a claim that she was gang-raped in a holiday resort in Cyprus has been vindicated after the island’s supreme court overturned the conviction.Two years after the then teenager received a suspended four-month sentence for fomenting public mischief, the court threw out the case, acknowledging she had not been given a fair trial. Continue reading...
Below is the report into parties and ‘work events’ at Downing Street which are alleged to have broken the UK’s lockdown rules. Compiled by senior civil servant Sue Gray, it finds the social gatherings were ‘difficult to justify’ and highlights failures of leadership. It was published after the Met police asked for it to make ‘minimal reference’ to matters it is investigating
A mother and her daughters hole up in a Victorian conservatory, hiding from a devastating pandemic that lays waste to human memoryShot in a Victorian hothouse in South Africa with a mixed cast of local actors and the odd imported Brit – including Jessica Alexander, soon be seen in Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid – this tense dystopian horror-thriller feels geographically non-specific, almost as if it were taking place in some kind of dream world. That touch of hazy vagueness is just right for SA director and co-writer Kelsey Egan’s cracking feature debut (co-written with Emma Lungiswa De Wet) which imagines a family of survivors hiding out in the title’s botanical conservatory after a pandemic has ravaged most of the world’s population.The invisible threat here is an airborne virus called “the shred” which wipes out memories and leaves its victims in a bestial state, unable to remember even their own names. A matriarchal woman known only as Mother (Adrienne Pearce) guides her three female progeny – cautious Evie (Anja Taljaard), dreamy Bee (Alexander) and adolescent Daisy (Kitty Harris), alongside shred-infected brother Gabe (Brent Vermeulen) – by teaching them how to garden (they have to pollinate the plants themselves because the bees are all gone), to read, paint, and pass on the stories of the Before Times. Continue reading...
Simply going without meat and dairy isn’t going to cut it if you still turn to ultra-processed foodsDid you change what you ate or drank for January? The start of the year is an annual cue for a Pandora’s box of diet demons to be released; from meal replacements and super-keto diets to slimming teas. Alongside these trends live the regular and more ethical health-conscious messages of dry January and Veganuary, both of which have grown in popularity and have a much cleaner public image. Despite that, they are still not perfect. So this year I’d like to propose another idea that hopefully has longer staying power: call it the “real food revolution”.The premise of Veganuary is simple: use the pivotal month of January to make a big change to your diet, your health and the planet’s health by cutting out animal products. Veganuary is a not-for-profit charitable company that provides recipes and motivational emails to help you give up meat and dairy products for just one month, with, ideally, positive effects on your waistline and your carbon footprint. Overall, they do a great job, and there is plenty of evidence to support the efficacy of reducing animal-based foods for our health and our planet’s survival. We now know that agriculture is responsible for about 25% of global heating and the single most important action we as individuals can do to help address the climate crisis is not to give up cars, but to eat less meat. Continue reading...
Thousands held a loud but peaceful protest in Canada’s capital, Ottawa, against prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Covid-19 vaccine mandates, on the streets and snow-covered lawn in front of parliament. The so-called Freedom Convoy started out as a rally of truckers against a vaccine requirement for cross-border drivers, but turned into a demonstration against government overreach during the pandemic, with a strong anti-vaccination streak
My friend Peter Greaves, who has died aged 89, was a health and nutrition officer for Unicef whose work made a huge difference to children’s lives around the world. He was an early advocate of low-cost interventions including immunisation, oral rehydration and breastfeeding.While he was Unicef’s chief nutrition adviser in the mid-1980s, he managed to get Unicef and the World Health Organization to agree on the final draft of The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. This document helped transform global maternal care policies. Continue reading...
A distressing neurological condition has afflicted dozens in New Brunswick – so why has the investigation slowed down?For more than two years, dozens of people in the Canadian province of New Brunswick have suffered from a distressing array of neurological symptoms, prompting speculation that they had fallen victim to an unknown degenerative illness.Provincial authorities are soon expected to release a report examining whether the cases are linked, or simply the result of misdiagnosis and clinical error. But as the public awaits the findings, those enduring the extreme symptoms say they’ve been left to suffer alone. Continue reading...
Move will tighten security on passenger vessels, which are unguarded and seen as vulnerableArmed counter-terrorism officers will be deployed on British cross-Channel ferries for the first time this summer, though government sources said there was no specific threat to passenger vessels.Firearms police from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) are to be posted on ferries out of Dover, as well as on passenger ships between Newcastle and the Netherlands. Continue reading...
We would like to hear from those who have been without power and have been affected by storm damageAs Storm Carrie approaches with winds of up to 90mph, thousands of homes in Scotland and north-east England are still without power after being affected by Storm Malik. The areas mainly include Northumberland, County Durham and rural Aberdeenshire.If you have been affected by Storm Malik, we would like to hear from you. We are also interested in hearing from those who are still without power. Continue reading...
by Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor on (#5VKSX)
Bill Browder says hitting Russian president’s finances is most effective way to halt invasion of UkraineThe anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder has called on Britain to target Russian oligarchs close to president Vladimir Putin with economic sanctions to halt any invasion of Ukraine when new legislation is unveiled on Monday.The US-born financier believes the most effective means of getting the Russian president’s attention is to target his finances and the finances of those closest to him, and that there should be no need for the UK to wait and see if a war ensues. Continue reading...
Seen as Putin’s closest EU ally, his meeting with Russian president will be watched nervously in Europe’s capitalsHungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, will travel to Moscow on Tuesday in a visit that has drawn criticism from the country’s political opposition and is being watched nervously in other European capitals.Orbán, who has developed a reputation as Vladimir Putin’s closest ally inside the European Union, is due to meet the Russian president just as other EU leaders are trying to hash out a coordinated position on Russia’s menacing moves around Ukraine’s borders. Continue reading...
by Josh Taylor (now) and Matilda Boseley (earlier) on (#5VKC8)
CMO plays down risk from new Omicron subvariant; Victoria records eight Covid deaths and 10,053 new cases; NSW records 27 deaths and 13,026 cases; Qld records three deaths and 7,462 cases; SA records six deaths and 1,505 cases; ACT records 537 cases, Tasmania 504, WA 22; protesters in Canberra want all politicians ‘sacked’. Follow updates live
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