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Volcanic eruption caused spill, described as the worst ecological disaster to hit country in recent history, at refineries operated by Spanish oil giant RepsolPeru has demanded compensation from the Spanish oil giant Repsol after freak waves from a volcanic eruption near Tonga caused an oil spill described as the worst ecological disaster to hit the South American country in recent history.Peru’s prime minister, Mirtha Vásquez, told journalists on Wednesday that the Pampilla refinery, run by Repsol, “apparently” did not have a contingency plan for an oil spill. Continue reading...

NZ defence minister says dust from volcano eruption is being removed by hand because equipment was damaged or destroyed

Reclaim These Streets raised tens of thousands of pounds to fund judicial review of Met’s decisionWomen’s rights activists argued at the high court on Wednesday that the police’s decision to ban a vigil for Sarah Everard in London was a breach of their human rights.The Metropolitan police were criticised last March after using force to break up the vigil on Clapham Common, close to where Everard, 33, was kidnapped by Wayne Couzens, an officer in an elite Met police firearms unit, before he murdered her. Continue reading...

Boy, who cannot be named because of his age, charged with possessing a terrorist publicationA 14-year-old schoolboy from Darlington has become one of the youngest people in the UK to be convicted of terror charges.The boy, who cannot be named because of his age, appeared before Westminster magistrates court on Tuesday charged with possessing a terrorist publication. Continue reading...

The politician has been reprimanded – this time by the Serpentine swimming club for taking an illicit dip in the London pond

Latest updates: health secretary confirms face mask mandate and working from home guidance will end in England

Hana Horka wanted to prove recovery from Covid so she could obtain a health pass

France’s president hopes to restart four-ways talks between Russia, Germany, France and UkraineThe EU must open its own talks with Russia rather than rely on Washington, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has said as he warned of the prospect of the “most tragic thing of all – war”.In a wide-ranging speech in Strasbourg, Macron said it was not sufficient for the US to negotiate with the Kremlin over its threats to peace but that Europe needed to have its voice heard. Continue reading...

The most expensive show of all time reveals the title of a prequel that’s set to feature 20 different rings of powerThe mystery shrouding Amazon’s new JRR Tolkien adaptation has lifted slightly, as the show has revealed its title. The multi-series epic will be known as Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, setting viewers up for an on-screen representation of a new Middle-earth story.“The Rings of Power unites all the major stories of Middle-earth’s Second Age: the forging of the rings, the rise of the Dark Lord, Sauron, the epic tale of Númenor and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men,” said showrunners, JD Payne and Patrick McKay, in a statement accompanying a video that shows the programme’s title being forged in a blacksmith’s foundry. Continue reading...

Government will also give tax-free bonus of €1,000 to frontline staff in hospitals and nursing homes

After a harrowing escape from the Taliban, Afghanistan’s female politicians are regrouping in Greece to fight for their country. Amie Ferris-Rotman reports on the work of the Afghan women’s parliament in exileIn November, 28 former female MPs from Afghanistan gathered in Greece. They’d fled the Taliban in dramatic fashion, and were now reunited in a community centre run by Melissa Network, a grassroots organisation for female migrants and refugees that played a role in their evacuation.The journalist Amie Ferris-Rotman was there; she tells Nosheen Iqbal about the emotional first meeting of the Afghan women’s parliament in exile in Athens. There, the women – some junior politicians, some elder stateswomen, some from prominent wealthy political families, some from poorer backgrounds – traded stories of their escapes and shared hopes for the country they left behind. Shagufa Noorzai, 22, who had been the youngest member of parliament before the Afghan government fell, says she wants the women left behind in Afghanistan to know they have not been forgotten. Continue reading...

PM says plan B measures will stop on 26 January and compulsory self-isolation for people with Covid on 24 March

Omar is in hiding – concerned about his five daughters, he has applied to move to BritainOmar* worked for a UK-funded cultural programme, working on human rights and cultural projects. He lost his work when the Taliban arrived, and has applied to move to Britain. He has five daughters and is particularly concerned about their welfare.After the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, our lives changed completely because of my work for a British organisation. Although the Taliban said in a statement that they had declared an amnesty for government workers, they have not kept that promise. They are seeking revenge against those who worked with foreign institutions. I’ve heard reports of people being arrested at night and taken to unknown places. Continue reading...

Curators at National Archives showcase a decade of discontent, protest – and the ‘Nightclub Queen’From state surveillance of communists, to all women finally winning the vote, and a peek inside the No 43 Soho nightclub, a new exhibition on the roaring 20s aims to highlight a decade not just of postwar decadence but of huge discontent and social upheaval.Anchored on the recent release of the 1921 census, the free exhibition The 1920s: Beyond the Roar, which opens at the National Archives in Kew this week, covers international peace treaties, textile samples and lonely hearts adverts, alongside a reconstruction of the No 43, run by the “Nightclub Queen”, Kate Meyrick. Continue reading...

I worried that I didn’t fit in and that my uninspiring admin role meant I couldn’t be creative. But my work pal made me feel part of the gangThe office was a strange and alienating terrain for me when I arrived in it at 23. I had dropped out of university years before, expecting something to happen to me that would focus my future and simultaneously bestow a great windfall. It hadn’t. But I was sick of being poor and I had a boyfriend I wanted to play house with. When a temporary admin contract at a medical institution in Dublin came up, I jumped at it.Immediately, I felt overwhelmed, and self-conscious about my stupid little outfits – pastiches of what professional women wear, which I had cobbled together from Topshop sale racks and charity shops. I was prickly, wary of saying the wrong thing, unable to relax. Continue reading...

The singer’s new Caesars Palace concerts are motivated by the search for fulfilment that plays out in her latest album – and will challenge audiences there for a good time to do the sameLas Vegas is a comfortable place to land for pop stars. It’s where you go to bask in the validation of a job well done, to rest on a solid legacy at a point where the future may have become less certain and any tentative steps into it may harm that legacy. It seemed, for a while, a safe harbour for Britney Spears after her troubles (until she said she was made to perform against her will); Lady Gaga and Katy Perry also set up shop in the desert after their imperial phases faded.Adele, whose three-month Caesars Palace residency begins this weekend, has no need for this lucrative safety net – her latest, 30, was the biggest album of 2021 with just six weeks on sale. She’s playing there for practical reasons: she hates touring and wants to be close to her son at home in Los Angeles. But there is also something quietly subversive about her presence, right now, in a place synonymous with light entertainment and celebrating adult milestones. Once known for supplying comfort and artistic consistency (even complacency, perhaps), Adele made one of last year’s most confrontational albums. Continue reading...

In a new exhibition, the long, difficult history of literary maps is explored, from James Joyce to Raymond ChandlerFrom efforts to map Odysseus’s journey to Borges’s commentary on map-making in On Exactitude in Science (where the only sufficient map is in fact as large as the territory it depicts), fictions and maps have long maintained a complicated, entwined relationship. While the right map can uniquely resonate with a literary text, this resonance exists amid an undeniable tension: a concern that the map might demystify or oversimplify a story, at worst imposing a single, reductive viewpoint on something that should be open and unbounded.Exploring this tension, while also charting the ways that the relationship between maps and literature has changed through eras and genres, the Huntington Library’s new exhibit Mapping Fictions brings together literary maps from hundreds of years of literary history. Drawing from the Huntington’s archives of rare literary texts, the exhibition goes back to the early days of modern literature with texts like The Pilgrim’s Progress and Journey to the Center of the Earth (not Jules Verne’s version but rather a 1741 book written by Norwegian writer Ludvig Holberg), continuing up to the contemporary era with mappings of Octavia Butler’s life and works and artist David Lilburn’s 2006 mapping of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Continue reading...

Authorities demolish house in East Jerusalem neighbourhood in early morning raid after standoffIsraeli police have forcibly removed a Palestinian family from their home in Sheikh Jarrah, the flashpoint occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood where the issue of evictions helped trigger a round of fighting between Israel and Hamas last year.Around a dozen police officers arrived at the Salhiya family’s house in the early hours of Wednesday, dragging the 15 occupants outside and then demolishing the structure with a bulldozer. The eviction was the first to be successfully carried out in Sheikh Jarrah in nearly five years. Continue reading...

Abid Khan to appear in court after 18-year-old, who had been last seen at Windsor nightclub, is foundA 21-year-old man has been charged with a stalking offence over the disappearance of a teenager who went missing after leaving a Windsor nightclub.Abid Khan, of Reading, Berkshire, is accused of one count of stalking involving fear of violence and will appear at Reading magistrates court on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Sheffield city council has set up a committee to consider the position of its chief executiveA cross-party committee of councillors is to decide the future of the Sheffield city council chief executive, Kate Josephs, a week after she apologised for having leaving drinks in Whitehall during lockdown.Josephs led the government’s Covid-19 taskforce from July to December 2020. After details of the gathering emerged in the media she released a statement admitting it took place and saying she was “truly sorry”. Continue reading...

The Book of Boba Fett has resurrected the badass bounty hunter, only to destroy everything that once made him so great. It’s a fate worse than being eaten aliveBoba Fett was definitely dead. We all saw it: a partially blinded Han Solo unknowingly whacked him with a stick in Return of the Jedi, his jetpack malfunctioned, and then he fell into the mouth of a massive sand monster. You could tell by the way it swallowed and belched.Yet in The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian spin-off series currently streaming on Disney+, we’re expected to believe that the iconic bounty hunter (now played by Temuera Morrison) actually survived in the acid-filled belly of the sarlacc, having siphoned oxygen from a stormtrooper’s helmet, before burning his way out with the flamethrower on his wrist, then blindly clawing through several metres of sand. Improbable, you might think, but then no one ever really dies in Star Wars. There are action figures and sequels to sell. Continue reading...

A cartoon character smiting imperialist enemies – a dead ringer for President Nicolás Maduro – has inspired acclaim and derisionIs it a bird? Is it a plane? No – it’s a Venezuelan propaganda campaign designed to burnish Nicolás Maduro’s strongman credentials with the help of a caped crusader called SuperBigote – or SuperMoustache.The musclebound cartoon superhero – who bears an unmistakable resemblance to Venezuela’s authoritarian president – has been met with acclaim or derision, depending on which side of the country’s bitter political schism viewers stand. Continue reading...

Organising committee official warns against ‘any behaviour or speech that is against the Olympic spirit’Any athlete behaviour that is against the Olympic spirit or Chinese rules or laws will be subject to “certain punishment”, a Beijing 2022 official has said in response to a question about the possibility of athlete protests at next month’s Winter Games.It comes shortly after human rights advocates told athletes they were better off staying silent for the duration of the Games and amid concerns over the online security of attendees’ data contained in a mandatory phone app. Continue reading...

After the collapse of the Afghan capital, Amina says what followed was worse than she could imagineAmina* used to work for an NGO in Kabul while studying at university. She was forced to flee to Pakistan with her family once the Taliban took over. She remains trapped and fearful for her and her sisters’ future.I currently live in Pakistan with my family. Before I left Afghanistan, I was working as a programme administrator for an NGO and I also studied business at university. When the Taliban took over, I had no certain future. My education was not clear; my school was closed. Continue reading...

After rising to the top of a white-dominated industry, a new generation of Zimbabweans are bringing their talents homeLike many young Zimbabweans before and since, Tinashe Nyamudoka left the economic chaos of his country to find work and a better life for himself in neighbouring South Africa.When he left in 2008, Nyamudoka had never tasted wine. Now, he ranks among southern Africa’s top sommeliers and has his own wine label with international sales. Continue reading...

Dyer won 2021 case forcing former attorney general’s lawyer to stand aside from ABC defamation action, which was later discontinued, because she’d received confidential informationA high-profile advocate of the woman who accused Christian Porter of raping her 30 years ago has been awarded more than $400,000 in costs after the federal court forced the former attorney general’s barrister to stand down during an ABC defamation case.Jo Dyer, a former chief executive of the Sydney writers’ festival, became one of the most prominent advocates of Porter’s deceased accuser after the former attorney general outed himself as the unnamed minister in an ABC story revealing a dossier detailing the rape claim had been circulated to politicians. Continue reading...

The head coach and breakout star of the Netflix hit, Cheer, talks about her high expectations for her cheerleading team, and how she has been affected by claims of child abuse against one of the show’s starsTwo years ago, hardly anyone outside the world of competitive cheerleading would have been familiar with Navarro College, based in the small Texan town of Corsicana, its junior college cheer squad, or its head coach, Monica Aldama. But the global success of Cheer, Netflix’s Emmy-winning docuseries following Aldama and her team’s journey to the national championships in Daytona, changed all of that.Audiences were immediately captivated by the technical skill, athleticism and personal dramas of competitive cheerleading. Cast members became stars, garnering huge social media followings and appearing on the likes of The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Oprah’s live tour. Aldama’s signature blond highlights and no-nonsense “mat talk” were satirised on SNL. Reese Witherspoon even said she inspired her to the point of tears. Continue reading...

Doctor describes ‘very dire’ situation with non-ICU trained nurses working in ICU wards, patients not being fed or showered

On an ordinary trip out in my father’s boat, we began taking in water. For once my mother could not comfort me and it felt as if life’s invisible chaos had become clear

The Spanish festival of Las Luminarias has been held for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic Continue reading...

A budding industry that aims to catch zooplankton for health supplements and fish food has scientists fearing that its effects on marine ecosystems could be devastating• ‘It’s mind-boggling’: the hidden cost of our obsession with fish oil pillsA few times a day, off the Faroe Islands’ coast, the crew of the Jákup Sverri marine survey ship test the water, measuring its salinity, temperature and oxygen at different sea depths. But they also look for something else.Durita Sørensen, a laboratory technician, holds up the contents of a special net to demonstrate. If the water is greenish, it contains a lot of phytoplankton, the plants at the base of the oceanic food chain. But if it is red or brown, as in Sørensen’s net, the haul is one rung higher up the ladder: zooplankton. “This is calanus, or Calanus finmarchicus,” she says, indicating the tiny red creatures. “This is what they are interested in making fish oil [from] as a food supplement for humans.” Continue reading...

Four arrests of cult-like criminal gang members made in southern Italy after Nigerian woman forced into prostitution comes forwardFour alleged members of the Nigerian mafia have been arrested in southern Italy after a young sex trafficking survivor spoke out against them.The men, who were arrested in Palermo and Taranto in the early hours of Tuesday, allegedly belong to the feared Black Axe, a cult-like criminal gang that emerged in the 1970s at the University of Benin, according to police. Continue reading...

With Labour ahead in the polls and the prime minister on the ropes, the former lawyer is riding high. But can he finally connect with the country?There could not be a better day to meet Sir Keir Starmer than last Wednesday. A few hours earlier, at Prime Minister’s Questions, Boris Johnson had apologised for his presence at a Downing Street party held during lockdown in a manner that was as ludicrous as it was humiliating. When the prime minister said that he didn’t realise the 30 to 40 people gathered in his garden boozing and eating food from a long table constituted a party, Starmer told him he had run out of road. “His defence that he didn’t realise he was at a party is so ridiculous that it’s actually offensive to the British public,” Starmer told the Commons. “Is he now going to do the decent thing and resign?” Not surprisingly, partygate has helped Labour to its biggest lead over the Conservatives since 2013.I half expect the leader of the opposition to be on a high. But I am not sure he does highs. Starmer is the anti-Johnson. While the prime minister appears to pride himself on being a feckless buffoon, Starmer is the straight man’s straight man – so solid he verges on stolid. He rises to greet me and offers an elbow by way of a handshake. He is wearing blue trousers and a pristine white shirt, sleeves rolled up. It is a metaphor as much as a sartorial statement. Continue reading...

Tsunami waves reaching up to 15 metres hit remote area that sent distress signalThe Tongan government has raised concerns about the tiny islands of Mango and Fonoifua islands – north-east of the main island of Tongatapu – which both suffered catastrophic damage from the tsunami and volcano eruption on Saturday.The Tongan government reported on Tuesday night that all houses had been destroyed on Mango Island, and only two houses remained on Fonoifua. Continue reading...

A 31-year-old man was arrested in Surry Hills on Tuesday night and faced court on Wednesday after the missing girl’s body was found near the Colo RiverNew South Wales police say they have found the remains of a child in a barrel in bushland near the Colo River that they believe is a nine-year-old girl missing in the Blue Mountains since late last week.The girl, who can no longer be named due to a murder charge being laid, had been holidaying with family at Wildenstein Private Gardens in Mount Wilson west of Sydney before she was reported missing on Friday. Continue reading...

Australia and New Zealand dispatch naval vessels carrying material to help provide temporary shelter and clean drinking water after volcanic eruptionAustralia and New Zealand have started to dispatch aid to Tonga, amid fears that relief workers could bring a “tsunami of Covid” cases to the Pacific Island nation that has so far recorded just one case of the virus.New Zealand has dispatched two naval vessels with relief supplies onboard. Defence minister Peeni Henare said they were expected to arrive in four days, though could arrive as soon as Friday if the weather holds. Continue reading...

Advertising Standards Authority says advert attracted 14 complaints alleging unsafe behaviourAn advert featuring two girls hanging upside down while one eats a Dairylea cheese triangle has been banned following complaints that it could encourage unsafe behaviour.The video-on-demand ad, seen on ITV Hub, All 4 and My 5 in August, shows the girls hanging upside down from the crossbar of a goal at a local park and chatting. One wonders where food goes if you are upside down, and when the other suggests her brain, she opens the cheese snack and eats it. Continue reading...

Authorities have called for calm while announcing the first case of the virulent strain of Covid-19

Edward Leung, who came up with ‘Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times’, has spent four years in prison over 2016 riotsHong Kong activist Edward Leung, who coined the now-banned slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” has been released from prison and placed under strict supervision after spending four years behind bars.The prominent independence activist said in a statement posted on his Facebook page – hours after his reported release at about 3am on Wednesday – that he was back with his family. Continue reading...

US secretary of state Tony Blinken to meet with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov amid fears of Russian attack on UkraineThe US and Russian foreign ministers will hold talks in Geneva on Friday in a development that a US official said suggested that “perhaps diplomacy is not dead” in the efforts to fend off a new Russian attack on Ukraine.With the White House warning that such an attack could come “at any time”, the US secretary of state, Tony Blinken, will fly to Kyiv on Wednesday and Berlin on Thursday to consult with the Ukrainian government and European allies before the meeting the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. It comes as Nato also offered Russia a fresh round of talks. Continue reading...

Measures introduced to fight spread of Omicron could be lifted next week with millions told to return to workplaces

Shortages of at-home tests and long lines at test sites led White House to offer free test kits by mailThe Biden administration on Tuesday quietly launched its website for Americans to request free at-home Covid-19 tests, a day before the site was scheduled to officially go online.The website, CovidTests.gov, now includes a link for Americans to access an order form run by the US Postal Service. Continue reading...

Experienced skier accused of hitting holidaying girl in ski school at excessive speedA French skier who killed a five-year-old British girl after slamming into her at a resort in the Alps has been charged with manslaughter.

City leaders concede ‘trashed Paris’ campaign has a point and commit to beautificationParis city authorities have published a “manifesto for beauty” containing plans to spruce up the City of Lights, where an online campaign highlighting ugliness and filth has piled pressure on mayor Anne Hidalgo.Deputy mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said that several recent initiatives from the Socialist-Green alliance that runs the capital would be scrapped, including allowing Parisians to plant their own gardens on public space. Continue reading...

Beijing faces a demographic timebomb, with population growth at its lowest for six decades“Of all things in the world, people are the most precious,” Mao Zedong said soon after taking power, believing China needed more soldiers and workers. The advent of peace saw the population rocket from 540 million to 969 million over the next three decades. Authorities abruptly switched to curbing births and brutally implementing the “one-child” policy.These days, most Chinese couples are curtailing their families – or going without – by choice. The population now stands at 1.4 billion; a sixth of the global total. But last year’s birthrate was the lowest since 1949, and the rate of population growth the lowest since the Great Famine six decades ago. The pandemic has seen dramatic drops in births in many places. But in China, the shift is part of a pronounced long-term trend. Several experts believe that last year marked the population peak. Continue reading...

Far-right mass murderer has served 10 years of a 21-year sentence for 2011 shootingsAnders Breivik, the Norwegian far-right mass murderer behind the country’s worst peacetime massacre, has appeared in court asking to be released on parole after serving 10 years in prison in near isolation for killing 77 people in a double bomb and gun attack in 2011.Breivik – who legally changed his name to Fjotolf Hansen in 2017 – attacked the country’s government quarter in Oslo with a van bomb before heading to a youth camp being held by the country’s Labour party on the island of Utøya where he killed 69 people, most of them teenagers, in a gun attack. Continue reading...

Virginia Giuffre’s lawyers seek her statement to counter the royal’s insistence he has never met their client or visited the clubA woman who may have seen Prince Andrew with Virginia Giuffre at a London nightclub 20 years ago is “willing” to provide testimony in Giuffre’s civil lawsuit against the royal, whom she accuses of sexual abuse, the witness’s lawyer said.“I am proud to represent Shukri Walker, who has bravely stepped forward as a witness and encourages others who may have information to do so as well,” the lawyer Lisa Bloom said in an email. Continue reading...

Ian Stewart, who was convicted in 2016 of murdering Helen Bailey, is charged with murdering Diane Stewart in 2010The killer of the children’s author Helen Bailey in 2016 has gone on trial charged with murdering his wife six years earlier in an incident he claimed was an epileptic fit.Ian Stewart, 61, is charged with the murder of Diane Stewart, who died at their Cambridgeshire home in June 2010. Continue reading...

Conservative wins broad support despite anti-abortion views as she pledges to back views taken by parliamentA conservative Maltese lawyer who opposes abortion has been elected president of the European parliament, the first woman in 20 years to lead the assembly.Roberta Metsola, who is celebrating her 43rd birthday on Tuesday, is the youngest-ever president of the European parliament, winning a comfortable majority to serve a two-and-a-half-year term. Continue reading...