Pollsters predict comfortable win for Mia Mottley, but she faces criticism of running a ‘one-party state’She wowed Cop26 by castigating dithering global leaders for inflicting a “death sentence” on island nations and then made headlines around the world when she ditched the Queen as head of state, installing the singer Rihanna as an official national hero.On Wednesday, the Barbados prime minister, Mia Mottley, hopes her soaring international profile will translate into a second term when the country goes to the polls in a snap general election. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Convery (now) and Matilda Boseley (earli on (#5V43T)
Private hospital staff diverted to public system as national medical stockpile activated; Victoria declares ‘code brown’ emergency for hospitals; NSW records 36 deaths and 29,830 new cases. This blog is now closed
by Aubrey Allegretti, Jessica Murray, Steven Morris a on (#5V4E1)
Nicknamed after dog shot in Thorpe affair, plan afoot to oust PM over Downing Street parties scandalRebel Tories are upping pressure on Boris Johnson to quit over the Downing Street parties scandal, with one naming the plan “Operation Rinka” in reference to the dog killed in the Jeremy Thorpe affair in the 1970s.While Downing Street insiders have reportedly devised a plan to sack officials and save Johnson, referred to as “Operation Save Big Dog”, some Tory MPs are stepping up pressure on colleagues to submit letters of no confidence in the prime minister.Join our journalists for a Guardian Live online event on the No 10 lockdown party and Boris Johnson’s future on Wednesday 19 January. Book here Continue reading...
Picasso chose a Mouton Rothschild, Yoko Ono a vintage chianti. But why do artists love doing wine labels – and can they enhance the quaff? Our writer enters a world where labels are so prized, drinkers get them as tattoosHere’s a good pub quiz question: what do David Shrigley, Tracey Emin and, er, Prince Charles have in common? The answer is they’ve all painted works of art you can order in a restaurant. Because while a wine bottle may provide only the slenderest of canvases, that hasn’t stopped some of the biggest names in the world of art from daubing something onto the label’s few square inches.The latest to do so is Olafur Eliasson, the revered Icelandic–Danish environmental artist who created a work for the 2019 vintage of Château Mouton Rothschild – a series of ellipses that form a ring charting the path of the sun in relation to the chateau’s location in Pauillac, south-west France. If you really want to understand the bond between fine art and fine wine, there is no better chateau to start with. Since its first artistic collaboration in 1924, the roll-call of names to grace its bottles is astonishing: Salvador Dalí doodled the winery’s ram emblem for the 1958 vintage, Jeff Koons modified a first-century Roman fresco in 2010 and, four years later, David Hockney provided an empty and full glass. Continue reading...
HRT was first successfully marketed as a ‘cure’ for menopause in the 1940s before a misreported study crashed sales in 2002For centuries the symptoms of menopause were documented, but women went through it with little intervention. It wasn’t until the advent of science as we know it that physicians (all male at the time obviously) started more commonly “treating” its symptoms. It’s clear now they had no idea what they were dealing with, since treatments ranged from the benign (cupping, cold water) to downright mutilation (clitoridectomy, anyone?).Suffice it to say, the history of misogyny in medicine goes way, way back; all founded in the idea of women as inferior, and of menstrual blood as evil and poisonous. Fast-forward to the early 20th century, when it was discovered that oestrogen, in the form of conjugated equine oestrogen – yes, from horses – could be used as a hormone treatment for the symptoms of menopause. In 1942 the first oestrogen product was marketed under the name Premarin. Continue reading...
Regular contact with Tonga may not resume for weeks after confirmation the communications cable was cut in at least one placeA distress signal has been detected in an isolated, low-lying group of Tongan islands after Saturday’s huge volcanic eruption, even as most external communications remain down, and diaspora families anxiously await news.Reuters reports that the UN detected the distress signal on Monday, prompting particular concern for the inhabitants of Fonoi and Mango. According to the Tonga government, 36 people live on Mango and 69 on Fonoi. Continue reading...
Pandemic has caused huge delays in justice system but barristers claim change in England and Wales is ‘distraction politics’Magistrates in England and Wales will be given more sentencing powers in an attempt to tackle the backlog of cases waiting to be dealt with by criminal courts.In the latest effort to reduce both the number of outstanding cases and the pressure faced by crown courts during the coronavirus pandemic, magistrates will be able to hand out jail terms of up to a year – double the current maximum. Continue reading...
Tuesday: Big orders from state and federal governments and large corporates for rapid tests are contributing to a shortage. Plus: how to care for Covid face masksGood morning. Still searching for rapid antigen tests? Orders from big business and governments means less are ending up on the shelves. The extent of the damage in Tonga is becoming clearer. And some tips on how to keep your mask effective.The shortage of rapid antigen tests for consumers is being exacerbated by state and federal governments and large corporates placing mammoth orders for the self-administered test kits, causing stock to be diverted from online retailers and pharmacies. Australia is currently in the midst of a huge Omicron wave after state and federal governments pivoted from a policy of Covid suppression to one of “living with the virus”, causing a surge in demand for rapid antigen testing kits. The federal health minister, Greg Hunt, denied on Monday the commonwealth was requisitioning supplies of rapid antigen tests, as it can do under the Health Act allows. Continue reading...
by Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent on (#5V427)
Journalist Carole Cadwalladr gives evidence as she defends her reporting on multimillionaire Brexit backerThe Observer and Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr has told a court she believes the multimillionaire Brexit backer Arron Banks may have been “used and exploited” by the Russian government, as she defended her reporting.Banks, who funded the pro-Brexit Leave.EU campaign group, is suing Cadwalladr for defamation over two instances in which she said the businessman was lying about his relationship with the Russian state. Continue reading...
Beijing has announced major reforms to address the decline, including raising the retirement age and implementing a three-child policyChina’s population growth rate has fallen to its lowest level in six decades, barely outnumbering deaths in 2021 despite major government efforts to increase population growth and stave off a demographic crisis.Across China, 10.62 million babies were born in 2021, a rate of 7.52 per thousand people, the national bureau of statistics said on Monday. In the same period 10.14 million deaths were recorded, a mortality rate of 7.18 per thousand, producing a population growth rate of just 0.34 per thousand head of population. Continue reading...
by Vikram Dodd and Maya Wolfe-Robinson on (#5V40P)
Malik Faisal Akram from Blackburn was killed by police after taking four hostages in a synagogueA British man who flew to the US, acquired a gun and took hostages at a Texas synagogue had a criminal record and an extensive history of mental health issues, the Guardian understands.Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old from Blackburn, was killed after a tense 11-hour hostage standoff at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in the Dallas suburb of Colleyville on Saturday evening. All four hostages survived the siege and were unharmed. Continue reading...
Michaela Hall, 49, was allegedly stabbed through eye by Lee Kendall, 42, in Mount Hawke, CornwallA former charity worker who worked with released prisoners was stabbed to death by an ex-inmate she had begun a relationship with, a jury has heard.Michaela Hall, 49, was stabbed through the eye by Lee Kendall, 42, in a bedroom of her house in the Cornish village of Mount Hawke, Truro crown court was told. The court heard that Hall, a mother of two, was the victim of a number of assaults before she was killed, but declined to pursue prosecutions against Kendall. Continue reading...
Police Scotland said no criminality had been found after photograph of writer’s address was put onlinePolice will take no action against trans rights activists who posted a photograph of JK Rowling’s home online.The author had contacted police in Scotland in November after the tweet, which showed her Edinburgh house and revealed the address. The image showed activists standing outside the property with placards carrying slogans such as “trans liberation now”. Continue reading...
Analysis: UK reportedly considering sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was involved in controversial scheme with IsraelRwanda – one of two African countries to which the UK government is reportedly considering sending asylum seekers for resettlement and processing – was previously embroiled in a highly controversial migrant deportation scheme involving Israel.Although few details have emerged after a report in the Times that migrants could be sent to Ghana and Rwanda, Rwanda’s previous involvement in receiving African deportees from Israel raises serious concerns over whether – even with UK funding – it has the resources or even willingness to host deportations. Continue reading...
Authorities close organisation after pro-government journalists and police storm its premisesThe future of press freedom in Indian-administered Kashmir has been thrown into question after pro-government journalists and police officers forcibly took over its independent press club, which the authorities later shut down.The incident, which follows the harassment and detention of dozens of journalists in Kashmir in recent months, is the latest attack on independent journalism in the region, which is disputed between India and Pakistan. Continue reading...
Animal shelter operator Angela Glover, 50, from Brighton, died trying to save her dogs, says familyA body has been found after a British woman went missing following a tsunami in Tonga, according to her family.Angela Glover, 50, from Brighton, died after an undersea volcano erupted near the Pacific nation on Saturday, sending large waves crashing across the shore. Continue reading...
by Vincent Ni China affairs correspondent on (#5V3QE)
Tickets will instead by distributed to chosen groups amid first reported locally transmitted cases of OmicronTickets to the Beijing Winter Olympics will not be sold to the general public, but distributed to “targeted” groups, organisers have announced, in China’s latest attempt to control the spread of the highly-infectious Omicron Covid variant.Beijing reported its first locally transmitted Omicron case over the weekend, piling renewed pressure on authorities in the run-up to the Games, which are due to start on 4 February and coincide with the lunar new year celebrations week, typically the biggest travel period of the year. Continue reading...
Negin overcame significant disadvantages to obtain her role but now fears those seeking revengeThe Taliban blighted *Negin’s childhood with their ban on girls’ education, but she overcame the late start to her schooling to become a senior prosecutor. Afghanistan’s legal system was slow and often corrupt, but it offered women some hope of escaping abusers and seeing their tormentors jailed. Now she fears that some of those men, freed in a Taliban-orchestrated mass jailbreak last summer, want revenge.My life was already affected by the Taliban long before they took over Afghanistan this summer. I only started school at 14, because they were in power in the 90s and did not allow girls to study. Once I could go to school, I graduated and went to university.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org. Continue reading...
by Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor and Philip Olter on (#5V3N2)
Annalena Baerbock says Germany will not compromise on ‘basic principles’ ahead of meeting with Russian foreign ministerThe new German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, sought to reassure a nervous Ukraine that she will not allow Germany to compromise on the basic principles of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty when she meets the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, in Moscow for the first time on Tuesday.Baerbock, a member of the Green party, said on a visit to Kyiv she was ready for serious dialogue with Russia about mutual security, but was not willing to backtrack “on basic principles such as territorial inviolability, the free choice of alliances and the renunciation of the threat of violence”. Continue reading...
Her whirlwind relationship with Machine Gun Kelly has seen them wearing vials of each others blood, tattooing their names on one another and arriving at events chained to one anotherFor most people, just a “yes” or “I will”, suffices. Megan Fox went a little further when the musician Machine Gun Kelly asked her to marry her. “Just as in every lifetime before this one,” she posted on Instagram “and as in every lifetime that will follow it, I said yes… And then we drank each other’s blood.”Kelly proposed under the same banyan tree, at the Ritz-Carlton Dorado Beach hotel in Puerto Rico, where the pair met a year earlier. At that time they were filming Midnight in the Switchgrass, a Bruce Willis crime-thriller with an 8% rating on Rottten tomatoes. Continue reading...
A brilliant cast lead this outrageously fun gorefest, which navigates a 90s-to-present-day timeline with laughs, panache – and exploding planesWhat’s not to love about Yellowjackets (Sky Atlantic), a series largely driven by the central mystery of which teenage girl has been eaten, and who ordered the eating? The US horror/thriller/drama, which is also truly a comedy (is it so wrong to laugh at an exploding plane?), has acquired a big following over the course of its first season. It tells the story of a girls’ high-school football team, whose plane crashes while they’re travelling to a national tournament, leaving survivors stranded in the wilderness, having to fight for their lives. Think of it as a hybrid of The Craft and The Island with Bear Grylls, or Lost – with intentional jokes – plus a hint of Big Little Lies, if that had more of an interest in cannibalism than property porn.I can’t remember the last time a TV series offered such unadulterated and outrageous fun. It even manages to navigate one of contemporary television’s most irritating trends, the split timeline, with style and panache. Half of the action takes place in 1996, starting out as a retro teen drama in the run-up to the crash, morphing into a folk-horror gorefest once the girls (and the odd boy or two) are right there in the thick of it. The other half takes place 25 years later, in the present day, as some of the women who made it out alive have to work out who knows what about the terrible things they did while they were stranded, and who is trying to blackmail them about it. Continue reading...
Firouzeh Khosrovani’s autobiographical film shows how the turbulent currents of Iranian life defined her family’s lifeFirouzeh Khosrovani’s autobiographical documentary opens in a grand yet sparely decorated drawing room, painted in white. As an unhurried tracking shot pulls viewers into the strangely still space, a sense of mystery permeates: nearly all the furniture is draped in ivory-coloured cloth. Indeed, the film operates like an act of unveiling. Peering through the hazy gauze of the past, Khosrovani explores her parents’ complex against the shifting tides of Iranian history.On her wedding day, Khosrovani’s mother, Tayi, married with only a photograph of her father, Hossein, present, while he was studying radiology in Switzerland. Having grown up in a religious household in Iran, Tayi was never at ease in Geneva, where she spent the early years of her marriage. When she became pregnant with Firouzeh, she urged a reluctant Hossein to return to Tehran, right on the brink of the Iranian revolution. Continue reading...
Man has reportedly threatened to set himself on fire if removal order in Jerusalem district is carried outIsraeli police are in a standoff with a Palestinian man who carried a gas canister on to the roof of his home in a Jerusalem flashpoint district as his family faced eviction.Israeli media reported that Mohammed Salhiya had threatened to set himself on fire if the eviction order from the Sheikh Jarrah area of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem was carried out. Continue reading...
Marnie Clayton, 18, from Bracknell, last seen leaving Atik in William Street in early hours of SundayPolice are appealing for help to find a teenager last seen leaving a nightclub in Windsor.Marnie Clayton, 18, from Bracknell, left Atik in William Street at about 2am on Sunday, Thames Valley police said. Continue reading...
Book claims to have solved mystery over who gave away family’s hiding place during second world warA Jewish notary has been named by a cold case team led by a former FBI agent as the prime suspect for the betrayal of Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis.Arnold van den Bergh, who died in 1950, has been accused on the basis of six years of research and an anonymous note received by Anne’s father, Otto Frank, after his return to Amsterdam at the end of the war. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington on (#5V3EX)
Investigation finds mobile phones of human rights defenders were hacked multiple timesThe plight of women’s rights campaigners in Bahrain and Jordan is in the spotlight after new revelations that two prominent female activists were hacked multiple times by countries using NSO Group spyware.An investigation by the human rights group Front Line Defenders (FLD) found that the mobile phones of Ebtisam al-Saegh, a Bahraini human rights defender, and Hala Ahed Deeb, who works with human rights and feminist groups in Jordan, had been hacked using NSO’s Pegasus spyware. Continue reading...
Feeling like a fraud is bad enough at work but even more corrosive when it comes to raising a family. How can parents overcome damaging self-doubt?As a mother to three boys, there are many days when I question the decisions I make. Sometimes, the weight of that – the idea your child’s wellbeing and happiness rests with you – can feel crippling. At the same time, we are bombarded by parents publicising their own pride in their offspring’s achievements on Instagram and Facebook and in WhatsApp groups, meaning it’s easy to feel as if everyone else knows what they’re doing.The idea that people sometimes feel like impostors at work is often discussed. Yet the parental impostor syndrome many people have – that they are faking it, and will never cut it as a parent – is seldom acknowledged. Continue reading...
Nasir is stranded in Jalalabad with his family and says he feels let down by the UK Foreign OfficeNasir*, 43, is a British citizen, stuck in Jalalabad with his six-year-old son, also a British citizen, and his wife, who is an Afghan national.I moved to the UK as a refugee in 2000, because I was having a lot of problems with the Taliban, and I had been arrested, so I knew it was time to leave. I claimed asylum in Britain and have lived there for about 21 years. To begin with I worked as a motorcycle mechanic, and then as a pizza delivery driver, and later for Addison Lee and after that as an Uber driver. I’ve been supporting my mum and my sisters in Afghanistan for years, sending money back. I’ve been spending six months in the UK earning money and six months with my family in Afghanistan. Continue reading...
Prosecutor claims Petro Poroshenko was involved in financing of Russian-backed separatists in 2014-15Ukraine’s former president Petro Poroshenko has returned to the country to face court on treason charges he believes are politically motivated.Poroshenko was greeted by several thousand cheering supporters at Kyiv airport, where he arrived on a flight from Warsaw on Monday morning. Some carried banners saying “We need democracy,” and “Stop repressions.” Continue reading...
Zed Seselja says there are no reports of mass casualties but more will be known once assessment flights return to Australia and New ZealandAustralia’s minister for the Pacific, Zed Seselja, says initial reports suggest no mass casualties in Tonga following the eruption of a volcano that triggered a tsunami, but Australian police have visited beaches with significant damage and “houses thrown around”.Australia and New Zealand sent surveillance flights on Monday to assess the damage after Tonga was isolated from the rest of the world when Saturday’s eruption blanketed the Pacific Island with ash. Continue reading...
by Etinosa Yvonne, as told to Lizzy Davies on (#5V3CA)
Etinosa Yvonne recalls a chance encounter with a Fulani woman in northern NigeriaI met this woman in Machina, in Yobe state, when I was on assignment in northern Nigeria 2020. It had taken us seven hours to get there – it’s right on the border with Niger – and it was already late afternoon, early evening.We were waiting for people to come and collect water from a solar-powered water pump when I saw her: this extremely beautiful Fulani woman. I was particularly drawn to the marks on her face. I knew Fulani women always like to look good, but it was really beautiful to see up close. There was a bit of a language barrier as I don’t speak Fula and she didn’t speak English or Hausa, but she agreed to have her photo taken. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Convery and Caitlin Cassidy on (#5V32H)
Victoria close to Covid peak, Brett Sutton says; ‘significant decrease’ in Covid cases predicted in NSW over next month; reports of new eruption detected at Tonga volcano; Australia records more than 73,000 Covid cases nationally with 31 deaths across NSW, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT; more than 5,000 Covid cases in nation’s hospitals. This blog is now closed
Experts on whether getting Covid is inevitable and why, despite claims of ‘mildness’, the variant is highly dangerousLeaders in the US have struck a pessimistic tone about the Covid-19 pandemic in recent weeks amid rapid spread of the Omicron variant.Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, recently testified before Congress that “most people are going to get Covid”. Dr Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to Joe Biden, has also said that Omicron “will ultimately find just about everybody” in terms of exposure, though vaccines make an important difference in who develops the illness. Continue reading...
by Josh Halliday North of England correspondent on (#5V3B6)
After nearly two years of pandemic, 5,000 inpatients and 1,000 deaths, the staff of one of the largest hospitals in north-west England are frustrated and exhausted
In such a conservative country, young women often have to fight their own families first just to play the sport they loveBisma Amjad plays cricket. She aspires to play internationally and was picked for Pakistan’s under-19 World Cup squad.But when the pandemic came, because she was a woman, there was nowhere for her to practise, so she dressed as a man to play alongside male cricketers at “gully cricket” – the street game. Continue reading...
Burns warned use of dialect would alienate London readers in letter that forms part of major project by University of GlasgowScotland’s beloved son and national bard Robert Burns has done more than any other poet to export the 18th-century Scottish dialect around the world, through the new year classic Auld Lang Syne and his other famous works.His lyrics, such as “we twa hae run about the braes/and pou’d the gowans fine”, may be incomprehensible to many, but the fame and influence of a man annually celebrated on 25 January has endured over more than two centuries. Continue reading...
Do not mistake changing polls and rising public anger with anything that will bring meaningful change to BritainAny minute now, no? Surely this is it for Boris Johnson. The party is over. He has managed to get away with it before, but, as someone yelled with relish at prime minister’s questions last week: “Not this time!”The polls do indeed look bad for the first time in a long while, and a more troubling portent for the prime minister is how the “r” word – resignation – has become thrown about not as a far-fetched demand but as a real possibility.Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Their exotic animal show was a Sin City sensation – until one of their white tigers attacked. But why were counter-terrorism police called? New podcast Wild Things tackles an enduring mysteryWhere do you start with a story that involves counter-terrorism police doing background checks on a tiger, has its roots in the mental health problems of Nazi soldiers, and features an investigation into whether a beehive hairdo can be used as a weapon? What’s more, weaving in and out of all of this, there are two German magicians in mullets and shiny suits seemingly capable of floating around in the air, one of whom nearly dies on stage after a white tiger bites clean through his neck.This was the problem facing Emmy-winning film-maker Steven Leckart, who had long felt that the extraordinary story of Siegfried and Roy, whose performances with exotic animals electrified Las Vegas, deserved a proper telling. The result is Wild Things, an eight-part podcast detailing how Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn rose to international stardom with a whole zoo’s worth of performing jungle cats, then had their live career effectively ended when a tiger called Montecore attacked Roy on stage, nearly killing him. Continue reading...
As a child, Tina Leverton dreamed of being a ballet dancer, but her parents couldn’t afford the lessons. Learning to dance decades later has been joyful – and transformed her lifeTina Leverton was 62 when she bought her first pair of ballet shoes. She says slipping her feet into the soft leather was very emotional. “I felt utterly transported. I took a photo of them and sent it to my daughter. I said: ‘I’ve waited a long time for these.’”A few weeks earlier, Leverton had taken the first ballet class of her life, after an advert in a freesheet caught her eye. It showed older women at the barre. “It really evoked a strong memory from when I was a child. I thought: ‘Let’s go for it.’” The class was near Leverton’s home in Mumbles, on the Gower peninsula in south Wales. “As I came in the door, I twirled around,” she says. “Big smile on my face. From the minute I started, it was wonderful. It felt like coming home.” Continue reading...
The legal battle over the painting, in the hands of a Madrid museum, has spanned more than 15 yearsDepicting a rainswept Paris street, the Nazi-looted painting has long hung on the walls of one of Madrid’s top art museums. Its fate is now in the hands of the highest court in the US, in a case that has long pitted the Spanish institution against the heirs of Jewish refugees.At the centre of the US supreme court hearing, set to begin on Tuesday, is an 1897 painting by impressionist Camille Pissarro. For decades the piece – titled Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain – graced the walls of the Cassirer family homes in Berlin and Munich after it was bought directly from Pissarro’s art dealer. Continue reading...
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