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The majority of Australians support a position which is the polar opposite to the government’s current tub-thumping on national security

Prime minister Scott Morrison says Australia makes ‘no apology’ for location of surveillance plane

Russian deployment follows decision to recognise territories in south-east will be viewed in Ukraine and by other western allies as an occupation

Video released by Ukraine appears to show a column of military vehicles with their headlights on moving in convoy along a road. The officials said it was not possible to tell if the troops belonged to the regular Russian army, or were from Russian-controlled separatist units

Chair of forthcoming strategic review says force must modernise to tackle blockchain-era criminalsA “crisis of confidence in policing” can only be put right through fundamental reform or risk the end of policing by consent, the head of a review of the police service will warn on Tuesday.Sir Michael Barber, the chair of the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales, will say that a “Betamax police force” is unsuccessfully pursuing “blockchain-enabled criminals” as he urges modernisation of crime-fighting technology and new training for officers. Continue reading...

Liz Truss announces move after Vladimir Putin backs independence for breakaway states and sends troops into Ukrainian territoryThe UK will announce new sanctions on Russia on Tuesday “in response to their breach of international law and attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said.It comes as the Ukraine crisis intensified after Vladimir Putin said he would recognise two breakaway republics. The Russian president later announced he was ordering troops to the region on a “peacekeeping mission”. Continue reading...

EU and UK prepare similar moves amid alarm over Russian president’s warnings of further actionVladimir Putin’s declaration that Russia will recognise the independence of the breakaway regions of eastern Europe was greeted in the US and Europe with dismay and threats of sanctions.There was also alarm at Putin’s warnings of further action against Ukraine as a whole, questioning the country’s legitimacy and suggesting it presented a direct threat to Russia. Continue reading...

Russian president has recognised Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk as independent states

Vladimir Putin has said Russia will recognise the independence of two territories of eastern Ukraine, the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). Following a televised address aired on the country’s state-run news channel, Putin joined the leaders of the LPR and DPR to sign a decree recognising the independence of the two territories

Bellingcat founder Elliot Higgins says Russia’s propaganda films have got worse but that Russian viewers, especially the older generation, tend to believe fake TV footage

Analysis: cabinet colleagues horrified over wrangling between Rishi Sunak and Sajid JavidCabinet ministers were already waiting in No 10 on Monday morning when it became clear the sign-off for the prime minister’s much-anticipated end to Covid regulations was not going to be as perfunctory as they had imagined.A festering row between Rishi Sunak’s Treasury and Sajid Javid’s health department was responsible, first reported by the Guardian last week and still unresolved. Continue reading...

Tuesday: Sydney’s trains to return with limited services amid ongoing industrial action dispute. Plus: machetes and divvy vans at Painters and Dockers’ worst gigGood morning. Sydney residents can expect more train troubles today, with limited services to resume after Monday’s shutdown as the dispute between the rail union and the NSW government continues.More strikes are “inevitable” this year if the NSW government refuses to scrap its 2.5% wages cap, say unions after rail chaos hit Sydney. A long-running industrial dispute between the Rail, Tram and Bus Union and NSW government saw staff across the state’s transport network “locked out” and train services ground to a halt on Monday. The transport union has accused the NSW government of playing politics with commuters, and the state government has ramped up its anti-union rhetoric, with the NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet, describing the action as a “coordinated attack by the Labor party and the union movement”. The NSW transport minister, David Elliott, liked it to “terrorist-like activity”, then accused RTBU of acting like “cowards”, spreading “bullshit” and “hijacking the city”. Continue reading...

The claim, made on Monday, is understood to be based on western intelligenceBritain believes there are figures within Russian military and security services who have “serious doubts” about invading Ukraine as the Kremlin continues to move more troops within 50km of the border.The claim, made on Monday, is understood to be based on western intelligence, although the concerns that exist are not expected to have any initial impact if President Vladimir Putin were to order an attack. Continue reading...

Josh Wardle’s viral puzzle game has inspired a horde of imitators, based on anything from geography to Taylor Swift fandomFirst Wordle was a grassroots hit that went viral, then the the online word puzzle was bought by the New York Times for a seven-figure sum, and now it has spawned legions of imitators.From Nerdle to Worldle, the simple format has been copied in dozens of new ways in recent weeks, sometimes to satisfy urges unfulfilled by the original, such as the opportunity to play more than once a day, but also to step up the challenge, profit from online advertising, or tap in to niche interests. Continue reading...

Peabody housing association received 40 to 50 complaints as ‘horrendous smell’ emerged from flatNeighbours of a flat in which the body of a 61-year-old woman was found dead have claimed they first raised concerns about her welfare more than two years ago.Police officers forced entry to the property in south-east London on Friday after residents reportedly sounded the alarm over a balcony door banging open and shut as Storm Eunice battered the capital. Continue reading...

The west is more united than it has been since the cold war – but the future of Ukraine hangs in the balance“I think Putin will invest Kyiv,” the Nato general told me. For a moment, I thought I had misheard. Then I realised he was using the verb “invest” in the old military sense of surrounding a city without actually occupying it. That single word measures how far we have gone backwards in Europe over the last 15 years: from a world where invest means investing money in a place – to a world where invest means besieging it with an army.Russian president Vladimir Putin declared his personal war on the west 15 years ago, in his 2007 speech to the Munich security conference. At this year’s conference, from which I have just returned, everyone was struggling to understand how we have come to the verge of what might be the largest war in Europe since 1945 – and whether we can still prevent it. For all the last-minute diplomacy, Russia continues to advance towards major military action. Its propaganda claim of a Ukrainian attack across its border and a theatrically televised evacuation of women and children from the separatist para-statelets of Donetsk and Luhansk are obviously designed to provide a fraudulent justification for Russian aggression. At this time of writing, we don’t know exactly what form the next aggression will take, but as German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the other day, Russia already has a noose around the neck of Ukraine.Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Latest updates: Germany hopes protein-based vaccine comparable to flu jabs will help sway people sceptical of mRNA vaccines

UK monarch tested positive for Covid, which is manifesting in ‘mild cold-like symptoms’

Leaked letter from US ambassador to UN warns of ‘human rights catastrophe’ in event of invasion

One in three Australians found to be less likely to vote for Morrison government due to level of public hospital resourcing

Row breaks out over Google Maps definition as UK insists it still maintains sovereigntyWhen you are searching online for some of the remotest islands on the planet, it helps to get the name right. But a row has broken out over the labelling of the Chagos Islands on Google maps.The UK maintains that it still holds sovereignty over what it terms British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) – one of the smallest of red dots on the traditional cartographic globe. Continue reading...

Military, which seized power in February 2021, seeks to throw out UN case alleging it committed genocideMyanmar’s military junta has appeared in place of the detained Aung San Suu Kyi at the UN’s top court, where it sought to throw out a case alleging that it committed genocide against the country’s Rohingya minority.The decision to allow the junta to represent the country in court, after it seized power in a coup last year, was strongly criticised by advocacy groups and a former UN special rapporteur, who warned that it risked delaying justice. Continue reading...

Storm Franklin and its high winds and heavy rain have brought widespread flooding, power cuts and travel chaos to many areas of the UK. There was severe flooding in parts of Northern Ireland, and more than 150 flood warnings are in place across England and Wales, with Yorkshire and the Peak District among the worst hit. It comes only days after Storm Eunice killed at least four people and left around 1.4m homes without power

How many exposés will it take for Switzerland and other countries to change their laws on banking secrecy?

The removal of NSW’s 2.5% public service wage cap has taken on a new urgency for unions, leaving government spoiling for a fight

Britons have been warned to brace for strengthening winds and lashing rain as Storm Franklin moved in overnight, just days after Storm Eunice destroyed buildings and left 1.4m homes without power Continue reading...

Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China says reporters tailed and manhandled by security despite assurances from Games officialsReporting conditions for journalists covering the Beijing Winter Olympics fell short of international standards despite assurances from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCCC) of China has said.The club said it was “dismayed” that at a time when global attention was trained on China more than ever the government and Olympic officials still failed to uphold their own rules on accredited foreign media. Instead “government interference occurred regularly during the Games”, both inside and outside venues, when journalists tried to interview athletes and local residents. Continue reading...

Woman hit by stray bullet during wild boar hunt sparks row over stricter regulations before presidential electionThe accidental killing of a hiker by a teenager who was hunting wild boar has rekindled a bitter debate over stricter regulations of France’s hunting tradition before the presidential election in April.The 25-year-old woman was walking with a friend along a marked trail near Aurillac in the heavily forested Cantal region when she was hit by a stray bullet on Saturday. She died instantly. Continue reading...

Government sets deadline for 135,000 teachers to end pay strike, ignoring court order, after year of school closures due to CovidThe classrooms of Kambuzuma high school are deserted, with no staff to be seen and Tanaka Mupasiri*, 16, and his friends are milling around the school yard. It is 9am on a Thursday, normally a time when the school, in a high-density suburb or township on the outskirts of Harare, would be a hive of studious activity but Zimbabwe’s national teachers’ strike has thrown the education system into crisis.Teachers in state schools have not been at work since 7 February and face a government deadline of Tuesday to return or lose their jobs. Continue reading...

Flemish work taken by notorious art thief ‘Erik the Belgian’ tracked down by officer doing academic research on art theftsSpanish police have recovered the final piece of a 17th-century tapestry that was stolen 42 years ago by a notorious art thief.The 4-metre by 6.5-metre tapestry, known as La apoteosis de las artes (The Apotheosis of the Arts), was one of six Flemish tapestries taken from the church of Santo Domingo in the town of Castrojeriz in northern Spain, in the early hours of 7 November 1980. Continue reading...

Traditional defences may fail, and migration won’t be possible for everyone. But we may yet find more creative ways to live

Poland, Romania and Slovakia make plans, as Poland criticised over unequal treatment of asylum seekers

Cast says drama about Theresa May and Gina Miller is ‘reflection of our times’It feels like a lifetime since Theresa May and Gina Miller were called “bloody difficult women” during Britain’s brutal and laborious war over Brexit.But the legal battle between the political opponents, and its lesson on accountability, are just as relevant today, according to the cast of a new play. Continue reading...

Nancy Yu, AKA Asia One is drawing on the hip-hop movement’s activist roots to help a group of artists and their families escape the TalibanA veteran of the hip-hop scene and internationally celebrated breakdancer, Nancy Yu – AKA Asia One – has her fair share of people contacting her looking for advice. But the message she received in 2019 from a young Afghan was a little different.Frustrated by his breakdancing crew’s inability to get visas to perform internationally, Moshtagh* was wondering if Asia could help. “He felt they were really good, but they felt, like, invisible to the world,” she says. “I liked him. He wasn’t trying to bug me or say ‘we need this right now’ … He seemed rather humble and honest.” Continue reading...

Scott Morrison says countries in the region deserve explanation from Chinese government over ‘dangerous’ use of laser

Do underwater cremation memorials help people regenerate marine habitats in death or are they a ‘greenwashing’ gimmick?Janet Hock is a former dentistry professor who lives in Indianapolis. She is also an avid scuba diver, with a long love of the ocean. “We plod around on Earth, but there’s this whole other world that teems with life – or used to,” she says.So when Hock, 77, updated her will in 2020, she added that she wanted to become part of a coral reef when she died. The unusual request means her cremated remains will be mixed into a perforated concrete dome, known as a reef ball. She will then become part of an artificial reef, having a second life on the seabed. Continue reading...

As he releases the latest fruits of his new megabucks deal with Netflix – an interactive cartoon about a cat – the Black Mirror creator discusses gaming, nuclear war, and why his generation has wrecked the UKCharlie Brooker is sitting at a desk, a big cardboard box in the background, miscellany spilling out of bookshelves. “What you can’t see,” he says, since we’re on Zoom, “is all the shit all over my desk. I’m shambolic.”He got his first gig doing a comic strip when he was 15, for 80 quid a week; he dropped out of Westminster University as the only dissertation he wanted to write was on video games, and scrambled into a career in journalism – “there was no planning, I wasn’t somebody who was out hustling” – via working in a shop and writing video game reviews. He shifted, via Screenwipe, Gameswipe, Newswipe and Weekly Wipe, into screenwriting, and achieved astonishing success with the anthology series Black Mirror. His production company with Annabel Jones, Broke and Bones, has just been bought by Netflix for an unspecified sum; the rumour is that it’s so enormous that, well, I had to get out a calculator to work out what “nine figures” over five years means ($100,000,000). I just can’t wrap my head around why he still has Billy bookcases from Ikea. Continue reading...

EMTV has locked out journalists from its newsrooms in a dispute over reporting of conviction of Australian businessman Jamie PangNineteen journalists from Papua New Guinea’s leading television media company, EMTV, have been suspended following a walk-off protest by staff.The staff walked off the job last week in support of their head of news and current affairs, Sincha Dimara, who was suspended earlier in February for “insubordination” which according to reports consisted of running stories about the arrest of Australian businessman Jamie Pang including criticism of police and criminal procedure in the case. Continue reading...

The trip was hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough at the time but now critics in the US question its wisdomOn a brisk winter day in February 1972, the 34-year-old American diplomat, Winston Lord, arrived in Beijing with his boss, Henry Kissinger, and president Richard Nixon. Barely an hour after they checked in to their guest house, a message came: “Chairman Mao wants to see president Nixon.”The urgency from Mao resonated with the excitement from the American delegation. The establishment of bilateral relations offered great opportunities for both sides in facing a common enemy: the Soviet Union. For more than two decades since the Chinese communists took over the mainland, Beijing and Washington had had no official contact on this scale. Continue reading...

With the stakes rising and an election looming, Beijing’s apparent escalation must be handled firmly but delicately

Three-week occupation over Covid precautions and Trudeau government ends with 76 vehicles towed and 191 arrestsCanadian police on Sunday secured the downtown core of Ottawa with fencing, as city workers cleaned up trash and snow plows cleared streets after two days of tense standoffs and 191 arrests ended a three-week occupation.Demonstrators used hundreds of trucks and vehicles to block the city center since 28 January, prompting the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to invoke rarely used emergency powers. Continue reading...

Francesca Tardioli, 56, was found dead outside her house in Foligno, UmbriaThe Italian ambassador to Australia has died after falling from a balcony in her home town in Foligno in the Umbria region.According to reports, Ambassador Francesca Tardioli, 56, was found dead outside her house after apparently falling from the third floor. The incident is being investigated by the police in Italy. Continue reading...

Some are shunning their third vaccine dose, prompting fears of ‘a double whammy – Covid and flu’ this winter

‘Has the world forgotten its mistakes of the 20th century?’ asks Volodymyr Zelenskiy as invasion looms

Leaders across Northern Irish political spectrum praised ‘passionate’ Stormont assembly memberTributes from across Northern Ireland’s political divide have been paid to Christopher Stalford, a Democratic Unionist party member of the Northern Ireland assembly who has died suddenly at the age of 39.The DUP leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, said he had talked at length on Friday night with Stalford, whom he described as a friend and as someone who had been “born to be a public representative”. Continue reading...

Critics say end of scheme risks billions in overseas investment due to myth that ‘foreign money is dirty money’London lawyers who help the global super-rich apply for “golden visas” to enter the UK have called on the government to reconsider its decision to abolish the Tier 1 investor visa scheme, warning that it would be “enormously damaging” to the economy.Kyra Motley, a partner at the law firm Boodle Hatfield, said the UK was jeopardising billions of pounds in overseas investment “because of a popular myth that foreign money is dirty money”. Continue reading...

Defence minister says troops will stay after end of joint exercises due to ‘escalation of situation’ in Donbas

World sympathy and legal balance shifting to Mauritian claim to islandsStanding in the hospital room where she gave birth to her first child, Rosemonde Bertin looked around in despair. The roof had collapsed, trees grew through the floor and a rusting, enamelled bedpan lay half concealed by ferns.“I had my baby here,” Bertin said. “He was born in 1972.” That was shortly before everyone on Salomon atoll was forcibly deported by the British to Mauritius and Seychelles. Continue reading...

Rescue of lorry driver from ship’s stern raises hopes for 11 remaining missing passengersOne of 12 passengers thought to be missing on an Italian cruise liner off Corfu has been found alive, 53 hours after the ferry burst into flames en route to Brindisi.Rescuers who boarded the stricken ship found the man, a 21-year-old Belarusian lorry driver, on the vessel’s stern, which teams had been attempting to cool down. Temperatures on the Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia had exceeded 600C as firefighters had battled to extinguish fires that had raged since Friday. Continue reading...

Disappearance of the Enlightenment figure had stirred memories of destruction by city’s Nazi occupiers and provoked outrageWhat would the City of Light be without one of its Enlightenment luminaries? For 18 months concerned Parisians have missed a statue of philosopher and historian Voltaire, which disappeared from its plinth in August 2020 during a wave of statue-toppling around the world.Rumours spread that Voltaire – real name François-Marie Arouet – was a victim of “cancel culture”, removed by politically correct City Hall officials because, while he wrote denouncing slavery, he owed part of his fortune to colonial-era trade and has been accused of racism and antisemitism. Continue reading...