Death threat follow arrest in Russia of mother of exiled anti-torture lawyer Abubakar YangulbayevA Chechen politician has threatened to “rip the heads off” the family of an anti-torture activist whose mother was arrested and forcibly returned to the tightly controlled republic.Zarema Musayeva, the mother of Abubakar Yangulbayev, an exiled former lawyer for the Committee Against Torture, was detained by Chechen forces in mid-January in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod. Continue reading...
Central section of Koningshaven Bridge to be removed to make way for Amazon founder’s $485m superyachtA historic steel bridge in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam is to be partly dismantled to allow a superyacht built for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to pass, local authorities have announced.Bezos’s gigantic, 430-million-euro ($485m) yacht is too big for the iconic Koningshaven Bridge, which dates from 1878 and was rebuilt after being bombed by the Nazis in 1940 during the second world war. Continue reading...
by Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent on (#5VQB1)
Exclusive: London mayor puts police chief on notice to reform or lose his confidence after seeing ‘return to the bad days of the 1970s’A Metropolitan police officer disciplined after an inquiry into misogynistic and racist messages has since been promoted, the Guardian has learned, as Cressida Dick was warned she could lose the confidence of the mayor of London.Misconduct was proven against the unnamed officer after a watchdog inquiry into messages about hitting and raping women, which were shared by up to 19 officers based mainly at Charing Cross police station. Continue reading...
UK prime minister and Russian president agreed in phone call that ‘aggravation was in no one’s interest’, says No 10Boris Johnson has told Vladimir Putin that he will make a “tragic miscalculation” if he invades Ukraine, in a phone call delayed since Monday and preceded by Russian insults.Putin, the Kremlin said, had complained that Russia’s demand for justifiable security guarantees had not been met. The Russian president also told Johnson that Kyiv was involved in “the chronic sabotage” of the Minsk agreements designed to reach a political settlement in the east of Ukraine, including greater autonomy. Continue reading...
Thursday: Tens of thousands of shifts at aged care facilities are going unfilled amid the Omicron outbreak. Plus: Wordle craze frustrates top intelligence chiefGood morning. Joe Biden moves to counteract Russia’s long shadow over Ukraine, the aged care and disability sectors reveal worrying details about the ongoing employment shortage, and why the cost of living could become a key election issue.Some 140,000 shifts at aged care facilities are going unfilled every week, a situation the chief executive of the sector’s peak representative group has said is “absolutely a crisis” and called for “urgent help”, including the deployment of Australian defence force personnel. The government has pledged two $400 retention payments for aged care workers but this has drawn the ire of the disability sector, whose staff are not eligible for the bonuses. Thousands of potential workers have been stranded overseas due to Australia’s hard border, with only one-in-four applications for travel exemptions approved between August 2020 and December last year. In January alone, 499 aged care residents died from Covid, with 23,900 active cases among residents and staff. Continue reading...
Gary Streeter Tobias Ellwood and Anthony Mangnall all make moves on Wednesday in sign of rising angerA fresh wave of Conservative MPs have submitted letters of no confidence in Boris Johnson, breaking cover to criticise the prime minister as the fallout from Downing Street parties scandal continued to imperil his premiership.In a sign that Johnson’s position is still under threat despite No 10’s desperate attempts to move on from the crisis, three more MPs publicly called on the prime minister to resign, describing their shock and anger at Johnson’s conduct since the publication of the interim report. Continue reading...
Home secretary rebuffs French claim UK immigration policy encourages people to risk dangerous journeyPriti Patel, the home secretary, has said Emmanuel Macron is wrong to say the UK’s immigration policy is encouraging people to risk their lives crossing the Channel from France.In a further escalation of the row between the two countries, Patel has dismissed claims by the French president that Britain’s immigration system favours clandestine migration and does not allow for asylum seekers to seek legal ways into the country. Continue reading...
MI6 chief bemoans lack of secrecy among players of trending word game, but GCHQ breaks coverCrossword clues have long been one way of disguising secret messages, so an aptitude for word puzzles could be seen as a welcome skill in any aspiring spy.Alas, those proclaiming their prowess online for the latest word-game craze, Wordle, seem not to have impressed UK’s top spymaster, Richard Moore, putting him at humorous odds with the country’s other spy agency, GCHQ. Continue reading...
Nordahl Lelandais has admitted abducting and killed eight-year-old from wedding reception in 2017A former French soldier who admitted kidnapping and killing an eight-year-old girl he abducted from a wedding reception has insisted her death was “a mistake” but still refuses to give details of how she died.At his long-awaited trial Nordahl Lelandais, 38, apologised to the family of Maelys De Araujo, who disappeared near Chambery in the French Alps in August 2017 sparking a six-month police search that dominated the national headlines for weeks. Continue reading...
Turkish minister claims Greek border guards pushed back people whose bodies were ‘stripped of shoes and clothes’The bodies of 12 people who froze to death have been found near Turkey’s border with Greece, the Turkish interior minister has said, accusing Greek border guards of pushing them back over the frontier.Süleyman Soylu tweeted that those who had died were found near the Ipsala border crossing “without shoes and stripped of their clothes” and had been among 22 people allegedly pushed back into Turkey by Greek border guards. Continue reading...
Casualties included 15 children, as families sheltering in a camp for displaced people were caught in escalating violenceAt least 60 people, including 15 children, were killed during an attack in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Wednesday, the latest in a series of violent assaults on civilians in the area.Armed men reportedly attacked the Plaine Savo camp in Ituri province, in the east of the country, with machetes and guns. Local sources who spoke to Reuters blamed the militia group Cooperative for the Development of Congo, or Codeco, for the attack. Continue reading...
The police force needs new leadership, a new name and a remit to engage with the communities it claims to serve, writes David CoatesThe latest report from the Independent Office for Police Conduct raises the question as to whether the Metropolitan police can ever be trusted to reform itself (Met officers joked about raping women, police watchdog reveals, 1 February). The list of crimes proven against officers in recent years is as shocking as it is long, ranging from an apparent endemic culture of racism, misogyny, homophobia and bullying, to corruption, rape and murder.It is time to strip back the Met from its bloated and pernicious condition, and reform it with new leadership, a new name and a remit to engage with the diverse communities that it claims to serve, not just the white middle classes and the establishment. It is a failing organisation with an annual budget approaching £4bn, much of which could be better spent in regenerating the deprived and marginalised communities that the Met has played a part in stigmatising. Continue reading...
The gang are back with more fantastically pointless and bad-taste feats involving bears, bulls, scorpions and spidersTwenty years on, after innumerable TV series and spin-offs, lawsuits and movie franchise iterations the Jackass crew is back with yet another festival of fantastically pointless and immature bad taste, including a new younger generation of Jackass stuntsters who tell the camera they can’t believe they’re on the show they grew up with. The last film was Jackass 3D in 2010, part of the 3D craze in cinema which has now been quietly abandoned without anyone noticing or caring. But Jackass marches on.As ever, the guys are taking turns doing stupid and dangerous things, while the rest of the gang scream with supportive, incredulous laughter and the participants scream with laughter right back at them once the stunt is over. In fact, the real Jackass gonzo discipline would seem to be keeping up the grinning party mood even after a heavyweight boxer has hit you in the balls. Are there any cutting-room-floor-moments when any of them seriously lost their sense of humour? Continue reading...
Three-quarters reject key religious discrimination bill clause while almost 65% say it should be illegal for religious schools to expel LGBTQ+ students
Rescued US and Israeli children told of ‘being locked up’ at ultra-Orthodox Beth Yossef school, prosecutor saysPupils from an ultra-Orthodox Jewish boarding school near Paris have been taken into care after allegations they had been cut off from their families and subjected to years of abuse.Many of the children came from Israel and the US and spoke no French. One relative said parents thought they were sending their children abroad to a “Harry Potter school”. Continue reading...
Michael Lawrence pleads not guilty in hearing into death of Emily Lewis, 15, after collision with buoyThe skipper of a speedboat involved in a crash in which a 15-year-old girl was killed has denied manslaughter in court.It is alleged that Michael Lawrence was driving the boat at the time of the incident in August 2020, in which Emily Lewis suffered fatal injuries when the vessel collided with a five-tonne navigation buoy. Continue reading...
Despite controversy surrounding its findings, the work of a ‘cold case team’ powerfully illuminates what it was like to live under a genocidal regimeOn 4 August 1944 Gestapo officer Karl Josef Silberbauer, together with three Dutch policemen, marched into a spice merchant’s on Amsterdam’s Prinsengracht and demanded: “Where are the Jews?” It was a piercing moment in 20th-century history, one that never becomes dulled by retelling. Within minutes Silberbauer and his accomplices had located a dummy bookshelf, behind which lay a secret suite of rooms where two families had been hiding for two years. Placed under arrest, these eight men and women were subsequently sent to concentration camps in the east from which only one, the business’s owner, Otto Frank, returned.We know all this because one of Frank’s first postwar acts was to publish the journal that his 15-year-old daughter had kept during their immuration. The Diary of Anne Frank became a canonical text, one of the few accounts we have of living through Hitler’s Final Solution in real time. And it is Anne’s face – peaky, clever, ferociously alive – that has become the emblem of all the evil unleashed by antisemitism in Europe’s terrible mid-century. Yet despite the story being so familiar, there is one detail that remains a mystery. Who tipped off the authorities that there were people hiding at the back of Prinsengracht 263? Continue reading...
‘This is Josh Mulcoy, the godfather of cold-water surfing, catching a wave in Alaska. The place is so windy and wild, it’s known as The Cradle of Storms’The Aleutian Islands are fabled in surfing. Part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, they’re a raw chain of islands connecting Alaska to Russia. The area is known as The Cradle of Storms because it’s so windy and wild.Most of the islands are made up of tundra and there are big active volcanoes. This island, Umnak, is home to a very small Aleut community. I went there in 2013. The planning alone took two years. You need to be completely self-sustained. You need to charter a small plane and have enough food and supplies for your entire stay, with the means to charge all your equipment. Continue reading...
by Jessica Murray Midlands correspondent on (#5VPS2)
Daniel Boulton fatally stabbed Bethany Vincent, 26, and son DJ, nine, at their home in Louth last MayA man who led police on a 24-hour manhunt after killing his ex-partner and her son has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 40 years.Daniel Boulton, 30, stabbed and killed Bethany Vincent, 26, and her nine-year-old son Darren Henson, known as DJ, at their home in Louth, Lincolnshire, in May last year. Continue reading...
FDA decision could come within weeks but big obstacles remain to getting all children inoculatedChildren under five, the last group of Americans still ineligible for vaccines against Covid-19, may soon receive emergency authorization for the shots, but getting all children vaccinated remains a serious challenge in the US.Pfizer and its German pharmaceutical partner BioNTech announced on Tuesday that they were requesting emergency-use authorization of their vaccine for children aged six months to four years. Continue reading...
The home secretary has said Emmanuel Macron is wrong to say the UK’s immigration policy encourages people to risk their lives crossing the Channel from France in small boats. The French president had said Britain’s system favoured clandestine migration and did not allow asylum seekers legal ways into the country. Asked about Macron's intervention by the Labour MP Diane Abbott while appearing before parliament’s home affairs select committee on Wednesday, Patel said: 'Macron’s comments are wrong. They’re absolutely wrong'
Hertfordshire police pay £45,000 damages to Yvonne Farrell, who said officers should have respected her religionA Rastafarian woman who sat naked in a police cell for three hours has been given £45,000 damages after she successfully sued a police force for wrongful arrest.Yvonne Farrell told BBC Newsnight she was humiliated following her arrest by Hertfordshire police. The force has admitted it “didn’t get everything right on this occasion”. Continue reading...
A sweeping election win by the centre-left party offers lessons for Keir Starmer and Labour, among othersBeleaguered leftwing politicians across Europe will doubtlessly be looking at last weekend’s general elections in Portugal and taking notes. In a surprise outcome, the centre-left Socialist party (PS) won a historic absolute majority, taking 117 of the 230 seats in parliament. Despite polls on the eve of the election suggesting that there would be a possible tie, the centre-right opposition party, the PSD, was routed. The political map in Portugal is now painted almost entirely red.Portugal is something of a European outlier. Its economic recovery from the crises of the early 2010s was praised worldwide, with growth at one point exceeding the eurozone average. While most countries in Europe struggled to keep their coronavirus infections under control, it was becoming a world leader in terms of vaccinations – almost 90% of the population is double-jabbed. And, unlike other countries that elected leftwing governments in 2015, Portugal has enjoyed political stability, with the Socialists at the helm ever since.Joana Ramiro is a freelance journalist based in London and a contributor to the Portuguese news platform Setenta e Quatro Continue reading...
Larb, larp, laap, lap … however you spell it, this salty-sour staple of south-east Asia has myriad versions, which won’t stop our resident perfectionist from seeking out the bestLarb, also transcribed as larp, lap, laap, laarp and laab, is a dish that doesn’t fit easily into western boxes. A highly seasoned mixture of chopped meat, fish, tofu or mushrooms – Thai food writer Leela Punyaratabandhu clarifies that laab “is a verb denoting the mincing of meat” – that, as fellow Thai food writer Kay Plunkett-Hogge observes, can “also be referred to as a salad by virtue of its being served frequently in lettuce leaves”.It’s not even strictly Thai, though the travel hub of south-east Asia is where most Brits are likely to have come across it; a speciality of the north, it’s said to have originated with the Tai people, and variations on the dish are also found in Laos, Myanmar and south-western China. The one you’re most likely to be familiar with, though, is laarp isaan, from the north-eastern Thai region of the same name: as Punyaratabandhu explains, “the way lap is made varies from province to province, and it is hard to nail down a normative version – if there is one. But this version is the most common in Bangkok and at Thai restaurants outside Thailand. It also happens to be one of the simplest.” Continue reading...
As Ulysses turns 100, O’Brien tries to pin down what its extraordinary author was really likeWas he garrulous? Did he wear a topcoat? Did he hanker after renown? Such questions we ask ourselves about the deceased great, trying in our forlorn way to identify with them, some point of contact, some malady, some caprice that brings us and them closer. Such questions are not satisfactorily answered in works of fiction, writers being by necessity conjurors, ex-lovers are unreliable, friends overreaching, enemies bilious, so the closest we can get to a legendary figure is from letters. Letters are like the lines on a face, testimonial. In this case they are the access to the man that encased the mind, which housed the genius of James Joyce.In his youth he was suspicious, contemptuous, unaccommodating. He saw his countrymen as being made up of yahoos, adulterous priests and sly deceitful women. He classed it as “the venereal condition of the Irish”. Like the wild geese he had a mind to go elsewhere. He wanted to be continentalised. He liked the vineyards. He had a dream of Paris, and a craze for languages. In literature his heroes were Cardinal Newman and Henrik Ibsen. To Ibsen he wrote, “Your work on Earth draws to a close and you are near the silence. It is growing dark for you.” He was 19 at that time. Young men do not usually know such things unless there is already on them the shadow of their future. There was on him. He descended into blindness. He was beset by glaucoma, cataract, iris complaint, dissolution of the retina. He is said to have had 25 eye operations. His nerves were like the twitterings of wrens. His brain pandemoniacal as he resorted to aspirin, iodine, scopolamine. Continue reading...
Wiarton citizens smelled a rat when Willie did not make an appearance at the virtual celebration last yearEvery year in the Canadian town of Wiarton, devout followers of Wiarton Willie the albino groundhog learn from the rodent if the grip of winter is loosening.The annual celebration is part of Groundhog Day, a North American tradition (and movie of the same name) which holds that if a groundhog sees its shadow after emerging from hibernation, six weeks more of winter weather are expected. Continue reading...
Thousands of vulnerable people say they face permanent house arrest as others abandon masks and social distancingShielders are feeling abandoned. In the nearly two years since they were first told to cut themselves off from the world, people whose health conditions made them particularly vulnerable to Covid have seen official support fragment and then lapse, mask wearing become politicised, and lockdowns that have come and gone. But they have remained indoors and afraid, acutely aware of how the same society that renders them vulnerable – with the familiar indignity of rushed visits from carers or, now, demands to return to the office – doesn’t seem to care whether they survive.For many, the headlong rush back to “normal” means the end of the few freedoms they had been able to enjoy. A trip to a shop enabled by everyone wearing masks and prescribed social distancing becomes too much of a risk when those measures disappear. Shielders are forced to make unenviable decisions about risk, balancing their physical safety with the need for connection. Many have found solace in the online disability community, but fear that this will represent their only socialising for months, if not years, to come. Continue reading...
The French New Wave classic chronicles the lives of two men and the dangerous object of their affectionsFrançois Truffaut’s Jules et Jim from 1962 is the love triangle that feels like it’s happening in the swinging 60s present moment, like Godard’s triple-header Bande à Part. Actually, it’s set before and after the first world war, and the three principals finally reunite by bumping into each other at a Paris cinema showing a newsreel about the Nazis’ book-burning. (It’s based on a novel by Henri-Pierre Roché, who wrote another love-triangle story, Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent, which Truffaut filmed as Two English Girls in 1971.)Appropriately for this film’s internationalist ethos, neither male hero has a homeland-appropriate name. Oskar Werner is Jules, a diffident young Austrian living in 1912 Paris: scholar, translator and Francophile. He befriends the rather more worldly Frenchman Jim, the journalist and would-be author played by Henri Serre. They are instantly as thick as thieves, a couple of jaunty swells and elegant flâneurs, devoted to art and avowedly uninterested in money – though each, apparently, has some modest private income. They drink in cafes, discuss poetry, box together at the gym and in a rather desultory way pursue women, including the madcap Thérèse (played by Truffaut stalwart Marie Dubois) who has a party trick of puffing a cigarette from the wrong end like a steam train. Continue reading...
Outcry as club that is symbol of black resistance finds itself at the centre of politically charged squabble over Bolsonaro’s far-right governmentThe beer-soaked samba session was drawing to a close and, as usual, the crowd was preparing to vent its spleen.As percussionists from one of Rio’s top samba groups hammered their tamborins and tantãs, revelers raised their glasses and let out loud, cathartic cheers demanding the removal of a president they despise. “Fora Bolsonaro!” jeered the sweat-drenched throng. “Bolsonaro out!” Continue reading...
SAS soldier also tells court he saw Ben Roberts-Smith order another soldier to shoot a man during a raid on a compound in Afghanistan as Roberts-Smith denies both claimsGet our free news app; get our morning email briefingBen Roberts-Smith shot dead an unarmed civilian outside a compound in Afghanistan – firing his machine-gun into the back of the man lying on the ground – one of his former SAS comrades has told the federal court.Minutes earlier, the court was told, Roberts-Smith had allegedly ordered a subordinate soldier to execute an elderly man.Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Continue reading...
To avoid arrest, the staff of the 74 Media left their home city, only to face shellfire in their border refuge. The editor describes the risks faced by his media outlet
Starring the exceptional Lily James and Sebastian Stan, the tale of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sex tape is funny, clever and really rather moving. What a pity she didn’t approveAbsurd as it seems, and resist it though we may, the universe continues to insist that the 90s were 30 years ago instead of 10 minutes. Thus, we are increasingly confronted by dramas that take the headlines of our youths and examine them as the pivotal moments of history they in fact were.At least they are not (quite yet) ancient enough to be treated with reverence or mystification. We 70s babies are still not Stonehenge, or the ruins of Herculaneum. But the bouncily interrogative spirit of the king of the genre, Ryan Murphy (who has dramatised the OJ Simpson case, the killing of Gianni Versace and the Clinton-Lewinsky affair) still seems to be setting the tone for those who follow in his train. Continue reading...
Analysis: Diplomatic network hoping to show UK is not turning into a global irrelevanceThe Russian threat to Ukraine may be the first major foreign policy crisis since Brexit in which the UK can play to its strengths, and show that Britain with its military muscle is not turning into the global irrelevance that many had predicted. That at least is the hope in parts of Whitehall.The two other big post-Brexit foreign policy moments – the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the announcement of the Aukus security partnership in the Indo-Pacific – did not exactly see Britain in the cockpit in the same way. The UK departed from Afghanistan under US duress and then executed that withdrawal so chaotically that it cost Dominic Raab his foreign secretaryship. Aukus was largely a US-Australian deal, even if puts the UK in a potentially leading role in the Indo-Pacific in future. Continue reading...
Talkshow host will not appear on the show for two weeks as network ABC News asks her to ‘take time to reflect and learn’US talkshow host and actor Whoopi Goldberg has been suspended from The View for two weeks for saying the Holocaust “isn’t about race” on Monday’s episode.Her suspension from the The View was announced in a statement released by US network ABC News on Tuesday night, after Goldberg issued a public apology. Continue reading...
by Aakash Hassan and Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi on (#5VP8F)
Claims that people are being registered as double vaccinated without receiving both dosesHealth workers on the frontline of India’s Covid vaccination programme say people are being officially registered as double vaccinated without receiving both doses because of pressure to meet government targets.Workers described how easy it was to falsely register second vaccine doses for people who did not attend appointments, by using personal records from their first dose and opting to bypass a code sent to their mobile phone. Continue reading...
Witness describes water and rocks pouring in through doors and windows before buildings destroyedA rain-weakened hillside collapsed in Ecuador’s capital, Quito, sweeping over homes and a sports field and killing at least 22 people, city officials have said.The Quito Security Department also said on Tuesday that 32 people were injured and eight houses had collapsed, with more damaged. Continue reading...
Heavily armed men and gunfire reported near government offices but statement says attack against democracy failedGuinea-Bissau’s president, Umaro Cissoco Embaló, has said the situation in the country is “under control” following fears of an attempted coup and heavy gunfire in the capital.Gunshots erupted near the government palace in Guinea-Bissau’s capital on Tuesday afternoon, sparking fears of a coup attempt in the west African country, which has suffered repeated military takeovers. Continue reading...
by Aubrey Allegretti, Rowena Mason and Peter Walker on (#5VNZC)
Exclusive: sources say PM dropped in at prosecco-fuelled farewell in 2021 now being investigated by policeBoris Johnson attended a prosecco-fuelled leaving do for a No 10 aide during the strict post-Christmas lockdown, which is now under police investigation, the Guardian has learned.Sue Gray’s investigation into lockdown parties this week revealed several events that had not previously been publicised, including a gathering on 14 January 2021 “on the departure of two No 10 private secretaries”. But the redacted report revealed no further details. Continue reading...
Wednesday: Liberals, Labor and Nationals received $959,115 from oil and gas fossil fuel companies or their lobby groups. Plus: how Married at First Sight got Australia hooked
Finds date to sixth-century BC Battle of Alalia, in which the Greeks defeated Etruscans and CarthaginiansTwo ancient warrior helmets, metal fragments believed to have come from weapons, and the remains of a temple have been discovered at Velia, an archaeological site in southern Italy that was once a powerful Greek colony.Experts believe the helmets, which were found in good condition, and metal fragments date to the sixth-century BC Battle of Alalia, when a Greek force of Phocaean ships clinched victory over the Etruscans and their Carthaginian allies in a naval battle off the coast of Corsica. One of the helmets is thought to have been taken from the enemies. Continue reading...
Britain says new legislation will hit the oligarchs around Vladimir Putin if Ukraine is invaded. A serious attempt to tackle kleptocracy is long overdue“Those in and around the Kremlin will have nowhere to hide,” the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, told the Commons on Monday, promising new legislation to impose sanctions on those with links to the Russian government should it invade Ukraine. It would be applicable to any company (and its owners) with ties to the Russian state and of economic significance to it – extending well beyond the existing sanctions regime, which covers only those linked to the destabilisation of Ukraine.The Kremlin says that it does not want war, but with more than 100,000 troops near the borders of Ukraine, and more arriving in Belarus, fear is growing of a major land offensive or – as Kyiv suspects – longer-term destabilisation and a continuing hybrid assault using cyber-attacks, sabotage and other means. While diplomacy continues, there is no sign of progress. Vladimir Putin says that Russia’s proposals have been ignored. The US succeeded in forcing a UN security council debate, with Moscow responding by warning that Ukraine may “destroy itself” if it undermines existing peace agreements. On Tuesday, Boris Johnson flew to Kyiv to show support, Monday’s attempt to play international statesman having been hobbled when he had to cancel a phone call with the Russian president to address MPs about the Sue Gray report. Standing next to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, he warned that a Russian invasion would be a disaster. Continue reading...
by Andrew Roth Moscow correspondent, and Julian Borge on (#5VP2D)
In first public comments on crisis since December, Putin says west is using Ukraine as ‘tool to hinder Russia’Vladimir Putin has accused the US of ignoring Russia’s security proposals in his first public comments on the growing crisis over Ukraine since December.During a press conference at the Kremlin, Putin told journalists he was unsatisfied with the US response to Russian demands that Nato remove troops and infrastructure from eastern Europe and agree never to accept Ukraine into the alliance. Continue reading...
Stores and vaccine clinics remain closed in Ottawa as protesters refuse to leave while federal Conservative leader faces criticismDays of protests against pandemic policies and a deep rift within Canada’s conservative movement have highlighted the growing power of rightwing populist movements in the country.On Tuesday, retail stores and vaccine clinics in Ottawa remained closed as protesters, who had travelled to the nation’s capital under the guise of protesting vaccine mandates for truckers, refused to leave. Continue reading...
World news | The Guardian