Justin Trudeau says voters have given him ‘clear mandate’, but his Liberal party is expected to remain as a minority governmentJustin Trudeau has won a third term as Canada’s prime minister, with his Liberal party set to capture the most votes in the snap election, a result he called a “clear mandate” to get the country through the pandemic.With results still trickling in late Monday night, Trudeau was on track for another minority government, meaning he will once again need to work with other parties to pass legislation. Continue reading...
As boats from bigger islands flock to fish off Maio, locals take turns to safeguard their pristine watersOlder fishermen such as Boaventura Martins, 60, have noticed the fish have not only become more scarce, but smaller. Some species have disappeared, he says.On a good day, Martins will catch 10kg (22lb) of fish, which is barely enough to cover his fuel costs. When he began fishing 40 years ago, he would bring home hundreds of kilos – enough to give away part of his catch to his community on the island of Maio in the Cape Verde archipelago, off the west African coast. He would throw back the small fish. Continue reading...
Privileged, greedy, traitorous and pretending to be woke – the characters in HBO’s hotel drama hit new lows in villainy. But who was the worst?Mike White’s series The White Lotus, which concluded its UK run last night, has been the breakout hit of the summer. This is partly because it acts as an amuse bouche for Succession’s return in October – they both feature rich people doing terrible things in beautiful locations – and partly because its characters are all so unbelievably ghastly that you can lose days trying to quantify precisely how ghastly they are.With that in mind, here is my official White Lotus character ranking, from least awful to most awful. Should you disagree, I would like to hear about it. Before you read on, beware: this piece is absolutely dripping with spoilers for the whole series. Continue reading...
Case is ‘major blow’ in country with weak workers’ rights and puts trade deals in question, says Human Rights WatchOne of Thailand’s most prominent union leaders is facing three years in prison for his role in organising a railway safety campaign, in a case described as the biggest attack on organised labour in the country in decades.Rights advocates say the case involving Sawit Kaewvarn, president of the State Railway Union of Thailand, will have a chilling effect on unions and threatens to further weaken workers’ rights in the country. Continue reading...
A group of about 20 former interpreters who worked for New Zealand have been gathering outside parliament in a bid to talk to the PMA group of former Afghan interpreters are frustrated and disappointed their requests to New Zealand’s government to resettle their family members, who are at risk from the Taliban, are going unanswered.About 20 members from the Afghan Veteran Interpreters Association gathered outside parliament for the second day in a row on Tuesday, in a desperate attempt to speak to the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, or immigration minister Kris Faafoi about their plight. Continue reading...
More than 1,900 people are dying in the US daily on average – the highest level since early MarchCovid-19 has now killed as many Americans as the 1918-19 flu pandemic – more than 675,000.The US population a century ago was just one-third of what it is today, meaning the flu cut a much bigger, more lethal swath through the country. But the Covid-19 crisis is by any measure a colossal tragedy in its own right, especially given the incredible advances in scientific knowledge since then and the failure to take maximum advantage of the vaccines available this time. Continue reading...
by Presented by Michael Safi with Dan Sabbagh; produc on (#5PSBS)
It came out of the blue – but the new military pact between Australia, the UK and the US could transform international relations for a generation. The Guardian’s defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh, explains the Aukus deal that has enraged BeijingWhen Boris Johnson, Joe Biden and Scott Morrison announced a new deal that would provide Australia with the technology to run silent nuclear submarines as part of its navy, one phrase kept coming up: “stability in the Indo-Pacific”. The word the leaders of the UK, the US and Australia did not use may be more important: China. By striking the Aukus deal, an unprecedented agreement on defence cooperation between the three countries, the governments have moved to counter what they view as Beijing’s aggression – and prompted questions about whether the move is an ominous sign of a new ‘cold war’ mentality.The unexpected announcement of the nuclear submarines – which are nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed – has also prompted consternation in Paris, where the French government has expressed its fury at the resulting cancellation of a £65bn deal it had with Sydney to provide diesel-powered subs in the coming years. Continue reading...
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison says he has had ‘no opportunity’ for talks with French president Emmanuel MacronEuropean Union officials are demanding answers – and an apology from Australia – over its treatment of France as the fallout from the Aukus announcement threatens to delay a key trade deal.Australia’s hopes of entering into a free-trade agreement with the European Union hit rough waters with the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, demanding Australia explain its conduct in defence of EU member state France. Continue reading...
Papers delivered to office of royal’s lawyer in Los Angeles after his legal team contested first serving of proceedings on 10 SeptemberThe Duke of York has been served with a sexual assault lawsuit after the relevant paperwork was delivered to his US lawyer, his accuser’s legal team said on Monday.Virginia Giuffre is seeking damages after alleging she was forced to have sex with Andrew when she was 17 at the home of socialite Ghislaine Maxwell in London and at properties owned by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The prince vehemently denies the claims. Continue reading...
Two men tried to reach city – where Covid restrictions banned takeaways – with $100,000, three buckets of chicken and an undisclosed quantity of fries, police say
Email to people who worked for British forces and seek relocation to UK mistakenly made addresses visible to all recipientsThe Ministry of Defence has apologised and launched an investigation into a data breach that has “needlessly put lives at risk” by revealing the email addresses of more than 250 Afghan interpreters who worked for British forces.An email sent by the MoD to interpreters who are seeking relocation to the UK asking for an update on their situation mistakenly copied in their email addresses, so they were visible to all other recipients. Continue reading...
British prime minister tells un-jabbed Brazilian president Covid vaccine is ‘great’ while not wearing maskBoris Johnson has used a meeting with Brazil’s coronavirus-denying president to promote Covid vaccinations –only to undermine his message by failing to wear a face mask.The British prime minister met Jair Bolsonaro – who has been accused of sabotaging Brazilian vaccination efforts and claims not to have been jabbed – at the British Consulate General’s residence in New York on Monday, on the eve of the United Nations general assembly. Continue reading...
Forensic necropsy of a female grizzly bear suggests she was killed by a goat, after the horns pierced the bear’s armpits and neckWith their long, sharp claws and frightening speed, few predators in Canada’s wild hinterlands attack as mercilessly as a hungry grizzly bear.But in a rare turn of events, park officials say a mountain goat not only defended itself from becoming a meal, but was able to kill the attacking bear with its “dagger-like” horns. Continue reading...
Prosecution says Mark Hankinson gave advice on how to use trail hunting as a ‘smokescreen’The director of the body representing foxhound packs encouraged members to use trail hunting, where horseback riders with dogs follow trails laid with scent in advance, as a “smokescreen” for illegal foxhunting, a court has heard.Mark Hankinson, the director of the Masters of Foxhounds Association and an employee of the Hunting Office, appeared at Westminster magistrates court on Monday charged with encouraging or assisting others to commit an offence because of his comments. Continue reading...
Families often left to do their investigations into killings amid widespread indifference by authorities, report claimsAt least 10 women and girls are murdered every day in Mexico, according to a new report that says victims’ families are often left to carry out their own homicide investigations.The scathing report, released on Monday by Amnesty International, documents both the scale of the violence and the disturbing lack of interest on the part of Mexican authorities to prevent or solve the murders. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#5PRK2)
Firefighting equipment was ready that ‘might have made the difference’, inquiry hearsThe London fire brigade did not know how to properly deploy water equipment that could have doused flames all the way to the top of Grenfell tower and potentially saved lives, the inquiry into the disaster has heard.In what a lawyer for bereaved people and survivors said was “an extraordinary possibility to have to contemplate four years after the fire”, an expert witness has found that water from a ground monitor – a nozzle on a fixed base – beside the tower was capable of reaching the 15th floor and that all the available aerial pumps were capable of launching water to the top of the building. Continue reading...
by Vincent Ni China affairs correspondent on (#5PRK3)
This year’s contenders include a violin-shaped church and a ‘welcome to hell’ glass bridge joining two mountainsAn infamous “hall of shame” listing of China’s top 10 “ugliest” buildings has kicked off with 87 bizarre designs in the running, including a violin-shaped church and an Inner Mongolia hotel in the form of a monstrous babushka doll.Over the past 11 years a Chinese architecture website, archcy.com, has been inviting people to vote in the lighthearted annual contest that it hopes will encourage people to ponder the flexible notion of beauty. Continue reading...
This acute documentary gets under the surface of its Palestinian film-maker’s sharp-tongued grandmother to the loneliness and resentment withinJuna Suleiman’s documentary about Hiam, her octogenarian grandmother who lives in Nazareth, is no journey through a picture-perfect family album. Hiam is not the cake-baking kind of grandmother. In fact, she is grumpy, foul-mouthed and very politically incorrect. It could have been quite annoying to spend more than an hour with someone so disagreeable, and yet Suleiman’s love for her grandmother’s quirks shines through, making this familial snapshot an interesting watch.First off, Hiam is not the sister of that Mussolini. For reasons untold, her parents named one of her brothers after Il Duce. Another child, named Hitler, died in infancy. Still, the film does not dwell much on Hiam’s younger days, and instead focuses on her day-to-day activities, which include berating her ever-changing cleaners, venting bitterness about the news, and lamenting her son’s rare visits. Mostly shot inside Hiam’s apartment, the film acquires an undeniable sense of claustrophobia, which renders her bitterness understandable rather than unforgiving. Instead of turning a senior citizen into a one-dimensional cliche, the decision to capture both Hiam’s humour and her unpleasant side gives us the fullness of her personality. Hiam may look harmless, but you would think twice before crossing her. Continue reading...
Woman who speaks ‘perfect English’ was found with no documents or phone and cannot say who she isCroatian police have released a picture of a woman who they say speaks “perfect English” but is unable to tell them who she is or how she came to be found on a jagged outcrop of rock off the island of Krk.The news website 24Sata said the woman, who appears to be in her 60s and has cuts and bruises to her face and body, was first spotted by a fisher at 10am on Sunday sitting on a rock in a bay near the village of Soline, in the north of the island. Continue reading...
Arooj Shah, town’s first female Muslim leader, says she forced herself to go to council meeting the day after the attackThe leader of Oldham council has spoken out about the firebomb attack on her car, and her determination that whoever was behind it would not stop her doing her job.Arooj Shah, who became the town’s first female Muslim leader in May, said her mother initially thought she was in the car when it was firebombed on 13 July in what the police described as a “reckless, abhorrent act”. Continue reading...
Some see the humble snack as noisy and an incitement for bad behaviour, while others defend it as a key part of the cinema-going experienceIn the Guide’s weekly Solved! column, we look into a crucial pop-culture question you’ve been burning to know the answer to – and settle it, once and for allThe snacks for sale in the cinema today are a smörgåsbord of sweet and sour. There are pick’n’mix walls of sugary treats in little plastic compartments and brightly coloured paper bags that moviegoers are entreated to fill to the brim. Large sharing bags of beloved chocolate brands. Freezers laden with ice-cream. And from behind the counter, trays of sticky nachos and milk churn-sized soda servings. Continue reading...
Inmate with mafia links fired at fellow prisoners through cell bars, says prison unionAn Italian prisoner has shot at fellow inmates through the bars of their cell with a weapon believed to have been smuggled in by drone.The 28-year-old man, who has links to the Neapolitan mafia, fired three shots on Sunday at prisoners he had argued with, but without injuring them, said Donato Capece, the head of the Sappe prison union. Continue reading...
Vilified as enemies of the people, judges have cast off their robes, hired a minibus and gone on a nation-wide road trip to explain why they’re defending the rule of lawIt could be a village festival at the end of summer. Pop music blares from loudspeakers competing with the screams of children playing. Only a few dozen local people have turned out but they listen with interest, arms folded, on the wide expanse of green.This is Biłgoraj, a small town in south-eastern Poland not far from the Ukrainian border. The event is no festival, however. It is, its organisers claim, part of the last battle to save Polish democracy. Continue reading...
The US photographer’s image of Sharbat Gula captured the story of a country, its people and refugees across the world. Thirty six years on, another picture tells a similar tale – but also one of hopeOn 1 September, a young Afghan girl stood in line with her family at a US base in Sicily waiting to board a flight to Philadelphia. She is about nine years old and is one of more than 100,000 people evacuated from Kabul by allied forces after the Taliban took control of the country in August.Her photo, taken for the Guardian by Italian photojournalist Alessio Mamo and featured on the front page of the UK print edition, resembles the Afghan Girl by American photographer Steve McCurry. McCurry’s portrait, of a Pashtun child, Sharbat Gula, which appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic, became the symbol, not only of Afghanistan, but of displaced refugees across the world. Continue reading...
After a disappointing British summer, many of us won’t be looking forward to autumn and winter. But there are many ways to keep your spirits high in the bleaker seasonsIf you have ever spent summer in the UK, you will know that there is often little to distinguish the season from any other wet, miserable time of year. Nonetheless, many of us cling to the idea that we are in for endless days of sunshine and cheerfulness – so, when the season draws to a close, having been a washout, it can feel disappointing.“We have expectations of how things are supposed to be or how we’d imagined them – and invariably it’s not the way we envisaged,” says Rakhi Chand, a psychotherapist. It can be challenging to let this go. As the climate crisis worsens, we should expect our summers to become more extreme, in terms of temperature and rainfall. Continue reading...
Students and staff at university locked themselves in rooms as attack took placeA gunman has opened fire at a university in Russia, leaving eight people dead and 24 hurt.The suspect was detained after the shooting at Perm State University on Monday morning, according to the interior ministry. There was no immediate information on his identity or possible motive. Continue reading...
Hong Kong stock fell up to 17% amid default fears that are beginning to have a knock-on effect on other marketsShares in the embattled Chinese property company Evergrande have plunged again as investors weigh up whether the group’s massive debt problems could trigger a broader sell off across all financial markets.Related: ‘China’s Lehman Brothers moment’: Evergrande crisis rattles economy Continue reading...
Exclusive: in the first piece in a new Guardian series on China and tensions in the Indo-Pacific, Japan’s defence minister says the international community must bolster deterrence efforts against Beijing’s militaryJapan has urged European countries to speak out against China’s aggression, warning that the international community must bolster deterrence efforts against Beijing’s military and territorial expansion amid a growing risk of a hot conflict.In an interview with the Guardian, Japan’s defence minister, Nobuo Kishi, said China had become increasingly powerful politically, economically and militarily and was “attempting to use its power to unilaterally change the status quo in the East and South China Seas”, which are crucial to global shipping and include waters and islands claimed by several other nations. Continue reading...
At least 20 homes destroyed and people told to stay away as lava pours from volcano on Spanish islandAuthorities on the Canary island of La Palma have told spectators to stay away from the continuing volcanic eruption that began on Sunday and has forced the evacuation of 5,000 people and destroyed at least 20 homes.The island had been on high alert after more than 22,000 tremors were reported within a week in Cumbre Vieja, one of the most active volcanic regions in the archipelago. Continue reading...
The unspoken rules of dating went out the window as people found themselves deeply alone – perhaps it’s no surprise these couples didn’t make itOn 4 July 2020, 34-year-old Samantha Higdon, a tech worker in Austin, Texas, was swiping through the dating app Hinge when she came across a profile that made her thumb pause and hover over the screen.His smile struck her as warm and somehow familiar: “He just felt right,” she says. And so it began. Continue reading...
A koala joey who fell from a tree while his mother was being harassed during the breeding season has recovered, and is back in the wild with herA koala joey injured after falling from a tree as an amorous male koala aggressively pursued its mother has made a full recovery and is back in the wild.The seven-month-old joey was found on the ground at a property in northern New South Wales. Continue reading...
Photojournalist Stefanie Glinski reports from Kabul on the events of the past four weeks and the capital’s new rulersAbove its tightly clustered houses and peaks of the Hindu Kush mountains, Kabul’s blue skies were once dotted with countless colourful kites, flown by children from the hilltops or their rooftops. Since the Taliban took the Afghan capital a month ago, they have disappeared. Continue reading...
Our chief political correspondent compares notes on the chaos, the glamour, the scoops, with her predecessor Julia LangdonLobby journalism is a constant battle of contradictions – and that’s before you get to Boris Johnson.On the one hand, it’s a glamorous mix of receptions in Downing Street or the House of Commons terrace and flying on the prime minister’s jet to Washington or Beijing. Continue reading...
by Andrew Sparrow Political correspondent on (#5PR2C)
Social Market Foundation suggests measures including better childcare provision to increase birthrateBritain is facing a “baby shortage” that could lead to “long-term economic stagnation”, a thinktank has said.The Social Market Foundation (SMF) said the birthrate was almost half what it was at its postwar peak in the 1960s, and the country’s ageing population could lead to economic decline. Continue reading...
How do you turn hit musicals like Everybody’s Talking About Jamie and Dear Evan Hansen into films? You axe songs, throw out plots and don’t worry about anyone’s favourite bitChoosing a stage musical to see right now can feel like browsing the cinema listings of the 1980s and 90s. Pretty Woman and Back to the Future are playing across the street from one another in London’s West End, with The Lion King, Matilda and Heathers nearby. Indecent Proposal opens next month.The speed of traffic travelling in the opposite direction, from stage to screen, tends to be a little faster, though. A film of Dear Evan Hansen, the Broadway hit about an anxious, alienated student who pretends to have been friends with a suicide victim, has arrived only five years after it opened, with Julianne Moore and Amy Adams among the cast. Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, which follows a 16-year-old budding drag queen from Sheffield, has taken just four years, picking up Richard E Grant and Sharon Horgan along the way. Continue reading...
His 2014 book, The Body Keeps the Score, has become a huge pandemic hit, topping bestseller lists this summer and becoming a meme on social media. What does it tell us about the world we live in?When Dr Bessel van der Kolk published The Body Keeps the Score in 2014, it was a huge hit with yoga people. That is not a euphemism for “rich, underoccupied people”, it is just people who do yoga. Certain physical activities do something weird to your brain: ancient memories resurface, often with new feelings or perspectives attached; you start treating yourself with more compassion. It doesn’t make sense until you read Van der Kolk. After that, nothing has ever made more sense.His thesis centres on trauma: the urgent work of the brain after a traumatic event is to suppress it, through forgetting or self-blame, to avoid being ostracised. But the body does not forget; physiological changes result, a “recalibration of the brain’s alarm system, an increase in stress hormones, an alteration in the system that filters relevant information from irrelevant”, as he says in his book. The stress is stored in the muscles and does not dissipate. This has profound ramifications for talking therapies and their limits: the rational mind cannot do the repair work on its own, since that part of you is pretending it has already been repaired. Continue reading...
Hartsop, Cumbria: I look down and notice a slug-sized, dark brown invertebrate clinging to my legA good September day can feel more like true summer than any other time of year, and this sunny, sultry Sunday in the Patterdale valley is an excellent example. The landscape has eased into a settled maturity: the hedgerows are full of dark fruits, the rowans are full of lipstick-red berries, and juvenile sparrowhawks call out from woods of deep, well-aged green. This late-summer lull feels like the equivalent of a piece of music resolving on a satisfying chord, the culmination of everything the year has been building towards.I am on holiday here with my girlfriend and some of her family and friends, staying above the village of Hartsop, close to Brothers Water. This small, shallow lake is home to rare species such as the schelly (Coregonus stigmaticus) – a relic whitefish endemic to just four Lake District lakes – and a community of bottom-rooted plant species, some of which brush slimily against my legs as I go in for a quick dip. My companions are fazed by the reeds, but I wave away their concerns with the haughty confidence of a seasoned wild swimmer. Continue reading...
The big night for TV saw triumphs for Brits – including Olivia Colman, Kate Winslet and Michaela Coel – yet a diversity problem remainsThe 73rd Emmy awards mostly stuck to the predicted script on Sunday, celebrating favorites Ted Lasso, The Queen’s Gambit, and The Crown, in an awards-stuffed return to a (mostly) normal ceremony that celebrated diversity yet handed all the acting awards to white performers.Related: Emmys 2021: the full list of winners Continue reading...
‘I’d be stupid not to say I wasn’t scared,’ 27-year-old swimmer says after testing positive in ItalyAustralian Olympic swimming gold medallist Madi Wilson says she feels “extremely unlucky” after being admitted to hospital in Europe with Covid-19.Less than two months after standing atop the podium with the 4x100m women’s freestyle team, the 27-year-old has revealed she tested positive while in Italy for an International Swim League event. Continue reading...
Ignorance about plastic recycling has tricked us into guilt-free consumption – decision makers have to give us sustainable optionsGrowing up my school lunches were covered in plastic wrapping, like those of many of my schoolmates. I was taught from a young age to pick up my rubbish and recycle, and I trusted the recycling systems in place especially because New Zealand streets were so clean. Years later, I saw a video on Facebook of a turtle with a straw in its nose, but I knew Kiwis weren’t to blame, our rubbish systems were too sturdy. Ignorance is bliss, and ignorance is the cause of the world’s plastic pollution crisis.The illusion was shattered for me when I watched For The Blue, a documentary by Project Blue, a group of young ocean enthusiasts from Aotearoa, who travelled across the globe to investigate the world’s plastic-waste crisis – only to find themselves back in clean, green New Zealand experiencing the effects of the global plastic epidemic in their own back yard. During their visit to a once pristine area in the South Island, they found plastic trash strewn across the land, after the Fox river breached a closed landfill on its banks. Continue reading...
Partial results show ruling United Russia party will retain power in parliament after winning over 45% of the voteRussia’s ruling United Russia party, which supports president Vladimir Putin, retained its majority in parliament after a three-day election and a sweeping crackdown on its critics, despite losing around one fifth of its support, partial results on Monday showed.With 50% of votes counted, United Russia was ahead with 46.11% of the vote, the election commission said, followed by the Communist party with 21.4%. Continue reading...
Playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm on how the groundbreaking female punk band helped her tell the story of women suffocating in the prison systemIt was a bit of a “pinch me” moment, to be honest. Earlier this month I sat in the rehearsal room for Typical Girls and watched our incredible cast play the music of the Slits to Tessa Pollitt, an original member of the band.When I first started writing this show, never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined we would get to this point. This absolute legend, punk royalty, was beaming at the liveness of it all and so were we. This is what we’ve all been aching to do. Continue reading...
Children will gain the same legal protection from assault as adults in March 2022An advertising campaign has been launched to make parents and carers aware that it will be illegal to smack children in Wales within months, with a package of almost £3m announced to help keep people who do use physical punishment out of the courts.From March it will be illegal for anybody in Wales, including visitors, to use any type of physical punishment such as smacking, hitting, slapping and shaking on children. Continue reading...
by Andrew Sparrow Political correspondent on (#5PQVE)
Exclusive: shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves tells how party would ‘start to end the unfairness’ in tax systemLabour has announced plans to raise almost £500m by closing a tax loophole enjoyed by a small number of private equity fund managers.The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said the proposal was one example of how a Labour government would “start to end the unfairness in the tax system” by ensuring that the wealthy do not avoid tax while ordinary workers are being asked to pay more in national insurance. Continue reading...
PM is making three-day trip during which he will give speech to UN general assembly and hold talks with Joe Biden at White HouseBoris Johnson plans to press Amazon boss Jeff Bezos on the tech giant’s tax record when the pair meet face to face in New York on Monday, Downing Street has said.The prime minister will meet Bezos as part of a three-day trip to New York and Washington, where Johnson will address the UN general assembly and hold talks with the US president, Joe Biden, and his deputy, Kamala Harris, at the White House. Continue reading...
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