The country, which was due to emerge from lockdown on Tuesday, now has 72 active cases

Scott Morrison says a ‘one-eyed focus’ on daily cases is not helpful and that lockdowns are unsustainableHundreds of active Covid cases in the community should not delay Australia’s plan to reopen and end widespread lockdowns, Scott Morrison says, urging people to look beyond a “one-eyed focus” on daily case numbers.As NSW recorded 830 new cases and three deaths on Sunday, Morrison also pushed back against suggestions that case numbers were too high for Australia to move to the next phase of the plan agreed to by state leaders, saying the conclusions of the Doherty Institute modelling remained the same. Continue reading...

Prime minister says Australia had no choice but to leave as presence ‘entirely conditional’ on USThe prime minister, Scott Morrison, has defended Australia’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and its evacuation of citizens and visa holders, saying Australia was left with no choice once the United States made its decision to leave.The Australian Defence Force evacuated another 300 people on four flights overnight , including Australian citizens, and Afghan visa holders for Australia, the UK, the US and New Zealand. Continue reading...

Cross-border gunfire earlier on Saturday seriously injured an Israeli soldier and wounded 41 PalestiniansIsraeli aircraft struck Hamas sites in Gaza late on Saturday, the military said, in an escalation of hostilities after earlier cross-border gunfire seriously injured an Israeli soldier and wounded 41 Palestinians, including two critically.The injuries came during a Gaza protest organised by the enclave’s Islamist rulers, Hamas, and other factions in support of Jerusalem, where Palestinian clashes with Israeli police helped spark an 11-day Israel-Hamas conflict in May. Continue reading...

Latest updates: panic-buying in Vietnam amid record Covid infections; riot police use pepper spray to break up crowds in Melbourne11.03pm BSTAfghanistan is facing an “absolute catastrophe” involving widespread hunger, homelessness and economic collapse unless an urgent humanitarian effort is agreed in the wake of the US withdrawal, world leaders are warned today. Covid rates are also high.Related: Afghans face catastrophe without urgent aid, UN warns10.46pm BSTA governor’s efforts to combat Covid-19 in the US state of Kentucky suffered a legal defeat on Saturday as the state’s high court cleared the way for new laws to rein in his emergency powers.

After Greece finished building a 40km fence along its natural border with Turkey, the minister for citizen protection, Michalis Chrisochoidis, defended the move, saying the country could not wait for EU decisions.Amid concerns that the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan could lead to increased refugee flows to Europe, the EU border agency, Frontex, is helping Greece to secure its land and sea borders as well as using new detecting technology

Bad pay and conditions at home and demand for Filipino nursing skills overseas have left the country with a soaring death rate

French-Canadian director Sophie Dupuis puts human drama ahead of the action in this naturalistic, character-driven filmHere is an arthouse disaster movie from Quebec: a naturalistic, character-driven drama about what it might truly look like if a mineral mine exploded, trapping five workers underground. It’s the second feature from French-Canadian director Sophie Dupuis, who herself grew up in a mining family.She opens her film in the heat of the rescue: red lights flashing, a response team descending into darkness. One of the rescuers, Max (Joakim Robillard), would be the hero of the Hollywood version, running around hot-headedly, disobeying orders: “Fuck you! I’m going to get the others!” Actually, much of the film is about how damaging it is for Max living with this tough-guy masculinity. Continue reading...

Proposals would ban imports of dogs aged under six months, and those with cropped ears or docked tailsThe importing to the UK of puppies aged under six months could be banned under tight new welfare standards proposed by the government.The pushback against the “grim trade” of puppy smuggling will prevent puppies from being separated from their mothers too early, which puts them at increased risk of illness and death, said the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. They can currently be imported from 15 weeks old. Continue reading...

The actor, 53, talks about her charming dad, never reading her reviews in the papers, staying strong and eating nothing but shepherd’s pieWe grew up without money: two rooms and an outside loo. I remember shyly cowering behind the coal shed as Mum tried to photograph me, but by the age of four I was playing Mia Farrow’s daughter in The Great Gatsby. I loved the fantasy of acting, the contrast of the worlds in which I lived. It’s not that one was better, but going from life with not very much to this extravagant, surreal set opened my eyes to possibilities.Dad was charming and a genius with numbers – he was also deep in the organised crime world. In the 60s, he worked with both the Kray twins (Reggie was my brother’s Godfather) and their arch enemies, the Richardsons. He went to prison quite a few times and Mum would never take us to visit him. Still, he was my dad who I loved deeply. Continue reading...

Peer at odds with Priti Patel over climate activists on eve of more protestsA government extremism adviser has admitted during a private meeting that it is wrong to label Extinction Rebellion (XR) supporters as “extreme”, despite the home secretary, Priti Patel, condemning the group as “criminals” who threaten the nation’s way of life.John Woodcock, the former Labour MP who was asked by the Home Office this year to examine disruption and violence by extreme political groups, sought to reassure XR activists that he did not regard the movement as uniformly extreme during a Zoom video conference call last month. “You’re worried that I want to label everyone who supports XR as extremists and that is certainly not the case,” he said. Continue reading...

Savings rates are low but some green investments can pay up to 8% interest a yearEnvironmentally conscious consumers fed up with low savings rates are being targeted by a variety of green investments paying up to 8% interest a year.However, those thinking about signing up need to be prepared to accept some risk to their cash. This is a lot riskier than a bank or building society savings account. Continue reading...

For the hardline conservatives ruling Poland and Hungary, the transition from communism to liberal democracy was a mirage. They fervently believe a more decisive break with the past is needed to achieve national liberation. By Nicholas Mulder Continue reading...

For many of us, a getaway means sun, sea, sand and… alcohol. But what if you drink so much at home that a break is a chance to go booze-free?A couple of years ago, before a two-week holiday to the Algarve, I decided I wouldn’t drink. I thought it would be difficult. There would be no more vinho verde to wash down a charcoal-grilled bream. It would be adeus to the icy Sagres lager that goes so perfectly with those fat, yellow Portuguese chips. Aside from the gustatory pleasures, I worried about being the sober one. Drinking is part of the routine of the British holiday. If I didn’t participate, it might endanger everyone else’s fun, too.Besides, it was part of my “personal brand”. It wasn’t that I was an alcoholic, but I did think that being gregarious, and generally up for a good time and a pint in the sun, was part of the reason people wanted to go on holiday with me. At 32, I worried that I risked projecting Big Midlife Crisis Energy years before my time. Continue reading...

Original viewers of the soapy drama may be horrified to see it has been revived with a new set of privileged teens – but at least it’s still entertainingIf you wanted to launch an overt attack on 30-year-olds, I could think of little better than rebooting Gossip Girl (Wednesday 25 August, 10.35pm, BBC One; all episodes on iPlayer), a series that ran for five years between 2007 and 2012, made stars of Blake Lively, Penn Badgley and Leighton Meester, and introduced an entire generation to the concept of typing something mean very quickly on a BlackBerry. The screaming, crying, skull-cracking sound you can hear in the distance is a generation of original viewers – “But, hold on, they are remaking Gossip Girl? The series of my youth? They are remaking it because … 14 years have gone by? Meaning I am no longer … young?” – going through a profound existential crisis. If they can find time to, anyway, between planning their weddings or doing mortgage calculations on Santander’s website.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...

The latest novel by the author of The Girl on the Train is a return to form. She talks fame, persistence and remaining an outsiderIt started, for Paula Hawkins, with the memory of a story and a walk along the canal near her London flat. It was 2018 and she was wandering around trying to think of ideas. Into the Water, her second novel – the second to be published under her own name, that is – had come out a year earlier, and she was still experiencing aftershocks from the extraordinary success of her first, The Girl on the Train. That novel, published in 2015, had sold a staggering 20m copies and been made into a film. Hawkins was mulling new options while she walked. “Peering into people’s houseboats – lovely, pretty ones with flower pots on the roof and solar panels, and also the ones that are sinking into the water and look as if nobody has touched them for years.” The thought she had was: “There could be anything in there.”Hawkins is speaking to me via video from Edinburgh, where she spends half her time and sat out much of lockdown. The result of that walk three years ago was A Slow Fire Burning, set on and around the canal in north London and featuring a cast of characters all of whom, to one degree or another, are satisfyingly bent out of shape. There is Theo, a self-pitying middle-aged novelist, still involved with his snooty ex-wife, Carla. There is Miriam, occupant of one of the houseboats and bearer of the kind of malevolent energy that inclines people to cross the towpath to avoid her. There is poor Angela, wraith-like and destroyed by some event in her past. And there is Laura, the central character of the book, who grew out of a dim memory Hawkins had of reading about a girl with a traumatic brain injury. “Someone who’d been in an accident that led to personality changes,” she says. “And I thought about how that would make an interesting character in a book, because you’d have all these difficulties and challenges in your life, and yet you’d present to the world quite normally.” A dead body shows up, and off they go. Continue reading...

Surveillance system also installed at fence bordering Turkey as Greek ministers vow to turn back refugeesGreece said it has completed a 25-mile (40km) wall on its border with Turkey and installed a surveillance system to prevent possible asylum seekers from trying to reach Europe after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.The Taliban’s sweeping advance last week has sparked fears that Europe could face a migration crisis similar to that in 2015, with people fleeing persecution or further conflict. Continue reading...

Thirty years ago, fresh out of drama school, the Homeland star found himself in the midst of a breakdown, ending up in a locked hospital ward. He recalls the years of racial abuse that had pulled him apartWaking up in a mental institution is a strange experience made slightly more bearable by the drugs administered the night before arrival. It’s an odd sensation to come round on a ward – in my case, one at the Hollymoor psychiatric hospital in Birmingham – and not recognise your own body. It took a while for my hands, feet and legs to understand that they were attached to my body. I just lay there for an hour trying to make sense of what was going on. I knew I was awake and alive, but that was as much as I could make out. I wriggled my fingers and toes repeatedly to be sure they hadn’t been removed. Once I was 100% certain that all of me seemed present and correct, I turned my attention to opening my eyes. My eyelids felt like 40lb kettle bells and refused to stay open. After a minute or two, they settled into a thousand-yard stare as my brain tried its best to focus and understand what all these people were doing in my fucking bedroom. Slowly it started to come together. I realised I was on the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital.Thirty years ago, fresh out of drama school, I had what I now understand to be a psychotic breakdown. I had consumed a fair amount of marijuana and was under a lot of stress; over the course of two years, I’d slowly come undone. I had spent weeks walking all over London, sometimes throughout the night, talking to strangers and following them wherever they led me. I’d black out only to regain consciousness in a completely different part of town, hours later, afraid and with absolutely no idea what had happened in the interval. Had it not been for some extraordinary friends who decided that I needed to be hospitalised, I might have vanished into the night for good. Worse still, I could have taken heed of the incredibly real and convincing voices in my head and simply thrown myself off Westminster Bridge. Instead, I found myself sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Continue reading...

After wowing in Watchmen, the Emmy-winning actor is starring in a reboot of the timely 90s horror. ‘I want to inspire others to be magical,’ he saysSay his name: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Maybe repeat it five times into a mirror? Whatever it takes: commit it to memory because Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is a name you’ll need to know. This summer he’s starring in the new Candyman movie. It’s a terrifying, timely reimagining of the urban legend about the hook-handed, sweet-toothed bogeyman, who is conjured any time some fool recites his moniker into a reflective surface.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...

The singer left one of the most successful girl bands of all time after a decade of relentless trolling. Now, as she prepares to go solo, she reveals why she’s ready to return to the spotlight on her own termsJesy Nelson is having her photo taken. For the first time in her career, it’s all about her. She is no longer one quarter of the hugely successful girl group Little Mix. Nelson is about to release her first solo single and she says she is happier than she has been in years. But you wouldn’t know it: she looks painfully self-conscious, unsmiling and anxious.Photos done, she disappears to change clothes. When she returns, she’s unrecognisable. Dressed in black T-shirt, leggings and platform trainers, Nelson is all smiles; warm, giggly and uninhibited. I tell her I’ve never seen such a contrast. She laughs. “When I’m in front of a camera, I don’t know what to do. The other three girls would be in the weirdest positions and look fabulous. If I did it, I’d look awful.” Continue reading...

Health leaders at pilot scheme providing therapy to 285 patients believe they will be dealing with fallout for years

Vaccine efficacy against infection is waning slightly with time – but efficacy against severe symptoms remains strongFederal health authorities have recommended booster shots for all adults who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 with either the the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, citing evidence that suggests breakthrough infections could become more common over time.The plan has faced scrutiny. Some US scientists have said data was insufficient to support the decision, and vaccines remain highly effective against severe disease requiring hospitalization and death. The World Health Organization harshly criticized US leaders for using vaccines to provide a third shot to people, even as most around the world haven’t had one. Continue reading...

Intelligence and security committee ‘very likely’ to call in analysis after PM says swift Taliban takeover unforeseenParliament’s security watchdog is expected to demand to see the secret intelligence analysis behind the west’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, sources have said, after ministers claimed they were caught unawares by speed of the Taliban takeover.The intelligence and security committee (ISC), which is chaired by the Tory MP Julian Lewis, has the power to demand intelligence documents and haul spies before it to give evidence. Continue reading...

Searches for the ‘curtain reveal top’ endorsed by Vogue have increased 78% in the last two weeksThis summer’s latest trend might – off the body – look as demure as the cardigan, but this is not for the shy and retiring. Described as either the “curtain reveal top” or the “pin top”, the item is worn with nothing underneath. The two curtains of the top are held across the wearer’s breasts by a safety pin or a tiny piece of string.Worn by models including Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski and Hailey Bieber, and endorsed by Vogue, search platform Lyst reported that searches for these tops increased 78% in the last two weeks. After Megan Fox was spotted wearing a red cropped cardigan by French brand Jacquemus like this, searches for the item went up 52% in 48 hours, and when Ratajkowski wore the Cult Gaia pin top in June it sold out. Continue reading...

Poppy, 28, actor, meets Lucy, 27, social workerWhat were you hoping for?

Howard Marks was a notorious drug smuggler. He was also a caring, fun father, says his daughter Amber – now a barrister and pharmacology expert. Could her family archives shed new light on his life of crime?In 1988, 10-year-old Amber Marks was woken at her home in Palma de Mallorca by the sound of her younger sister Francesca screaming. She got out of bed and found two strange men in the hall, one of whom would shortly introduce himself as Craig Lovato of the US Drug Enforcement Administration.In the statement made at the time, she described the scene: “I went into Mummy’s arms and asked what was happening. She said she didn’t know… I cuddled Mummy who was being sick… Lovato turned to Mummy and said he was going to extradite her and Daddy to America… Lovato asked for the keys of the car and I fetched Mummy’s handbag. He took the keys and gave her the purse, and said she’d need it where she was going. I asked him to please bring her back to say goodbye if they were going to extradite her. He said, ‘Maybe.’” Continue reading...

Abuse more likely to have gone unseen behind closed doors during lockdowns, say authoritiesSerious child harm cases reported by councils in England rose by nearly 20% during the first year of the pandemic, including a 19% rise in child death notifications, according to latest official statistics.There were 536 serious incident reports in England during 2020/21, up 87 (19%) from 449 in 2019/20, and an increase of 41% on the number of incidents recorded five years ago. Children aged under one accounted for 36% of notifications last year. Continue reading...

Country records 21 new cases, its worst single day for transmission since April last yearJacinda Ardern has warned New Zealanders the worst of the Delta outbreak of Covid-19 is yet to come after another jump in cases.New Zealand recorded 21 fresh community cases on Saturday, the country’s worst single day for transmission since April last year. Continue reading...

Inscriptions by the body of Marcus Venerius Secundio proudly list his achievements after being liberatedThe inscription on the gravestone proudly attests to how far Marcus Venerius Secundio, a former slave of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, went in life. In order of importance, he lists his achievements after being liberated. The first was his role as custodian of the Temple of Venus, built soon after the creation of Pompeii as a Roman colony.He also joined the ranks of the Augustales, a college of priests who were in charge of a form of emperor worship. But perhaps the most telling indication of his eventual status was that he financed entertainment events in Greek and Latin. Continue reading...

Sri Lanka government bows to intense pressure from experts as hospitals overwhelmed; prevalence in England falls slightly on previous week

The co-creator of Wellington Paranormal and Flight of the Conchords is busy with new projects and looking forward to bingeing friends’ workIt’s a blustery Wellington night and we’re on the brink of the second nationwide lockdown of the pandemic. There’s a measured knock at my flat door. Jemaine Clement shakes my hand warmly and removes his boots. We’re meeting off the back of the global success of his comedy series Wellington Paranormal and he is in an ebullient mood. He’s also in a thirsty one: tonight the former door-to-door orange juice salesman is plumping for copious glasses of water instead.Paranormal is one of two spinoffs from his and Taika Waititi’s vampire film What We Do in the Shadows. It stars Shadows’ police officers Minogue (Mike Minogue) and O’Leary (Karen O’Leary), recruited for the paranormal unit by Sgt Ruawai Maaka (Maaka Pohatu). The trio, and their colleague Const Parker (Tom Sainsbury), are oblivious, bungling and affable. Clement explains the importance of Paranormal being a collegial shoot. Continue reading...

As Fiji battles to contain the coronavirus, pregnant women are having to give birth in isolationFor 34-year-old Jane, being told she had tested positive for Covid-19 just a few days before giving birth was an experience she would never forget.“There were some minor complications during the final trimester of my pregnancy. On 18 July, I was taken to the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva but I had to wait outside with other pregnant mothers who were about to deliver,” said Jane, not her real name. Continue reading...

Jacinto Romero Flores had received threats after he reported on allegations of abuses by Veracruz policeA radio reporter in the Mexican Gulf coast state of Veracruz has been shot and killed, becoming at least the fifth Mexican journalist to be murdered in the country this year.Jacinto Romero Flores, who covered politics and crime in the municipality of Zongolica, was shot dead in the township of Ixtaczoquitlán on Thursday. Continue reading...

Fear of Taliban roadblocks slows flow of people trying to flee Afghanistan on fifth day of RAF airlift operationPeople fleeing the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan for safety in Britain are taking 24 to 48 hours to make it safely across Kabul for evacuation – and many have turned back home, scared to travel, defence sources have acknowledged.Difficulties in getting the remaining Britons, Afghans and others to the airport became the most significant hurdle on the fifth day of the RAF airlift amid renewed speculation over whether it will last to the end of the month as planned. Continue reading...

Face blindness meant the photorealist artist, who has died aged 81, had to dismantle and reconstitute, making every cell of his pixellated portraits ever more dramatic

Met Office issues yellow alert for almost all of England and most of Wales and Northern IrelandAlmost all of England and most of Wales and Northern Ireland are likely to be hit by thunderstorms on Saturday, forecasters have said.The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for heavy showers and thunder, which could cause flooding, power cuts and travel disruption across much of the UK. Continue reading...

Whether seen as an obstacle to overcome or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, home working is proving hard to avoid

Sudesh Amman lawfully killed by undercover police but opportunity to prevent attack missed, jury findsA stabbing attack by a convicted terrorist that wounded two people on Streatham High Road could have been prevented, an inquest jury has concluded.The 20-year-old jihadist Sudesh Amman was shot dead by two of nine covert officers who were tracking him on 2 February 2020 after he wounded a man and woman on the street while wearing a fake suicide belt, the inquest heard. Continue reading...

The EU and its members have already adopted hardline policies that make an Afghan refugee crisis unlikelyAs the fallout from Afghanistan continues, EU leaders are working themselves into a frenzy over the risk of a replay of the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis. At a news conference in Berlin on Monday, Armin Laschet, Angela Merkel’s likely successor, argued: “We should not send the signal that Germany can take in everyone in need. The focus must be on humanitarian aid on site, unlike in 2015.” Though the French president, Emmanuel Macron, recognised Europe’s duty to take in some of the “rights defenders, artists, journalists and campaigners who are now threatened”, it came with a major caveat. “Europe cannot face the consequences of the current situation on its own. We must anticipate and protect ourselves against sizeable flows of irregular migration,” he said in a press briefing.Their concerns obscure the reality that the EU and its member states have spent years taking hardline measures to reduce irregular migration. This will prevent a rerun of 2015, when more than 1.2 million refugees sought asylum within the EU (0.16% of Europe’s total population), sparking political opposition based on the supposed threat that these people posed to the EU. Continue reading...

Premier urges Melbourne residents to follow lockdown rules to the letter and warns Delta outbreak on the verge of ‘getting away from us’

Death has caused outrage in country where one in three girls are likely to be married by 18, despite banZimbabwean police have charged a man after a 15-year-old girl died while giving birth at a church shrine last month.Hatirarami Momberume, 26, has been charged with raping Anna Machaya, whose death provoked outrage in the country and was condemned by the UN. Continue reading...

Naftali Bennett, 49, has vaccine shot live on social media to encourage take-up and avoid fourth lockdown

The NSW premier’s inclination has always been to limit restrictions, but as the Delta outbreak worsens that’s had to change

Politburo official makes remarks at Tibetan palace amid crackdown on practice of non-Han religionsAll Tibetans should embrace Communist party rule and share the “cultural symbols and images of the Chinese nation”, a senior Chinese official has said at an event celebrating 70 years since the People’s Liberation Army invaded Tibet.Wang Yang, a member of the politburo standing committee, China’s most powerful political body, made the remarks during a lavish ceremony in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the sacred home of Tibet’s traditional Buddhist leaders. Continue reading...

German broadcaster urges government to support Afghans working with western mediaTaliban fighters trying to track down western-affiliated journalists allegedly shot dead a family member of an editor working for Deutsche Welle and seriously injured another, the German public broadcaster has said.The state-owned broadcaster said the Taliban had carried out house-to-house searches in western Afghanistan to try to find the journalist, who had already relocated to Germany. Continue reading...

We had never met – yet we looked almost identical and had similar life stories. Now we do poetry readings together in matching jumpersMy wife, Marion, and I moved to Braintree in 2013 to be near our daughter and grandchildren, and I was struck by how friendly some of the locals were. Strangers would often wave as I passed them in the street. Some of them would also say, “Hello, John!” My name’s Neil, but I let it pass.On one occasion we were in a cafe when a man came over and said, “You’re John Jemison, aren’t you?” Continue reading...

NSW has recorded 644 local cases and four deaths; Sydney lockdown extended until end of September; Victoria reports 55 new local cases; ACT chief minister Andrew Barr calls on colleagues to stop presenting 70% or 80% vaccination targets as ‘freedom day’. Follow latest updates

Second time’s a charm with these cinematic updates, featuring a revitalised Bond, a well-earned Oscar win and a gory B-movie rework• Modern Toss on movie remakesThis classic tale of an ingenue whose career is aided by an older man whose own star is fading has been remade no less than three times. Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson’s 1976 rock incarnation might be the best-known version but, most importantly, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s 2018 film has the biggest tunes. Continue reading...

The leading visual effects designer, whose credits include Star Wars and Jurassic Park, has spent three decades directing his gruesome animated fableYou definitely know Phil Tippett’s work even if you don’t know his name. The 3D chess game in Star Wars, the AT-ATs and Tauntauns in Empire Strikes Back, ED-209 in Robocop, the bugs from Starship Troopers and the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park are just some of the creations Tippett has brought to life. One of Hollywood’s leading visual effects designers since the 1970s, Tippett has just spent three decades directing his first feature film: Mad God, a gruesome animated fable wherein a mysterious spy must infiltrate the lower depths on a dangerous mission. It starts with one of the shirtier quotes from Leviticus, the Bible’s angriest book, before plummeting to the depths of a gory, dripping underworld. Think Dante via Ren and Stimpy, or Pasolini with stop motion animation.Mad God might be animation, but it’s not kids’ stuff. Tippett has just premiered it at the Locarno film festival, where he he sat next to a family. “Mum and dad and a couple of little kids, so I said to them: ‘I wouldn’t take my kids to this.’ They got up to leave a few minutes later. The mum said I was right. And I said, ‘It gets worse.’” Indeed, it does. Continue reading...