Judges say psychiatric expert report can form part of Washington’s full appealThe WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has lost a high court battle to prevent the US government expanding the grounds for its appeal against an earlier refusal to allow his extradition to face charges of espionage and hacking government computers.On Wednesday, judges said the weight given to a misleading report from Assange’s psychiatric expert that was submitted at the original hearing in January could form part of Washington’s full appeal in October. Continue reading...
Analysis: legislation is likely to target US-owned broadcaster as press freedom continues to deteriorateIn 2015, the year that the populist Law and Justice party (PiS) came to power in Poland, the country ranked 18th – its highest ever position – out of 164 countries on Reporters without Borders’ (RSF) annual World Press Freedom Index.By this year it had fallen to its lowest ever position, 64th, continuing an annual slide that has left it just below Malawi and Armenia, in 62nd and 63rd, and just above Bhutan and Ivory Coast, with a classification from RSF of “problematic”. Continue reading...
Police launch investigation after memorial in Brittany to former minister daubed with swastikasA stone memorial commemorating the life of the Holocaust survivor and former minister Simone Veil has been defaced with swastikas, police have said, sparking fresh concern over antisemitism in France.The memorial to Veil, at Perros-Guirec in the western Brittany region, was found to have been daubed with the Nazi insignia on Wednesday morning. An investigation has been launched. Continue reading...
by Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent on (#5N6P9)
Gomoh, 24, was stabbed in April 2020 on east London street while speaking to girlfriend on phoneFour people have been convicted of murdering an NHS worker they selected at random to kill in the street in an attack meant to boost their standing in a gang.David Gomoh, 24, was attacked in Newham, east London, as he spoke on the phone to his girlfriend who heard the opening words of the attack, as one gang member asked: “Where are you from?” Continue reading...
Inquest into death of Laura Daniels hears she travelled to Thailand for trial of Hannah Witheridge’s killers despite serious health problemsThe sister of the murdered British backpacker Hannah Witheridge died in hospital after leading the fight for justice for her sibling and travelling to Thailand despite being seriously ill, an inquest heard.Laura Daniels, a paediatric nurse, died in 2019 aged 30 after years of complications following surgery, five years after her 23-year-old sister was killed. Continue reading...
by Philip Oltermann in Berlin and Vikram Dodd on (#5N6FX)
Employee at British embassy in Berlin suspected of passing on documents in exchange for cashGerman police have arrested a British man who worked at the British embassy in Berlin on suspicion of spying for Russian intelligence in exchange for cash bribes, according to prosecutors.Germany’s highest public prosecutor said the man, identified only as David S, was arrested at his Potsdam apartment at 2.20pm on Tuesday, and his home and embassy workplace were searched. Continue reading...
Salima Mazari, one of only three female district governors in Afghanistan, tells of her motivation to fight the militantsIt is early morning in Charkint, in the northern Balkh province of Afghanistan, but a meeting with the governor is already well under way to urgently assess the safety of the 30,000 people she represents. Salima Mazari has been in the job for just over three years, and for her, fighting the Taliban is nothing new, but since July she has been meeting with the commanders of her security forces every day as the Islamist militants’ attacks across the country increase.As one of only three female district governors in Afghanistan, Mazari has attracted attention simply by being a woman in charge. What sets the 40-year-old apart, particularly amid the recent wave of Taliban violence, is her hands-on military leadership. “Sometimes I’m in the office in Charkint, and other times I have to pick up a gun and join the battle,” she says. Continue reading...
Covid restrictions extended for greater Sydney, with 8 LGAs in hard lockdown, including stricter mask rules and a 5km radius travel limit. Some restrictions have been eased with some construction to resume and a singles bubble introduced. Here’s the full list of what you can and can’t do in NSW
‘These women wrestle for their mental and physical health – and to stick two fingers up at a male wrestling culture. Capturing them mid-flight was tricky’Bolivia’s cholitas luchadoras began wrestling in the early 2000s. The women, indigenous Aymara Indians who have traditionally been marginalised and oppressed, took to Mexican-style lucha libre wrestling for mental and physical health – and to stick two fingers up to a culture where wrestling was strictly a male preserve. For many it was also a means of escaping domestic violence. Their choreographed fights in the ring became a dramatisation of day-to-day struggles, all the while adorned in their traditional dress of layered skirts, petticoats and embroidered shawls. Their name, too, subverts and reclaims a term, cholita, that has often been used to demean. But there was also a social and recreational aspect to the wrestling matches that are staged as entertainment, and have grown over the years. Today it’s become a living for many of them, with their fights drawing huge crowds of local people and tourists.For my personal projects I seek out ordinary people that lead extraordinary lives. I came across the cholitas luchadoras when I was researching another (unconnected) project in La Paz, the Cholitas Escaladoras Bolivianas, AKA the climbing cholitas. The wrestlers are in El Alto, a suburb of La Paz that sits high on a plateau 1,500m above the main city. The houses of the town seem to cascade down the steep cliffs into La Paz below and the mountains of the Andes are ever present. We spent our first few nights driving around looking for cool locations that would showcase the women – I knew I wanted to photograph them outside the ring and make the landscape part of the images. The float and bounce of their traditional dresses is an integral part of the visual impact of the wrestling, and I drew inspiration from the South American literary tradition of magic realism in how I portrayed the fighters mid-air, mid-flight, giving the images a dream-like quality. Continue reading...
Firefighters battled 300 different blazes across the southern regions of Italy, Calabria and Sicily in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday.Seven Canadair planes flew over the area, which has had 70% more wildfires than in the previous year, the majority breaking out in Sicily, Puglia, Calabria and Sardinia
Pardons bill gains significant support among Chileans who credit for 2019 protest for galvanising important reformsMaribel Gaete could not shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen to her son, 19-year-old Bastian Campos, when he went to a protest in Antofagasta, Chile, in November 2019.“Police were firing teargas; you couldn’t breathe. As soon as he shut the door, I began to worry,” recalled Gaete. Continue reading...
Raye is one of the world’s most listened-to artists, but her label wouldn’t let her make an album. She’s the latest example of stars who say their music is being sidelinedAt the end of June, Raye smashed through the shiny and carefully controlled veneer that usually surrounds music stars. The British pop singer’s numerous hit singles had made her one of the world’s 200 most popular artists on Spotify, but her label Polydor hadn’t allowed her to make even one album from a four-album record deal she signed back in 2014.“I’ve done everything they asked me, I switched genres, I worked seven days a week, ask anyone in the music game, they know,” she vented on Twitter. “I’m done being a polite pop star.” Polydor responded saying they were “saddened” to read Raye’s tweets and the two have since parted ways. Continue reading...
Ocean plastic has created a unique home for specialised organisms, from animals that travel on it to bacteria that ‘eat’ itPlastic bottles dominate waste in the ocean, with an estimated 1m of them reaching the sea every minute. The biggest culprit is polyethylene terephthalate (Pet) bottles.Last month, a study found two bacteria capable of breaking down Pet – or, as the headlines put it, “eating plastic”. Known as Thioclava sp. BHET1 and Bacillus sp. BHET2, the bacteria were isolated in a laboratory – but they were discovered in the ocean. Continue reading...
Daughter pays tribute to John ‘Frank’ Smith, who was discovered near summit of Ben CruachanThe body of an 84-year-old man who went missing in the Highlands of Scotland last week has been found near the summit of Ben Cruachan.John Smith, known as Frank, was last seen leaving his hotel in Crianlarich on Thursday morning and his car was found parked in an area used frequently by walkers visiting the 1,126-metre (3,694ft) mountain. Continue reading...
Home Office-chartered flight costs an estimated £43,000 a person after Covid fears and high court challengesOnly seven people were deported to Jamaica on a Home Office charter plane in the early hours of Wednesday morning at an estimated cost of £43,000 a person, despite 90 being earmarked originally for the flight.Concerns were raised about the UK’s decision to go ahead with the flight due to opposition from the Jamaican government because of Covid worries. Fears were also expressed about the vulnerability of some of those due to fly because of trafficking indicators and mental health problems. Continue reading...
by Josh Taylor (now) and Amy Remeikis (earlier) on (#5N5ZT)
Victoria extends lockdown by seven days as it records 20 new cases; Dubbo to enter seven-day lockdown as NSW records 344 new cases and two deaths; Cairns to come out of lockdown as Queensland reports four new cases. Follow all the day’s news
The Friends reunion seemed pointless – until now. If it paved the way for Ross and Rachel to get together in real life, the world might explode with joy. So why do I have a sinking feeling?Initially, this year’s Friends reunion didn’t exactly offer much in the way of entertainment. There was Justin Bieber dressed as a potato, and there was that meme about Matt LeBlanc looking like someone’s Irish uncle. Apart from that, the whole thing felt like an elaborate attempt to give James Corden even more air time.But that was then. Because now that David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston are dating, the Friends reunion has become an important historical document and must be preserved for ever. Continue reading...
Michel Franco leaves no room for sympathy or redemption in this violent, cynical thriller, a vivid warning against the consequences of inequalityMichel Franco’s film-making has always had an edge of cold steel; here again is his icy stab and lacerating chill. New Order is an ordeal nightmare, imagining a violent uprising against Mexico’s super-rich. Connoisseurs of highbrow arthouse shock will note the fact that the film’s titles and credits, with the letter E in reverse, show the influence of France’s adulte terrible Gaspar Noé.For decades, this has been the kind of provocative cinema that has faced opposition only in the easily ignored (and maybe secretly welcomed) outrage of conservative print media, but Franco has ironically faced his own uprising from online offence culture in Mexico when the trailer’s depiction of vengeful darker-skinned revolutionaries was condemned as racist. Franco wound up having to offer an apology after mishandling the response and claiming his film was suffering reverse racism targeted at what he inelegantly called the “whitexican”. It was an object lesson in how the “discourse” cannot absorb complexity or nuance. Continue reading...
by Rebecca Ratcliffe and Navaon Siradapuvadol in Bang on (#5N6FY)
Government had been accused of trying to silence critics amid protests over its handling of pandemicThe Thai government has been forced by a court injunction to rescind an order banning news that “causes public fear”, as it faces growing protests over its handling of the Covid pandemic.The government, which had sought to restrict news that causes public fear, even if it is true, had been accused by journalists and human rights groups of trying to prevent negative reporting and silence critics. The civil court issued an injunction against the regulation last week and it was revoked on Tuesday. Continue reading...
Ex-president of CBS Records had hits with Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Pink Floyd and moreWalter Yetnikoff, the record label executive who championed the career of Michael Jackson and others, has died aged 87 due to bladder cancer.As president of CBS Records, Yetnikoff oversaw hits such as Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Barbra Streisand’s Guilty – her biggest-selling album – and “Weird Al” Yankovic’s phenomenally successful comedy records. Continue reading...
We all tune into Gladys Berejiklian’s 11am press conference for any sign of hope. The worry chews into your nerves, like a virus all on its ownWhat is the human cost of a lockdown? That question has swirled around Australian politics since the pandemic began – and perhaps there is no clear answer. But it seems like western Sydney has reached its breaking point.Related: NSW Covid update: more Sydney suburbs on alert as 344 cases recorded, Dubbo enters lockdown Continue reading...
Virginia Giuffre’s lawyer says it ‘would be very ill-advised for Prince Andrew to ignore judicial process’Prince Andrew cannot hide behind his wealth and power from allegations he sexually abused a child, a lawyer for his accuser has said, warning the duke that he risks a “default judgment” if he ignores the civil case brought against him in the US.David Boies, representing Virginia Giuffre, has said he and his client have tried everything they can to resolve the matter after alleging that the Duke of York had sex with her while she was 17 – knowing she had been trafficked by his former friend, the disgraced former financier Jeffrey Epstein. Continue reading...
More than 40 people have diedas wildfires sweep throughparts of Algeria. Dozens of fires have hit theKabyle region 60 miles (100km) east of Algiers with remote villages and limitedaccess to water complicating efforts to contain the blazes. The death toll includes 25 soldierswho were killed as they worked torescue people in Bejaiea and Tizi Ouzou
The survivors of a mudslide triggered by Hurricane Eta, burying their Guatemalan town Queja in November 2020, were left destitute and displaced in a desperately shabby settlement. Rodrigo Abd’s photographs capture their will to stay alive Continue reading...
As a recently divorced British Asian Muslim, I didn’t expect anyone to understand my mix of culture, faith and life experiences. But the woman who became my best friend saw past my aloof exterior“I was going to take out the wire from my bra and hand it to her!” whispers an annoyed voice from behind me. I turn to see who it is, and in that moment, my life changes.I am at Istanbul airport. It’s 2004, a few years after 9/11, and there is still heightened security around air travel. Continue reading...
by Helen Davidson in Taipei, Leyland Cecco in Ottawa on (#5N63V)
Justin Trudeau says ruling is ‘absolutely unacceptable’ as tensions grow between countries over fate of arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in CanadaJustin Trudeau has condemned as “absolutely unacceptable and unjust” China’s jailing of Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor for 11 years on charges of spying.Canada’s prime minister said: “The verdict for Mr Spavor comes after more than two-and-a-half years of arbitrary detention, a lack of transparency in the legal process, and a trial that did not satisfy even the minimum standards required by international law.” Continue reading...
by Akhtar Mohammad Makoii in Herat and Peter Beaumont on (#5N69C)
Officials in Pul-e-Khumri say government forces abandoned compounds during heady fighting, as Biden says Afghans must fight for themselvesThe Taliban have captured the key Afghan city of Pul-e-Khumri, 140 miles north of the capital Kabul, giving the insurgents control of a strategic road junction linking Kabul to the north and west, according to insurgents and local officials.Two officials in the city told the Guardian it fell to Taliban after heavy fighting on Tuesday, with officials and security forces abandoning their compounds. Continue reading...
Erin O’Toole says Canada should consider a boycott of Games amid worsening ties with China and jailing of Canadian Michael SpavorThe leader of Canada’s Conservative opposition party has warned that it may soon be too dangerous for Canadians to travel to China for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.Speaking at a news conference on Ontario on Tuesday, leader Erin O’Toole said: “We are approaching a point where it won’t be safe for Canadians, including Olympic athletes, to travel to China.” Continue reading...
Northern Irish museum celebrates car-dealing, trouser-wearing, jiu-jitsu fighting aviation pioneerIn an era that stifled women, Lilian Bland blazed with a life force that defied all convention, including gravity.She worked as a press photographer, smoked, wore trousers and dungarees, rode a bicycle, taught jiu-jitsu and opened a car dealership, apparently impervious to the fact that she lived in the Edwardian era. Continue reading...
China’s nearly 50,000 venues will be encouraged to provide ‘healthy’ songs rather than those threatening territorial integrity or religious policiesChina will establish a blacklist of karaoke songs to ban those containing “illegal content” from karaoke venues across the country starting from 1 October, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.The ministry said banned content would include that which endangers national unity, sovereignty or territorial integrity, violates state religious policies by propagating cults or superstitions, or which encourages illegal activities such as gambling and drugs. Continue reading...
Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital has removed the employee and referred the matter to NSW police for investigationPolice are investigating a person who allegedly posed as a doctor at a Sydney hospital, according to reports.7News reported on Tuesday night that the hospital employee allegedly posed as a trainee doctor for eight months. Continue reading...
Thursday: Cases climb as state ministers face a parliamentary inquiry into their handling of the crisis. Plus: celebrity chef’s memoir stirs the potGood morning. The Covid crisis in NSW shows no signs of abating, with another record number of cases yesterday. New York governor Andrew Cuomo has resigned over a sexual harassment scandal and Virginia Roberts Giuffre has filed a lawsuit against Prince Andrew. We also have the latest in the controversy surrounding the MasterChef judge Jock Zonfrillo’s memoir, which is stirring a few pots.NSW police are investigating a man who reportedly left a Covid-infected family member in a Sydney hospital and travelled to Byron Bay while infectious with the virus. Byron Bay and three other local government areas on the state’s north coast were placed into a snap seven-day lockdown after it emerged that the man was in the community for up to eight days, during which time he reportedly did not comply with QR code check-in requirements at venues. The state reported a record 356 local Covid cases and three deaths as its chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, repeatedly ducked questions at a parliamentary committee on whether she urged the government to introduce a lockdown during a 10-day window between the first community case of Delta in Sydney and stay-at-home orders being issued on 25 June. Continue reading...
New York governor announced that he was stepping aside and said his resignation will be effective in 14 daysThe New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, has resigned following an investigation by the state attorney general that found he sexually harassed multiple women, most of whom worked for him, and also retaliated after some made complaints.The governor made a public announcement on Tuesday morning that he was stepping aside and said his resignation will be effective in 14 days. Continue reading...
Analysis: fate of condemned camelid shines light on one of the UK’s greatest animal health threatsLong-necked, mop-headed and allegedly “a bit grumpy”, Geronimo the alpaca may seem an unlikely cause célèbre.Yet the future of the eight-year-old camelid has divided experts, stirred some tabloids into indignant fury, and provoked campaigners – known as “alpaca angels” – to march through London. Continue reading...
Close attention to Chinese spying and influence operations is important. It cannot justify racial profiling and the promotion of distrustPoliticians and academics in the US have begun to talk of Researching While Chinese American, in a deliberate echo of the phrase Driving While Black. There is a long, ignoble history of failed espionage cases against such scientists. But the Trump administration stepped things up when it launched the China Initiative, vowing to aggressively pursue the theft of trade secrets and identify researchers who had helped to transfer technology to Beijing.Though one man was jailed after pleading guilty to making false statements to federal authorities this spring, its first trial has rightly faltered. Anming Hu’s prosecution for fraud, over claims he hid ties to China, ended in a hung jury and a mistrial. One juror later declared that the FBI owed him an apology, after agents admitted they had falsely accused the former University of Tennessee researcher of being a spy. Yet to the shock of academics, Asian American advocacy groups and others, prosecutors plan to retry the Chinese-born Canadian citizen. Continue reading...
Official records contrast with witness evidence of loneliness and physical decline among older people in Georgian societyBy the time he reached his 60s Isaac Hendley could look back proudly on his life as a shoemaker in 18th century London. But when he looked forward he could only see the shame of being “passed to his parish” since his “bodily infirmities” meant the end of his independence and self-reliance.After a year of grappling with his physical deterioration and fears that “he should come to want”, Hendley took his own life in 1797. An inquest recorded the state of his mind according to the testimonies of friends and colleagues. Continue reading...
by Presented by Laura Murphy-Oates and reported by Ad on (#5N5QS)
A report by the IPCC – the world’s leading authority on climate science – has warned that climate change will probably cause global temperatures to rise by more than 1.5C, bringing widespread extreme weather. It also outlines how human activity is already changing the Earth’s climate in ‘unprecedented’ ways, with some of the changes now ‘irreversible’.Environment editor Adam Morton breaks down the devastating global impacts outlined in this report, what lies ahead for Australia and the Pacific – and why we can still have hopeMore on this issue: Continue reading...
Australians living abroad who return home temporarily must now meet rigorous documentary requirements before they can leave againSam Espejo was halfway across the world when she learned her mother had stomach cancer.Even with travel restrictions and expensive flights, Espejo held out some hope of getting back to Gympie in Queensland, from her new home in Kuwait, to support her mother through surgeries and chemotherapy. Continue reading...
Couple allege that nursery refused to offer places to three children with Muslim namesThe Scottish government’s health secretary and his wife have initiated legal proceedings against a nursery near Dundee which they claim discriminated against their two-year-old daughter.Humza Yousaf, one of Scotland’s most senior Muslim politicians, and Nadia El-Nakla have given Little Scholars preschool nursery 14 days to provide settlement proposals, a public apology and compensation to an anti-racist charity of their choosing or an action will be raised at Dundee sheriff court. Continue reading...
