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Marco Coffen and Zhou Xiang Huang on list of those who bought passports from the Pacific nation in 2020

Revealed: more than 2,000 people, including individuals sought by police, have purchased passports, and with them visa-free access to the EU and UK

South Africa vaccine rollout disrupted by unrest; Indonesia reports 54,517 new cases; Vietnam has 2,934 new cases

A Wallace and Gromit bench, a circus centre and a flying theatre are among projects in the pipeline

Here are the current coronavirus hotspots and Covid-19 public exposure sites in Victoria and Melbourne, and what to do if you’ve visited them

President transferred to São Paulo to determine if procedure necessary after surgeon diagnoses him with bowel obstructionThe Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, may be forced to undergo emergency surgery after he was rushed to hospital in the early hours of Wednesday complaining of abdominal pain.Related: Haiti authorities seek three more people after killing of president Continue reading...

Exclusive: Christine Ferguson raises concerns about the party ‘losing its way’ and calls on young women to speak up about their bad experiences

Online public consultation launched as four artists, all of Caribbean descent, propose ideas for monumentA series of proposals for a monument to the Windrush generation have been unveiled, and one of the four entries, which include bronze statues of families standing on their suitcases and stilt-walking figures, is expected to be unveiled at Waterloo station next year.An online public consultation has been launched calling for opinions on the state-funded £1m scheme, first announced in 2019 as part of the government’s attempts to atone for the Windrush scandal. Continue reading...

Militants say they have made what could be their most significant advance in a nationwide offensiveThe Taliban have claimed to have seized control of a crucial border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan, as their forces continue to rapidly advance in the wake of US troops pulling out, fuelling fears of the conflict spilling into Pakistan.In one of their most strategic gains yet, on Tuesday night Taliban forces descended on the district of Spin Boldak in Afghanistan, just a few miles from the Pakistan border, and attacked several posts of Afghan troops, who reportedly surrendered immediately. Continue reading...

Analysis: Twitter, Facebook and others condemn hateful speech, so why is it so easy to find on their sites?The world’s biggest social networks say racism isn’t welcome on their platforms, but a combination of poor enforcement and weak rules have allowed hate to flourish.In the hours after England’s loss to Italy in the European Football Championship, both Twitter and Facebook, which owns Instagram, issued statements condemning the swelling racist abuse. Continue reading...

FCA still says mis-sold loans payout plan would offer customers less than they are owedThe UK’s financial watchdog has announced that it will not formally oppose Provident Financial’s plans for its doorstep lending unit in court, even though it has said it does not support its compensation scheme for customers who were mis-sold loans.The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) expressed its concerns in a letter to Provident Financial, saying it believed the compensation plan would offer consumers significantly less than they were owed. Continue reading...

Each month, 500kg of excrement is dumped on the streets of the Israeli city. If its new scheme works, every owner will be tracked downName: Dog DNA.Age: Dogs were first domesticated between 14,000 and 29,000 years ago. Continue reading...

Ministers considering blocking most passengers from France over Beta variant fears

Broadcasts suspended after violence at Pride event with journalists calling PM a homophobeFour independent TV stations in Georgia have suspended broadcasts for 24 hours as part of a wave of media protests against attacks on journalists by far-right mobs.More than 50 journalists were beaten last week, some with sticks, while covering a protest against a Tbilisi Pride parade, Ultraconservative politicians and priests urged on supporters who raided the offices of pro-LGBTQ groups. The violence ahead of the Pride event led organisers to cancel the parade. Continue reading...

A fascinating new podcast delves into the life of Harry Pace, forgotten founder of the first black-owned record label in the US – and unlocks a shocking and prescient story about raceThere are, according to the academic Emmett Price, “six degrees of Harry Pace”. He is referring to the man born in 1884 who founded America’s first black-owned major record label; desegregated part of Chicago; mentored the founder of Ebony and Jet magazines and spearheaded the career of blues singer Ethel Waters. Pace is a figure who is seemingly everywhere at once, yet his name has been suspiciously absent from the history books.“This story encapsulates how progress comes about in America – and it is never in a straight line,” says Jad Abumrad. “It is often a cycle – one that contains hope and despair, smashed together.” Continue reading...

Police seeking a fired government official, a former opposition senator and a convicted cocaine smugglerAuthorities in Haiti say they are seeking a former senator, a fired government official and a convicted cocaine smuggler as suspects in the investigation into the killing of President Jovenel Moïse.A sprawling investigation has so far taken in a quixotic galaxy of alleged actors, including Colombian guns for hire, a US-based Haitian pastor and a Florida-based security firm. Continue reading...

Satirical wheeze resulted in corporal making up bed for him in barracks and is included in history of RAF unitA Trinidadian airman who became a second world war hero was so struck by the “ignorance of the English” when he reported for duty in London that he and one of his countrymen duped their RAF superiors into treating them as if they were African royalty, a new history reveals.Ulric Cross and Kenrick Rawlins sailed from the Caribbean to fly daring raids for the RAF in wooden-framed Mosquitos across Nazi Germany identifying targets for bombers. But such was the lack of understanding of people from the West Indian colonies that when they were billeted in 1941 they duped their superiors into thinking Rawlins was an African prince and Cross his spokesperson. Continue reading...

Nation settles one of its most vexed questions as survey finds large majority of Spaniards prefer tortilla de patatas with onionIn a rare moment of national unity unseen since a certain British chef recklessly floated the idea of adding chorizo to paella, Spain has come together at last to settle one of its most ancient, vexed and divisive questions.No longer will tempers flare at bar counters nor arguments rive friends, families and neighbours gathered together at table. Chefs, critics and home-cooks can put aside their opinions – and their spatulas – safe in the knowledge that yes, an overwhelming majority of Spaniards really do prefer their tortilla de patatas with onion. Continue reading...

Unrest in South Africa triggered by the jailing of the former president Jacob Zuma has intensified, despite the deployment of thousands of soldiers on to the streets to reinforce struggling police. There has been widespread looting and shopping centres have been set alight. In one tense scene in Durban, a mother dropped her toddler from a burning building to a group of people below, who caught the child. The wave of violence has also hit South Africa’s faltering Covid vaccination rollout, which has been halted amid safety concerns

Masks will be compulsory in all indoor settings from Thursday as the state battles to get on top of a growing Covid outbreak

PM announces move after being accused of giving racism ‘the green light’ over stance on taking a kneeFootball banning orders are to be changed to cover online racism so that people found guilty of online abuse could also be kept away from matches, Boris Johnson has said.It came as the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said Johnson tried to “stoke a culture war” by refusing to condemn fans who booed the England team taking a knee but has now found himself on the wrong side, suggesting the prime minister had treated racism as “a game”. Continue reading...

A military revolt led by General Francisco Franco against the republican government of Spain started on 17 July 1936. See how the Guardian and Observer reported events18 July 1936 Continue reading...

Criminalisation disproportionately affects indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian women and exacerbates inequality, says Human Rights WatchGladys, an indigenous woman from rural Ecuador, went to hospital after injecting poison into her stomach to end her pregnancy. Doctors went straight to the police, and she was sentenced to two months in jail for having an abortion with consent.Elsewhere in the South American country, a 20-year-old Afro-Ecuadorian woman went to hospital after a fall, and found out she was pregnant and miscarrying. She was swiftly arrested and spent four months awaiting trial, where she was cleared. Continue reading...

Investigation shows scale of big food corporations’ market dominance and political power Continue reading...

Smith, who is respected on both sides of the chamber, says he’s stepping down to allow renewal within the Liberal partyThe Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tony Smith, is quitting politics after 20 years in Canberra.Smith, who was first elected to the Victorian seat of Casey in 2001, announced on Wednesday he would step down at the next election to allow for “renewal” within the Liberal party. Continue reading...

More than 60 urban farms have sprouted across space-starved Hong Kong since 2015 – on decommissioned helipads, shopping mall rooftops and public terraces – thanks to initiatives such as Rooftop Republic Continue reading...

Fugitive banker, accused of financial misconduct, tells BBC how he fled Japan hidden in a box on a private jetCarlos Ghosn has for the first time given details about his daring escape from Japan while he was awaiting trial on charges of financial misconduct.In an interview with the BBC, the former Nissan chairman confirmed reports that he was smuggled out of Japan while out on bail in December 2019 inside a box used to store musical equipment, before arriving in Lebanon via Turkey. Continue reading...

Ken McCallum says public should be alert to threat from China and RussiaThe chief of MI5 is to warn that the activities of China, Russia and other hostile states could have as large an impact on the public as terrorism, marking a significant shift in emphasis from the UK’s domestic spy agency.Giving his annual threat update on Wednesday, Ken McCallum is expected to say that the British public will have to “build the same public awareness and resilience to state threats that we have done over the years on terrorism”. Continue reading...

As scorching temperatures spread, the search for ways to protect against heat stress is becoming ever more urgentWilliam Martínez, who as a child worked on a sugarcane plantation in rural Nicaragua, learned the hard way what many in the US and Canada are now realising: that rising temperatures are costing lives and livelihoods.Martínez, along with fellow villagers in La Isla, found himself getting sicker as he worked long, gruelling days in the fields under the beating Nicaraguan sun two decades ago. Workers at the nearby mill, which supplies molasses to alcohol companies, began to suffer kidney failure, and would be forced out of the workforce and into expensive and time-consuming dialysis. His father and uncles, addled with the same affliction, had died when Martínez was a boy, forcing him to join the workforce. Continue reading...

Ali Mustafa dreamed of seeing his beloved Syria freed from Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Then in 2013 he vanished, and his daughter has been searching for him ever sinceEight years ago, as pro-democracy protests raged on the streets of Syria, Wafa Mustafa’s father, Ali, was dragged from an apartment in Damascus by armed men and driven away. It was the last time he was seen or heard from. “In just a few moments, our family was obliterated,” says Mustafa. “It was the end of our lives, and the beginning of another kind of existence altogether.” Mustafa was 23. “So young, really, although I didn’t feel like that at the time,” she says.Now 31, she has not talked to her father for nearly 3,000 days. “For me, losing my dad feels like losing a part of my soul,” she says. “After he was taken from us, I realised that my whole life, everything, has been about trying to impress him or imitate him. He was this powerful, essential force. For years, without him, I didn’t even know who I was.” Continue reading...

New Zealand has its metaphorical door to freedom, Singapore is leaning on disco, America has presidents and beer, while the UK is calling upon celebrity. As Covid-19 vaccination efforts continue around the globe, countries are using a range of communication methods, including humour and emotional connections to encourage people to get the jab. In contrast, Australia has chosen fear to scare people into what may happen if they contract Covid-19. In one ad, a young woman with oxygen tubes in her nose struggles for air. In another Australian campaign, Australians are urged to 'arm themselves' in a bland ad which has been accused of 'falling flat'► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube

Police have fired tear gas to disperse relatives of victims of last year's Beirut port blast who were protesting outside the home of the caretaker interior minister over his refusal to let the lead investigator question Lebanon's security chief. Nearly a year after the explosion, which killed more than 200 people, wounded thousands and devastated swathes of the capital, many Lebanese are furious that no senior officials have been held to account.

Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Gujarat have announced draft legislation which would see anyone with more than two children denied benefits and in some cases jobsSeveral Indian states are considering implementing a controversial two-child policy and incentivising sterilisation as a means of population control.The state of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state with a population larger than Brazil, has announced draft legislation which would see anyone with more than two children denied state benefits, subsidies and government jobs. After a family has two children, there will also be incentives if one of the parents undergoes voluntary sterilisation. Continue reading...

Body of missing British backpacker, who was shot dead north of Alice Springs in outback Australia in 2001, has never been foundTwo decades after one of Australia’s most notorious outback murders, police are still searching for the body of missing British backpacker Peter Falconio.Northern Territory police remain hopeful they’ll one day provide closure to the then 28-year-old’s family, with investigators urging anyone with information to come forward. Continue reading...

After years of complaints from neighbours and concerns about house prices, hundreds of rabbits in a suburban garden had to go ‘by any means necessary’It is a quiet suburban street in Auckland: plush lawns, manicured hedges, orderly picket fences, stately wooden villas. Until you come upon the rabbits. So many rabbits: scattered across the lawn, sunbathing, consorting under deck chairs, crunching piles of cauliflower leaves. Grey, black, spotted, tan, white with shining pink eyes.Last month there were about 400, although even that estimate was probably conservative. In recent weeks, their ranks have been thinned. The rabbits’ domain is the lawn of an otherwise nondescript, slightly run-down villa in the neighbourhood of Mount Eden. In the seven years they have spent quietly colonising this yard, it has become some of the country’s most coveted and unaffordable real estate. House prices have risen 70%. Oblivious to it all, the rabbits find themselves on the front lines of a battle for Auckland suburbia. Now, they are the subject of a court order – hundreds of rabbits must go. Continue reading...

European Union set to join as third party if dispute between Australia and China moves to next stage at World Trade OrganizationThe Biden administration has vowed to work with Australia to push back against China’s “unfair” trade practices, as the Morrison government seeks international support to fight Beijing’s tariffs on Australian wine.With the US declaring it has “Australia’s back”, Guardian Australia has learned the European Union is also set to join as a third party if the dispute between Australia and China moves to the next stage at the World Trade Organization. Continue reading...

The trailer for American Boogeyman, yet another film to cast a handsome actor as a serial killer, faces backlash. Who is asking for more Bundy content?Ted Bundy, the serial killer convicted of murdering more than 30 women in the 1970s who probably killed upwards of 100 whose names receive little attention, once mused, in interviews on death row, that he hoped his story would sell. Thirty-two years after his death by electric chair, Bundy seems to have been prescient about a curiosity with the mild-looking sociopath. The past couple years has seen a veritable “Bundy binge” in true crime content: a two-hour Oxygen special, too many podcasts to list, the Netflix docuseries Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and the biopic Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, starring Zac Efron as a suave Bundy.Related: Just another pretty face: should Hollywood stop giving bad guys a face-lift? Continue reading...

Frank ‘Gud’ Coleman’s family and the Aboriginal Legal Service are demanding answers after his death in Sydney’s Long Bay jailThe family of an Aboriginal man who died in a New South Wales jail say their “complete shock” has been compounded by Covid restrictions that prevented them from visiting him in person for 18 months before his sudden death.Frank “Gud” Coleman, a 43-year-old Ngemba man, was found unresponsive in his cell on the morning of Thursday 8 July at Long Bay jail. Continue reading...

Ramaphosa calls violence and protests worst since end of apartheid after 1,300 arrestedUnrest in South Africa triggered by the jailing of the former president Jacob Zuma intensified on Tuesday, despite calls for calm from senior officials and the deployment of thousands of soldiers to the streets to reinforce struggling police.President Cyril Ramaphosa has described the deadly violence and protests as unprecedented in the 27 years since the end of the apartheid regime. The death toll from nearly a week of unrest has risen to 72, some from gunshot wounds, while 1,300 people have been arrested. Continue reading...

Guardian readers applaud the England football team’s ‘dignity and decency’ and the joy they brought throughout Euro 2020Eight Guardian readers and England fans reflect on their personal highlights from the tournament, and what they celebrate most about this Three Lions squad. Continue reading...

Vessels weighing more than 25,000 tonnes barred from lagoon from 1 AugustItaly has banned cruise ships from the Venice lagoon in what appears to be a definitive move welcomed by anti-cruise ship campaigners.“We finally seem to have got there,” said Tommaso Cacciari, the leader of No Grandi Navi (No Big Ships), an activist group that has been protesting against the vessels for more than a decade. Continue reading...

Experts say to control the outbreak faster the state should clarify its definition of essential workers and consider closing more storesNew South Wales’ coronavirus case numbers will keep bubbling along and restrictions will continue for months because of a “soft lockdown” approach that relies too heavily on people doing the right thing without clear guidance, a top epidemiologist says.Prof Tony Blakely runs epidemiological modelling on Covid-19 for the University of Melbourne’s school of population and global health, and provided advice to the Victorian government during its prolonged second wave in 2020. Continue reading...

Face coverings still required on London transport from 19 July despite national rail operators making them optional

Readers urge the government to recognise overseas vaccinations – and spare travellers to the UK self-isolationI am very ill and would like to see my sister, who lives in the US, while I still can. But the hurdles she faces to travel here are unfair, illogical and lacking in compassion.From 19 July – “freedom day” – the UK government will scrap its requirement for a 10-day quarantine for arrivals from amber list countries (Report, 8 July). It seems like good news. But there is a big catch. The UK will only accept vaccination certificates that have been given in the UK. This is plainly daft, as well as discriminatory. How can visitors from overseas be expected to have had vaccinations and vaccination certificates in the UK? Continue reading...

Jump in consumer prices will ratchet up pressure on Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policyUS inflation hit a 13-year high in June, driven by a rise in the cost of used cars.Consumer prices rose 5.4% in the 12 months to the end of June, up from 5% the previous month, the largest increase since August 2008. Continue reading...

Commission president moves to assuage fears scheme could lead to higher home energy and petrol billsThe European Commission has said it wants a fund to prevent fuel poverty, amid warnings from an ally of France’s Emmanuel Macron that a proposed trading scheme to cut emissions from transport and buildings is “political suicide”.The commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, is due to unveil the plans for a trading scheme on Wednesday as part of a sprawling set of proposals to get the EU on track to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030, including goals to increase use of electric vehicles and phase out petrol-powered cars by 2035. Continue reading...

Activists, protesters and journalists, including a reporter for one of Spain’s leading newspapers, reportedly in custodyScores of Cuban activists, protesters and journalists, including a reporter for one of Spain’s leading newspapers, have reportedly been detained as Communist party security forces seek to smother Sunday’s historic flare-up of dissent.Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Americas director, said at least 140 Cubans were believed to have been detained or had disappeared in the aftermath of Cuba’s largest demonstrations in decades. Continue reading...

Netflix drama and Disney+ adventure lead the way with an impressive showing for I May Destroy You and Mare of EasttownThe Crown and The Mandalorian have tied for the most Emmy nominations this year with 24 nods each.The Netflix royal family drama, which has previously won 10 Emmys, picked up nominations for stars Olivia Colman, Emma Corrin, Josh O’Connor, Gillian Anderson, Helena Bonham Carter, Tobias Menzies and Emerald Fennell. It was also nominated for best drama series. Continue reading...

Plot holes trip up the Iranian director’s drama of a slippery man’s desperate efforts to trick his way out of debtors’ prisonAsghar Farhadi has made a tangled film about the tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive, in that calmly observant, realist yet information-withholding style with which this director made his name. In way, A Hero is a slice-of-life story, in which the “i”s and the “t”s are not necessarily dotted and crossed like a regular screenplay; it has the unsatisfactory, unclear messiness that real life has. There is plenty of interest here - and yet I have to admit to slight reservations about the melodramatic contrivances, which stretch credulity a little.A Hero is a film that works because of a clever and subtle performance from Amir Jadidi as Rahim, a divorced father who has just been released from jail on a two-day parole, having been imprisoned for debt. He is a man with a bright yet strange, desperate smile, like one of the poor relations in Dickens. He is looking forward to being reunited with his girlfriend, his supportive sister and his beloved son – a gentle, sensitive boy with a speech impediment. Rahim is a man who believes that some sort of charming niceness might still get him get out of a jam. But he has a very specific plan for cancelling his prison sentence. His girlfriend has found a handbag in the street containing what appear to be gold coins: if they could sell them to a gold dealer, might that not raise enough for a deposit to persuade his creditor to forgive the debt? Continue reading...

Anti-government protests have rocked the communist-ruled island, supercharged by shortages, social media and sanctionsLiuba Álvarez leaves her house three times a week at 3.45am to queue outside her local supermarket for basic goods like meat, oil and detergent. Her last queue was “relatively short”: after eight hours she came home with some minced meat in time for lunch. Other days she doesn’t get back until 5pm.Related: Thousands march in Cuba in rare mass protests amid economic crisis Continue reading...