Asia Pacific Investment Development and its subcontractor have also allegedly failed to rehabilitate land affected by bauxite miningA mining operation in Solomon Islands owes millions in unpaid taxes and royalties, according to a former senior government figure, with a report showing that the mining companies had not paid taxes or royalties on one-third of their exports over the last five years.According to a summary of a royalty payments report into mining on West Rennell Island from the Central Bank of Solomon Islands, seen by the Guardian, the Asia Pacific Investment Development (APID) company and its subcontractor Bintan Mining Solomon Islands Ltd (BMSI) have paid royalties for only 67 of the 100 shipments of bauxite ore exported during their operation. Continue reading...
Former Kayin state minister jailed for 90 years and 75 years, with more charges added against US journalist Danny FensterA court in Myanmar has sentenced two members of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party to 90 years and 75 years in prison after finding them guilty of corruption, their lawyer said.The sentences on Tuesday appeared to be the most severe so far for any of the dozens of members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy who were arrested after the military seized power on 1 February. Continue reading...
Gulf-based TV journalist Rasha Abdullah Al Harazi was killed and her husband injured, according to witnesses and medical sourcesA pregnant Yemeni journalist has been killed in a car explosion in Aden, witnesses and medical sources said, in the latest incident of violence in Yemen’s southern port city.An initial police investigation indicated an explosive device was planted on Tuesday on the vehicle carrying Rasha Abdullah al-Harazi and her husband, Mahmoud al-Atmi, also a journalist, Reuters reported. Continue reading...
Government says it has detained people suspected of supporting rival Tigray forces as long-running conflict escalatesAt least 16 United Nations local employees have been detained in Ethiopia’s capital, the UN said, and a government spokesperson asserted they were held for their “participation in terror” under a state of emergency as the country’s year-long war escalates and ethnic Tigrayans face a new wave of arrests.All the detained staffers are Tigrayan, a humanitarian worker told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Continue reading...
The Wellington-based studio built characters and scenes for films including Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Wonder Woman and Planet of the ApesThe special effects studio co-founded by Sir Peter Jackson, which has brought blockbusters including Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones to life, has been sold for more than $1.6bn, in the latest blow to New Zealand’s film and TV industry.The cash and shares deal, which will see Weta Digital sold to US-based video game company Unity Software for $1.63bn, comes less than three months after Amazon made the shock decision to move its $1bn-plus development of a small screen adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (LOTR) from New Zealand to the UK after shooting just one series. Continue reading...
The New Zealand prime minister was trying to explain changing Covid rules when her three-year-old daughter appeared off-screenThe New Zealand prime minister has been interrupted by a persistent heckler: her three-year-old daughter, who had “escaped” and was up past her bedtime while Jacinda Ardern was trying to give a live update on the country’s Covid response.The prime minister was conducting a livestream about shifting public health restrictions when she was interrupted by an apparently wide awake Neve. Continue reading...
Caver in hospital and expected to make good recovery as family thank rescuers and call for donationsA man extricated from caves after a 54-hour operation was named on Tuesday evening as George Linnane, as friends and family thanked his rescuers and called for donations.Linnane, 38, a company director from Bristol, describes himself on social media as an engineer, scuba diver, caver, snowboarder and DJ. Continue reading...
Activist and Nobel laureate shares pictures from wedding to husband Asser Malik on her social mediaThe activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai announced she had got married on Tuesday in a small ceremony in Birmingham.The campaigner for girls’ education and the world’s youngest winner of the Nobel peace prize said on social media she had married her partner, Asser Malik. Continue reading...
Wednesday: National broadband network costs on par with full-fibre plan. Plus: the etiquette on sending food backGood morning. Cop26 is in its second week but, despite optimistic talk, new analysis of pledges paint a far more grim picture of our future.The NBN has ended up costing almost as much as the estimated cost of a full-fibre plan. The technology in the Coalition’s cut-down version cost up to three times more than forecast and was closer to the initial estimated cost of a revised version of Labor’s full-fibre plan, according to figures the government has sought to keep secret for almost a decade. Redacted figures, obtained by Guardian Australia, show NBN Co estimated the cost of using the hybrid fibre-coaxial was between $800 and $850 a premises and fibre-to-the-node was $600 to $650 a premises. In reality, as NBN Co encountered upgrade issues with both types of technology, pushing the average costs to $2,752 and $2,330 respectively. Continue reading...
Darrell Meekcom, 55, says he has reported incident in which he was arrested by six officers at his Midlands homeA retired lecturer recently diagnosed with a terminal illness has complained of police heavy-handedness after claiming he was injured when six officers raided his home after he achieved his bucket-list desire to moon at a speed camera.Darrell Meekcom, 55, from Kidderminister, who was diagnosed with multiple system atrophy (MSA) last month, pulled down his trousers and bared his bottom to a camera believing it was “a good laugh,” he told his local newspaper. Continue reading...
by Maya Wolfe-Robinson and Kevin Donald on (#5RQ5K)
Charges against artist’s brother, sister and mother to stay on file but prosecution ‘not in public interest’, says judgeThe brother, sister and mother of a woman whose mummified remains were found on a mattress will not face trial, a judge has ruled.Sean Morris, the recorder of York, decided on Tuesday that the charges – preventing the lawful and decent burial of a dead body without lawful excuse – should remain on file. “These three defendants suffer from an extremely rare mental affliction which has created a unique situation for the criminal courts,” he said.
Price for two items smashes pre-sale estimates amid growing interest in former French queen’s belongingsTwo diamond bracelets that Marie Antoinette sent away in a wooden chest for safekeeping before she was guillotined during the French Revolution, have sold at auction in Geneva for 7.46m Swiss francs (£7.04m).The sum was several times higher than the pre-sale estimate, amid a growing interest in items of jewellery and clothing belonging to the former French queen. The buyer was bidding by telephone and not identified. Continue reading...
Lawsuit is the second major legal challenge to climate policy in New Zealand this yearA group of law students have filed a lawsuit at Wellington’s high court against New Zealand’s minister of energy over her decision to grant two new onshore oil and gas exploration permits just six months after the government declared a climate emergency.“Aotearoa New Zealand’s current approach to climate action is embarrassing,” said Phoebe Nikolau, a member of the Students for Climate Solutions group. “I might be the claimant today as a law student, but I’ll be the lawyer soon, and this will be my life’s work … Keep fossil fuels in the ground.” Continue reading...
Children and families among those being warned to ‘go back to Minsk’ as police hostility and humanitarian crisis worsensFor two days the same looped recording has been blaring out from speakers on the Polish border: “Attention! Attention! Crossing the Polish border is legal only at border crossings.”The ominous warning is directed at the thousands of asylum seekers massed in Belarus on the opposite side of the barbed wire running between the two countries. According to Poland, Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko is deliberately provoking a new refugee crisis in Europe by organising the movement of migrants from the Middle East to Minsk and promising them a safe passage to the EU in revenge for the sanctions Brussels has imposed on his authoritarian regime. Continue reading...
Nearly 250 volunteer rescuers involved in bringing injured man out of ‘intestinal’ cave networkWhen the alarm was raised with members of the South Wales Caving Club on Saturday afternoon that a fellow caver was stuck underground with serious injuries, they sent out an alert to comrades across the country that help was needed.By Monday afternoon, the number of experienced cavers arriving to assist the rescue mission at the Ogof Ffynnon Ddu in the Brecon Beacons had swollen to nearly 250. Continue reading...
Home Office says Wednesday’s flight will go ahead despite passenger numbers being depleted by appeals and Covid outbreakAlmost two-thirds of people due to board a controversial deportation flight to Jamaica on Wednesday evening have been removed from the flight, while numbers on the plane are expected to dwindle further as appeals go through the courts.The Home Office has said the flight will go ahead despite the numbers of passengers being depleted by a Covid outbreak at an immigration removal centre and by legal challenges. Continue reading...
Lawyers for publishers of Mail on Sunday argue privacy case should have gone to trialThe Duchess of Sussex’s letter to her estranged father was “written with public consumption in mind as a possibility,” the Court of Appeal has heard.Lawyers for Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), publishers of the Mail on Sunday, argued Meghan’s privacy case should have gone to trial rather than be dealt with by summary judgment without need for a trial. Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent on (#5RPZH)
Patricia Burns, whose father was shot dead in Belfast 49 years ago, is seeking judicial review to pre-empt legislationThe daughter of former Royal Navy officer who was shot dead by a soldier on the streets of Belfast 49 years ago has said the government’s planned amnesty for legacy killings was a “kick in the teeth” for thousands of victims seeking justice in Northern Ireland.Patricia Burns is seeking a judicial review in Belfast’s high court in an attempt to pre-empt legislation the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, is expected to table shortly. Continue reading...
by Daniel Boffey in Brussels and Andrew Roth in Mosco on (#5RPTF)
Alexander Lukashenko accused of sending refugees to frontier to punish criticism of his regimeThe EU has condemned the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, for acting like a “gangster”, amid a worsening humanitarian crisis at the country’s border with Poland.The Belarusian government has been been accused of sending refugees to the EU’s external border in an attempt to punish the bloc for criticism of Lukashenko’s domestic crackdown on dissent. Continue reading...
by Hosted by Jane Lee. Recommended by Mike Hytner. Wr on (#5RPWN)
Ranging in age from eight to 87, Scrabblers hit the boards in western Sydney earlier this year vying for national supremacy. Sport editor Mike Hytner recommends this match report on a competitive board game with mind-bending wordplay
by Mark Brown North of England correspondent on (#5RPWP)
‘Pristine’ 16th-century work found beneath plaster in bedroom at Landmark Trust’s Calverley Old HallRemoving plaster in an old house and being surprised by what you find is not unusual. But discovering 16th-century paintings of fantastical laughing birds, roaring griffins, and little torsos of men sat on vases, all based on a decoration that Nero had in his Golden Villa is, historians have admitted, jaw-dropping.The Landmark Trust has announced that it has found one of the most sophisticated schemes of Tudor wall paintings found anywhere in Britain. It is, said its director, Anna Keay, “the discovery of a lifetime”. Continue reading...
Whether you’re eating in or taking away, you can expect to pay more, thanks to a perfect storm of staff shortages, dearer spices, higher utility bills …Name: Curry.Age: According to plant remains found at the bottom of ancient pots at archaeological sites in north-west India, about 4,500 years old. Continue reading...
Veteran guitarist says act should ‘be more original’ after quartet from Rome wear US-flag costumes for Rolling Stones gigAn Italian glam pop band formed in 1970 has accused Måneskin of “copying our look” after the Eurovision song contest winners wore glittery costumes depicting the American flag during their opening act at a Rolling Stones concert in Las Vegas.Ivano Michetti, the guitarist with I Cugini di Campagna (Country Cousins), said Måneskin were “looking for visibility” in trying to imitate their look and encouraged the band to “be more original”. Continue reading...
Outed in Uganda’s virulently homophobic press, the artist and activist claimed asylum in New York. Now, her sculptures and paintings stand as monuments to the nation’s persecuted LGBTQ+ communityLeilah Babirye is describing what it’s like to go on a pride march in her native Uganda. “It never ends peacefully,” she says, laughing grimly. “It’s always police raids, everybody scattering.” The artist and LGBTQ+ activist made costumes for one event in 2012, including masks for friends too frightened to show their faces. “But as soon as we step on to the beach, there’s police everywhere. So we have to go back home.”Babirye talks to me over Zoom from the place where she spends most of her time: her basement studio in Brooklyn. It’s populated by her artworks: boldly coloured, sensuous paintings of imaginary heroes; giant ceramic sculptures of faces glazed in jewel-like shades; and her signature pieces, chiselled wooden figures a bit like totem poles, lovingly painted and buffed, decorated with objects Babirye has found in the street ranging from bike chains to an old chandelier. They are bold (as tall as 15ft), idiosyncratic, and full of personality. She points her camera at one, which is heading to New York’s prestigious Whitney museum. Continue reading...
Alex Tostevin kept a cricket bat next to his bed after return from AfghanistanThe family of a British special forces corporal believed to have taken his own life after suffering years of mental health issues has branded the care he received as “casual and incompetent”.The mother of Alex Tostevin, 28, a member of the Special Boat Service (SBS), told his inquest that his commanding officers and medics knew he was a suicide risk and needed more help.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org. Continue reading...
Meteorologists link such weather patterns to the climate crisis, which exacerbates the frequency and severity of climatic extremes and variationsThe unusual rains began to fall in Shanxi on 3 October, and the torrential downpours lasted for three days.According to Chinese media, the 59 observatories across Shanxi province all recorded historic levels of rain. According to the local weather bureau, the average rain in the province reached 120mm (4.7 in) between 2 and 7 October. The average rainfall across the US over a whole month is 71mm. Continue reading...
Crisis charity’s research finds job loss is main reason for European citizens becoming homeless in BritainEU citizens living in Britain are nearly three times more likely to experience rough sleeping than the general population, according to research from the homelessness charity Crisis.The joint research project, led by Heriot-Watt University and the Institute for Public Policy Research, is the first of its kind to explore the scale, causes and impact of homelessness experienced by people from the European Economic Area (EEA) who have made their home in Britain. Continue reading...
Husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe does not yet want to back down in his protest outside Foreign OfficeFears are growing for the welfare of Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of the detained Iranian-British dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is on the 17th day of his hunger strike outside the Foreign Office.Some of his allies are urging him to stop, saying they are concerned he may damage himself permanently. Ratcliffe is also aware of his responsibility to look afterhis seven-year-old daughter, Gabriella. But after five and a half years of no tangible progress, and most campaigning avenues exhausted, Ratcliffe, who is spending his nights outside the Foreign Office in a tent, does not yet want to back down. Continue reading...
An injured man was rescued from a cave in south Wales after being trapped for more than two days at least 300 metres from the surface. The man was brought out of Ogof Ffynnon Ddu in the Brecon Beacons at around 7.45pm on Monday following a 54-hour ordeal.Speaking on BBC Breakfast, rescuer Steve Thomas said cavers were very aware of the environment they explored. 'It’s not a reckless thing we do,' he said. 'It’s no more dangerous than anything else. I think it’s more dangerous sitting on the sofa watching the TV.'
Thousands of migrants are in the freezing region trying to get into Poland and aid is prevented from reaching themMore than 1,000 people, many fleeing dangerous conditions in Middle Eastern countries, arrived en masse at Poland’s border with Belarus this week, in a dramatic escalation of a simmering migration crisis on the edge of the EU. They had been escorted to the border by Belarusian authorities. Continue reading...
The ex-attorney general has spent months at a corruption inquiry – acting not for a UK constituent but the PM of the British Virgin IslandsDay after day, Sir Geoffrey Cox, the UK attorney general during the Brexit crisis, has been sitting hunched over a pile of court papers trying to prove to the UK government not that a member of his Torridge and West Devon constituency is innocent of corruption, but the innocence of the prime minister of the British Virgin Islands.His understanding of the complex constitution of the BVI, a British overseas territory, is masterful, including its relationship with London, auditor reports on how the BVI spent hurricane cash, or indeed the procedures for chairing the BVI cabinet. Continue reading...
Roman Bondarchuk handles this strange tale about an interpreter left stranded with some locals with deadpan poise“That’s our wandering buoy. It slipped its anchor near the dam. It appears and disappears at will.” A light, unfathomable absurdity governs this 2018 fiction debut by Ukrainian documentarian Roman Bondarchuk, set in the area around the city of Kherson; a sun-roasted steppe north of the Crimea where Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) interpreter Lukas (Serhiy Stepansky) becomes stranded. He’s escorting an SUV full of foreign delegates when it breaks down and he wanders off in search of a mobile signal. On his return, both car and foreigners have vanished.Hitching a ride, Lukas is invited to stay with Vova (Viktor Zhdanov), a middle-aged potterer living with his mother and daughter in a capacious ramshackle construction on the banks of the Dnieper river. So begins Lukas’s initiation – like a milder Ukrainian version of Wake in Fright – into the local anomie. Vova enjoys sticking spoons to his forehead using the supply of glue that was his severance payment from the Soviet fish farm he worked for; then Lukas gets an invite to a listless student party where someone nicks his jacket and wallet. Constantly slipping sly details into the frame, Bondarchuk handles the whole farrago with a lovely deadpan poise. Incensed by the theft, Lukas heads to the police station to make a complaint. Cut to him in the cells. Continue reading...
Mother pays tribute to ‘beautiful’ son attacked while out playing with a friendA boy who died after being attacked by a dog in Caerphilly in south Wales while he was out playing with a friend has been named as 10-year-old Jack Lis.Gwent police were called to the Penyrheol area of the town at about 3.55pm on Monday and confirmed Jack had died at the scene. The dog was destroyed by firearms officers, the force said. Continue reading...
Versatile actor had worked in Hollywood since childhood, and was Oscar nominated for his role in 1988 comedy Married to the MobDean Stockwell, the former child star who became a key figure in the Hollywood counter-culture and enjoyed late success in popular TV shows, has died aged 85. According to Deadline, his family said he died at home “of natural causes”.Born in Los Angeles in 1936, Stockwell had become a major name while still in high school, starring in the anti-racism parable The Boy With Green Hair in 1948 and alongside Errol Flynn in the 1950 adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. However, Stockwell found the transition to adulthood difficult and after dropping out of university he re-established his film career with a lead role in Compulsion, the 1959 crime film based on the Leopold and Loeb murder case, for which he won a best actor award at the Cannes film festival alongside co-stars Orson Welles and Bradford Dillman. Continue reading...
Economic meltdown heaps pressure on Pakistani PM, with record inflation bringing threat of unrestOn Friday night, 27-year-old Asadullah, who sold old shoes on a cart, set himself on fire in the Pakistani city of Karachi.Ghani, a relative, blamed the state of an economy where rampant inflation is hitting those least able to cope. In comments to local media, he said Asadullah used to get calls from his wife and parents asking him for money, but he could not afford to pay the rent and meet his own expenses and sending money back home was no longer possible. Continue reading...
by Andrew Roth in Moscow with agencies on (#5RP2D)
German interior minister says Poland needs support to deal with ‘hybrid threat’ of politically organised migrationGermany needs to get the “whole of the democratic world” on board to support orderly immigration to Europe, its interior minister has said, amid a worsening crisis at the Poland-Belarus border.Horst Seehofer accused Belarus and Russia of exploiting refugees and migrants in an attempt to destabilise the west, and said EU countries must stand together in the face of a “hybrid threat” posed by “politically organised migration”. Continue reading...
New campaign will encourage survivors to access help and support in response to spate of femicides and rise in reports of abuseGreece is to launch a public campaign urging victims of domestic violence to “speak up” after a spate of femicides whose ferocity has stunned the nation.The country has seen a rise in domestic violence cases so far in 2021, accentuated by multiple cases of brutal murders of women that have dominated media coverage as people from the arts and sports worlds – including the Olympic gold medallist Sofia Bekatourou – have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse. Continue reading...
A new stage production aims to tell the Sufi poet’s story beyond his aphorisms – and challenge assumptions about Islam and the Middle East in the processHe is everywhere and nowhere. The words of Jalal al-Din Rumi are found on sunset images pasted on Instagram and coffee mugs sold on Etsy; his poems have been featured in recordings from Madonna and Coldplay and he is reputed to be the bestselling poet in the US. Rumi’s observations and aphorisms on life may be endlessly cited – “You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop” – but few in the west know him as anything more than a bearded Sufi mystic.“Rumi has become a mystical, almost deified figure,” says Nadim Naaman. “The reality is that he was the opposite of an untouchable deity.” Naaman, a British Lebanese singer, actor and writer, has collaborated with the Qatari composer Dana Al Fardan to create Rumi: The Musical. “Our approach was to take the man out of the myth,” says Al Fardan, “and to present him as human being.” This is the second time Naaman and Al Fardan have brought a beloved Middle Eastern poet to the London stage. Their 2018 show Broken Wings, which is returning to London in the new year, was based on a novel by the Lebanese poet and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was the success of that production that convinced them there may be an appetite for a musical that delved into the life of Rumi. Continue reading...
Documentary director Dénes Nagy explores how conflict erodes loyalty, morality and human consciousness in his award-winning first featureHungarian director and documentarist Dénes Nagy makes his feature debut with this gruelling, slow-burning drama set in the vast trackless forests of the eastern front during the second world war, a film which won him the Silver Bear for best director at this year’s Berlin film festival. This is a world of brutality and fear from which the movie averts its gaze at key moments, but the chill is unmistakable. The title appears to refer to a light which is inexorably fading.Having joined the Axis powers, Hungary sends troops into the grim, freezing forests of Ukraine to secure the territory, keep order, establish supply lines and root out pockets of pro-Soviet “partisans”, naturally making an example of them to cow the other resentful civilians into submission. István Semetka, played by Ferenc Szabó, is a corporal with a machine-gun unit on this grim mission: a diffident, blank-faced man with the semi-official job of taking photographs, who is mocked a little by his commanding officers. They move in on a village which is, at least apparently, docile enough. But having taken food from these peasants, the Hungarian unit move on and are set upon in the forest, the villagers having evidently told partisans their movements. Almost all the officers are killed except Semetka, who gets back to the village with the other survivors, to be met by Hungarian reinforcements, led by Koleszár (László Bajkó), a friend of Semetka’s. It is Koleszár who, via his insolent sergeant-major, orders Semetka out on a spurious task searching the forest, simply in order to get his gentle old friend out of the way, so that he can get on with the job of carrying out the necessary terrible reprisals. Continue reading...
Fabiola Campillai was shot in the face by a teargas canister as she walked to work in 2019 amid nationwide protests against social inequality. Now she is running for office as an independentOn a November evening two years ago, Fabiola Campillai stepped out into the fading sunshine to head for her night shift at a food processing plant.For weeks, Chile had been racked by a wave of mass protests against social inequality, but there were few signs of demonstrators in Cinco Pinos, the quiet neighbourhood on the outskirts of Santiago where Campillai lives. Continue reading...
World news | The Guardian