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In Australia’s dead heart, telling yarns about the many ways to die in the bush is practically a pastimeWe’re only part way through our first cup of tea and a series of anecdotes about goannas, when Karl Roth disappears. While we wait for his return, we chat to his wife Bobbie about the palms and frangipani in their garden. How have they managed to tame this harsh landscape into something so orderly and colourful, we ask. It’s a question that comes up every time we come here.We’re several years into our investigation of the disappearance of Paddy Moriarty from the 12-person town of Larrimah, 500km south of Darwin in the Northern Territory. It’s a strange case; the stuff TV shows are made of. On 16 December, 2017, 70-year-old Paddy finished his last drink at the bright pink Larrimah Hotel, also known as the Pink Panther. He and his dog, Kellie, jumped on his quad bike to ride a few hundred metres home on the other side of the Stuart Highway. Nobody has ever seen them again. Continue reading...

Exclusive: England and Wales figures show ‘epidemic’ of flashing against women, after allegations against Wayne Couzens emergedWomen are facing an “epidemic” of flashing and other forms of indecent exposure, with police in England and Wales recording more than 10,000 cases last year but taking fewer than 600 people to court over them, Guardian analysis reveals.The findings come after Wayne Couzens was reported for repeated instances of alleged indecent exposure in the years and days before he raped and murdered Sarah Everard, but faced no action. Police accepted they may have had enough clues to identify the police officer as a threat to women sooner, amid fears that flashing is a gateway to other sex crimes. Continue reading...

Minister speaks of ‘devastating blow’ as Scotland Yard suggests actions to take if feeling unsafePolice will have to work hard to rebuild public confidence after the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer, a minister has said, as Scotland Yard said people stopped by a lone plainclothes officer should challenge their legitimacy and could try “waving a bus down” to escape a person they believe is pretending to be police.Wayne Couzens, who joined the Metropolitan police in 2018, was handed a rare whole-life sentence on Thursday for the kidnap, rape and murder of 33-year-old Everard as she walked home in south London in March. Continue reading...

This filmed version of the Broadway show, with its accidental comedy and cringeworthy lines, is a guilty-pleasures singalong in waitingAnd … so … it’s … springtime for glamour and victimhood, winter for Windsors and Charles. Netflix have now given us the filmed version of the entirely gobsmacking and jawdropping Broadway show Diana: The Musical, shot at the Longacre theatre on West 48th Street last summer with no audience while the show itself was on pause due to the Covid pandemic. And while you’re waiting for Pablo Larraín’s movie Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart as Diana, this will have to do. Although there is a danger it will cause you to hyperventilate.Not since the Cats movie have I literally shouted from my seat: “What? What? WHAT?” Only by having Diana ride on stage on the back of a Jellicle cat could this be more bizarre. If it was deliberate satire it would be genius, but it’s not. It’s a saucer-eyed retelling of the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, with bobbing chorus lines of footmen and flunkies who with a costume change morph into step-in-time phalanxes of snarling tabloid hacks, while Diana solemnly warbles downstage about her loneliness and determination in a pool of follow spotlight. Continue reading...

François Vérove took his own life and mentioned crimes in suicide note after being called in for questioningA retired police officer has been identified as the serial killer behind a spate of murders and rapes in and around Paris in the 1980s and 1990s, in which he used his police card, handcuffs and professional restraint techniques to stop young women and girls, but eluded capture for decades until he took his life this week.In one of the biggest cold-case reviews in the history of the Paris police, investigators had been seeking DNA evidence to identify the notorious serial killer and rapist known as the “pockmarked man” who had avoided capture for 35 years. Continue reading...

On top of a plague of pipe-climbing vermin, the country is facing Boris Johnson’s battle to save ChristmasHunters of old, as Robert Baden-Powell once noted, pursued the white stag – “the miraculous stag” – not because they expected to kill it but because “it led them in the joy of the chase to new and fresh adventures, and so to capture happiness”. Continue reading...

He used to sell alarms door-to-door then turned to acting, clawing up the TV ranks in grabby supporting roles. Now, as a violent sociopath in Guilt, the Scot has hit his stride as a leading manTwo brothers are driving home from a wedding slightly the worse for wear. In the middle of an argument, the car careers into an old man, killing him instantly. The older brother, played by Mark Bonnar, snaps into focus. If they call the police and admit their crime, he says, their lives will be over. However, if they do exactly what he says – move the body, drive off, forget about it – then it will be like it never happened. But can they live with themselves afterwards? Could you?That’s how Guilt – the gripping, Hitchcockian show about their descent into more and more law-breaking – kicked off, instantly living up to its name. “I didn’t need to read any more than that,” says Bonnar, recalling his decision to take the role. “It’s an amazing opening. I went: ‘Absolutely, yes.’” Continue reading...

Thanks for following along – this blog is now closed. You can catch up with the latest coronavirus coverage here.Technology allowing Australians to travel overseas with an internationally recognised vaccine certificate will be ready within weeks, as the government prepares to announce a plan for the country’s borders to finally reopen.In evidence to the Senate’s Covid committee on Thursday, the chief executive of Services Australia, Rebecca Skinner, said the department had developed a visible digital seal for vaccine status that would be ready by the end of October. She said:Our plan is to have all of the technology in place so that it is a settled and tested situation before the policy decisions need to be made.We don’t want to be in a situation where policy decisions can’t be taken because the technology isn’t ready. Continue reading...

Campaigners say continuing violence has dashed hopes of rapid change to make the streets saferThis week, as the grim details about what happened to Sarah Everard in her final hours were revealed at the Old Bailey, there has been a sense of despair among women, and the campaigners pushing to make society safer for them.The hope that Everard’s murder would bring about rapid change has all but evaporated. On 18 September, nearly seven months after the 33-year-old was killed, a member of the public found the body of the schoolteacher Sabina Nessa in Cator Park in south-east London. Continue reading...

Victim of raid on flat in Minsk in which one officer also killed named locally as Andrei Zeltser, age 31A 31-year-old man shot dead by Belarusian security forces this week in a raid on an apartment block in the capital Minsk was an employee of the US-based software firm Epam Systems, the company has said.Footage shown on state television showed plainclothes officers breaking down an apartment door and a man firing at them as they entered. Continue reading...

Age, disadvantage and reduced access are mixing together in lower socio-economic areas to create a perfect Covid cocktail

Priti Patel is facing growing pleas to let 70,000 claimants seek employment pending a resolution of their statusPriti Patel’s department is resisting growing demands to allow asylum seekers to work following a public intervention from her cabinet colleague Dominic Raab to say that he would be “open-minded’ about the proposal.Labour leader Keir Starmer, Conservative MPs and refugee charities have all called for the Home Office to allow 70,000 current claimants to seek employment after the justice secretary said a rule change could help to solve the UK’s current labour shortage. Continue reading...

President accused of chasing rightwing votes by making sudden, tough gestures on immigrationThe Algerian foreign ministry has summoned the French ambassador for talks in “formal protest” against France’s decision to sharply reduce the number of visas granted to Algerian nationals, as opposition parties in Paris accused Emmanuel Macron of using the row to court rightwing voters.The French government announced this week that it would substantially cut the number of visas granted to people from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, three north African countries which were all part of France’s former colonial empire and where many people have strong family ties in France. Continue reading...

Met says plainclothes officers will no longer patrol on their own as force admits it needs to do more to earn trustPolice have told women to ask an officer for his warrant card if worried about his identity in the aftermath of the sentencing of Sarah Everard’s murderer – despite the fact her killer used his official ID to ensnare her.Senior policing figures have been asked how women can be sure they are not being deceived in the light of Everard’s murder by Wayne Couzens, who was a serving officer with the Metropolitan police at the time. Continue reading...

Calls for an investigation after Mohib Ullah killed by unidentified assailantsA prominent Rohingya leader widely praised for his devotion to serving his community has been shot dead at close range at a refugee camp in Bangladesh, prompting calls for an urgent investigation.Mohib Ullah, chair of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights (ARPSH), was killed by gunmen on Wednesday evening as he spoke to other community leaders outside his office, police said. Continue reading...

Domenico Lucano, who welcomed migrants to tiny town of Riace, also convicted of ‘irregularlities’The former mayor of an Italian town who revitalised his community by welcoming and integrating migrants has been sentenced to more than 13 years in jail for abetting illegal migration and for “irregularities” in managing the asylum seekers.Domenico Lucano, 63, known locally as Mimmo, the former mayor of Riace, a tiny hilltop town in the southern Calabria region, was put under house arrest in 2018 for allegedly abetting illegal immigration, embezzlement, and fraud. Continue reading...

Tribunal rules in favour of Kate Wilson over breach of human rights, citing ‘lamentable failings’Police have been been severely criticised by judges who ruled that they grossly violated the human rights of a woman who was deceived into a long-term intimate relationship by an undercover officer.The judges ruled overwhelmingly in favour of Kate Wilson, an environmental and social justice activist, who has pursued a decade-long campaign to uncover the truth. Continue reading...

The Matrix and Bad Boys actor on growing up in the New Jersey projects, his love of Ginger Rogers and Margaret Rutherford, and dodging the Vietnam warI grew up functionally illiterate. In most urban communities you were just pushed to the side and disregarded, so long as you were quiet. I was evaluated and told I had a third-grade reading level. I was frustrated and ashamed that I couldn’t fit in and comprehend the work, so I turned my back on it all. The teachers would say: “Did you do your homework?” I would say: “No, I didn’t.” I frightened them into leaving me alone. I spent the last three years of high school in detention because I didn’t fit the mould. Continue reading...

Karel Pinxten will lose two-thirds of his pension after EU court throws out his appealAn auditor of EU finances accused of fraudulently claiming €570,000 in expenses for hunting trips, holidays in Cuba and Switzerland, fuel for his son’s car and the purchase of a vineyard in Burgundy, will lose two-thirds of his pension after a ruling by the union’s highest court.Karel Pinxten, a former Belgian government minister, was paid €17,000 a month after tax when he worked as a member of the EU’s court of auditors for 12 years. On Thursday his appeal against the cut to his pension, on right to privacy grounds among others, was thrown out by the European court of justice (ECJ). Continue reading...

Judge described Jamie Spears’s involvement as ‘toxic’ and ‘untenable’ and ordered his removal from arrangementBritney Spears has said she is “on cloud nine right now” after a Los Angeles judge suspended her estranged father from the conservatorship that has controlled her life for 13 years.The singer posted her remarks on Instagram alongside footage of her learning to fly a plane. Continue reading...

Ex-Met officer jailed for kidnap, rape and murder of Everard whom he lured off London streetWayne Couzens has been ordered to spend the rest of his life in jail after a judge said his crimes were as serious as a terrorist atrocity because he abused his powers as a police officer to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard.The former Metropolitan police officer used his warrant card and handcuffs to get Everard, 33, into his car as she walked home in south London at the height of Covid lockdown restrictions in March, which were his probable pretext for stopping her. Continue reading...

Investigation into deaths of Terri Harris, 35, John Paul Bennett, 13, Lacey Bennett, 11, and Connie Gent, 11, continuesFamilies have paid tribute to a woman and three children killed at a home near Sheffield, as an investigation into their deaths continues.The bodies of John Paul Bennett, 13, Lacey Bennett, 11, their mother, Terri Harris, 35, and Lacey’s friend Connie Gent, 11, were discovered at a home in Killamarsh, Derbyshire, on 19 September. Continue reading...

At Malalay school in Lashkar Gah, female staff struggle into work despite anxiety over their jobs and half their pupils missingThe walls of the Malalay school, in the centre of Lashkar Gah, Helmand, are pockmarked with bullets from the last weeks of bitter fighting between the Taliban and government forces, the glass in its windows shattered by a blast.Its teachers have not been paid for two months and several say they were bombed out of their homes in the final battles, but they are staggering on, somehow, for their students, most of them girls. Continue reading...

The new Bond movie is keen to highlight more positive gender credentials, while keeping the Bond-girl glamour. Does it work?

AidData finds 42 low-to-middle income countries with ‘belt and road’ exposure exceeding 10% of GDPResearchers have identified debts of at least $385bn (£286bn) owed by 165 countries to China for ”belt and road initiative” (BRI) projects, with loans systematically underreported to international bodies such as the World Bank.The four-year study by US-based research lab AidData said the debt burdens were kept off the public balance sheets through the use of special purpose and semi-private loans, and were “substantially larger than research institutions, credit rating agencies, or intergovernmental organisations with surveillance responsibilities previously understood”. Continue reading...

Prevention and suppression are crucial as climate change creates stronger heatwaves, say expertsThe hills in the wealthy Athens suburb of Varympompi are lined with rows of burnt trees after fires ripped through the area last August. Some pines still showed flickering signs of life, the pale brown upper branches contrasting with their blackened trunks. Nearby wedding halls were reduced to burnt-out shells. The air still carries the smell of dust and ash.Two local workers cleared burnt trees and debris from a 12 sq km (4.6 sq mile) area. “We will leave some of these, the ones that are in OK condition, in the hope that they’ll grow new trees,” said one, who gave his name only as Agilos, picking up a charred pine cone. Continue reading...

Green shakshuka, roast lamb with anchovies, or a salted caramel tart – all the recipes you need for a Saturday brunch, a quiet Sunday breakfast or a smart weekend dinnerNigella Lawson’s American pancakes or Florence Knight’s ’nduja tortilla? Perhaps add in a side of Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley’s brilliant green shakshuka, or Lara Lee’s mouthwatering crispy ginger potatoes. Your OFM food weekend starts here. Whatever the occasion: friends over for Saturday brunch, a quiet Sunday breakfast or a smart Sunday dinner, they are all covered. Any weekend recipe you may ever need. Just be sure to finish off with a Ravneet Gill rum baba. Continue reading...

The 33-year-old’s mother, father and sister told the court they were haunted by her murderThe family of Sarah Everard said they were haunted by thoughts of her suffering in the final hours of her life as they confronted her murderer in court. Here are their victim impact statements: Continue reading...

Former French president is expected to appeal sentence that could be served at home under electronic surveillanceThe former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to a second jail term after being found guilty of illegal campaign financing for the vast, showman-style political rallies of his failed 2012 re-election campaign.The 66-year-old, who remains an influential figure on the French right, received a one-year sentence that the judge said could be served under house arrest by wearing an electronic ankle bracelet. Continue reading...

Fourteen questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes every Thursday – how will you fare?The quiz master remains away, but early this morning a troupe of highly trained carrier pigeons delivered 14 questions from a secret location in Scotland to the Guardian’s offices. Can you face the fiendish combination of some questions loosely connected to today’s date, Kate Bush, Doctor Who, anagrams and all the usual gubbins? There are no prizes, it is just for fun, and let us know how you get on in the comments.The Thursday quiz, No 23 Continue reading...

Article 23, shelved in 2003, may target foreign organisations and bans ‘subversion’ against Chinese governmentThe Hong Kong government is pushing ahead with its own national security legislation to “fill gaps” around the Beijing-imposed law already being used to crush dissent and jail opposition figures.On Wednesday, the city’s security secretary, the former police chief Chris Tang, said the government would consider targeting Taiwanese and other foreign political organisations when drafting the new legislation, known as Article 23. Continue reading...

Met officer used police ID card and handcuffs to lure Everard into car before killing her and burning bodyThe former Metropolitan police officer Wayne Couzens is to be sentenced for the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard, amid calls for a formal law to set out the rights of victims.Couzens, 48, used his police warrant card and handcuffs to lure Everard off the street before strangling her with his police belt and burning her body, a court heard. Continue reading...

NSW extends stay-at-home orders for 17 regional LGAs as state records 941 cases; South Australia records one local case; five Queensland areas including Brisbane and Gold Coast return to stage two restrictions. This blog is now closed

Jean-Yves Le Drian says Australia reassured France everything was fine right up to the day the Aukus pact was announced

The former PM calls on the Australian government to urge the US to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership and backs the UK to join

As an inveterate over-sharer, I learned a lesson this week from a former army nurse. Perhaps airing our worst moments gives them too much space to growSometimes people I speak to on my radio programme say something that will stay with me for a long time. Marguerite Turner, 98, said two such things to me last week. She was talking about her work in the second world war. Her most vivid memory is of a single night in May 1942. As a nurse in the Voluntary Aid Detachment, she was stationed in the south of England at a large private house being used as a medical facility. Around midnight, she stepped outside to take a break in the blissful scented silence of the garden. Then: “I heard a sort of engine noise from somewhere. There was no light. The noise grew louder and louder, then a whole lot of planes flew over. You couldn’t see them; they were so high up. They went on and on. I knew they must be ours because there was no one shooting at them. I stood listening in that garden. Then they grew fainter and fainter, obviously going somewhere.”Those planes, it turned out, were among the first of Bomber Harris’s so-called “thousand bomber raids” on German cities. That night the target was Cologne. Nearly 500 Germans were killed outright and 45,000 were made homeless. Forty-three of the aircraft she had heard didn’t return. And there, deep in the darkness a long way down, stood this young nurse, her tranquillity overwhelmed by the deafening din of violence. Seventy-nine years on, the viciously juxtaposed smell and sound are with her as if it was yesterday. As she puts it: “The scent of lilac and a curtain of engines.” Continue reading...

Authorities hope rock’n’roll song will help people of Iwate prefecture stay safe as number of bear sightings risesCan rock’n’roll keep people safe from bear attacks? One Japanese region is hoping so, and has commissioned a cautionary anthem warning residents about the threat of its ursine inhabitants.Bears are common across Japan and regularly spark frantic hunts when they venture into towns, where they have attacked and even killed residents. Continue reading...

‘Shark calling’, an ancient custom of hunters singing to sharks then catching them by hand, is under threat and locals blame deep-sea disturbancesMore in this series

Denmark has secured decent pay and conditions within the sector. Will other EU countries finally follow suit?Read more: ‘The whole system is rotten’: life inside Europe’s meat industryIn meat plants, there’s a golden rule: the production line never stops. For 28 years, Frank Vestergaard has worked in Denmark’s meat processing industry. When he started, he says, workers were expected to slaughter 80 pigs an hour on the line; today, that number has rocketed to 432 animals.He starts work at 6am and deals with animal carcasses. The pigs are first put to sleep with gas, then the workers slit their throats to let the blood drain out. Vestergaard’s job is to remove any injuries from the carcasses, such as broken bones, which the vets on the line identify. If the gallbladder is accidentally punctured, for example, a yellow fluid can seep on to the meat, and Vestergaard has to remove it.

The ‘highly authenticated’ digital record will enable international travel and be used by third parties, such as airlines and other countries’ customs officials

Little Freddie King has survived three shootings, stabbings, a near fatal bike accident, a stomach ulcer, an accidental electrocution, Hurricane Katrina, and now a pandemicIn a dark, wood-panelled room, thick with humidity and reeking of smoke, the bluesman sits on a battered red couch that droops in the middle. He takes a moment to reflect before walking to the stage. He’s dressed in a pair of shades, a straw fedora, and a technicolor suit jacket splashed with turquoise, pink and peach. His flamboyance is an instant contrast with the dingy surroundings. He takes a final drag of a cigarette, down to the butt, before adjusting his tie.Little Freddie King has played this venue – BJ’s Lounge, a ramshackle bar in the Bywater neighbourhood of New Orleans – for the past 27 years. But tonight is special. Tonight is his 81st birthday. Continue reading...

The next generation will be increasingly divided into those can leverage intergenerational wealth to buy a home, and those who cannotReturning home to a country he couldn’t afford to secure a home in, New Zealand photographer Cody Ellingham began to roam suburban streets at night with his camera. In a new series of photographs, he reflects the unease and discomfort of a generation locked out of one of the world’s most unaffordable housing markets.Earlier this month, property data analytics companies said the average national house price was hitting between NZ$937,000 and $1m, nearly eight times the annual household income. Real Estate Institute data shows there was a 31% increase over the year to July. Continue reading...

Changes to the law were recommended after the 2019 Christchurch shootings and sped up after a supermarket knife attack earlier this monthNew Zealand has passed a law that makes plotting a terrorist attack a crime, fixing a legal loophole that was exposed earlier this month by a violent knife attack.The new law had been months in the planning but was hurried through parliament after an extremist inspired by the Islamic State group grabbed a knife at an Auckland supermarket on 3 September and began stabbing shoppers. He wounded five while two others were injured in the chaos. All are still recovering. Continue reading...

Justice secretary says move could help people waiting for claims to be processed to make a contributionDominic Raab, the new justice secretary, has said he would be “open-minded” about allowing asylum seekers to work to help tackle the UK’s labour shortage.In what would be a major departure for the government, the former foreign secretary said such a move would allow people waiting for their claims to be processed to integrate and make a positive contribution to the UK. Continue reading...

Thanks for following along – this blog is now closed. You can catch up with the latest coronavirus coverage here.11.51pm BSTBrazil has recorded 17,756 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, along with 676 deaths from Covid-19, the Health Ministry said.

Star has sought liberation from Jamie Spears’ control of her finances and personal life for yearsA Los Angeles judge has suspended Britney Spears’ father from the conservatorship that has controlled her life for 13 years, marking a major victory for the singer, who has long objected to the arrangement that has stripped her of independence.At a court hearing on Wednesday, Judge Brenda Penny ordered Jamie Spears suspended as conservator effective immediately. Continue reading...

Clash is the most deadly act of violence ever reported in the country’s prison systemThe death toll in a gang battle at one of Ecuador’s largest prisons rose to 116, president Guillermo Lasso said, as authorities discovered the bodies of more victims including at least six that had been beheaded.Another 80 inmates were injured during the Tuesday night clashes at the Penitenciaria del Litoral in Guayas province, which has been the scene of bloody fights between gangs for control of the prison in recent months. Continue reading...

Manchester United’s Champions League win against Villarreal was ill-deserved – the team are too open and will be punished for itHow much time does love buy you? That Manchester United fans want Ole Gunnar Solskjær to succeed is understandable. It’s not just that he scored vital goals, it’s that he embodied a golden age. Who would not want a returning hero to restore the club to glory? But wishful thinking will not organise a midfield.The win will part the clouds a little. Solskjær has survived another mini-crisis, but each one leaves him slightly weaker. And this one comes with Cristiano Ronaldo. It may not be fair, given Ronaldo is 36 and, for all his goalscoring ability, increasingly an anachronism, but his signing has increased the pressure on the manager. Continue reading...

Analysis: Beijing’s increasingly hardline approach sends a chilling messageThe release of two Canadian hostages by China has ended a lengthy feud between the two countries, but experts caution the saga foreshadows a deepening rift between the two nations.After facing charges of espionage and spending more than 1,000 days in detention, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were set free by Chinese authorities late last week. Accompanied by Canada’s ambassador to China, the pair arrived home early on Saturday morning. Continue reading...