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Reem Yelda lodged a sexual harassment claim in 2017 after seeing how she had been portrayed in promotional materialA woman featured in a Sydney Water spine safety poster urging the workforce to “Feel great – lubricate!” has been awarded $200,000 in damages.Former Sydney Water worker Reem Yelda lodged a sexual harassment claim in 2017 after seeing how she had been portrayed in promotional material posted around its facilities. Continue reading...

Brussels promises to retaliate against move, which Moscow says was a response to punitive EU measures in MarchThe EU has accused Russia of seeking confrontation after the Kremlin sanctioned senior officials in Brussels and the president of the European parliament in a retaliatory move.In a joint statement by Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel and David Sassoli, the heads of the European commission, council and parliament said Moscow’s action on Friday had been “groundless”. Continue reading...

Robert Pether’s wife says he is being kept in jail as ‘leverage in a dispute’ with country’s central bankThe wife of an Australian man arrested in Iraq has pleaded with the foreign minister, Marise Payne, to intervene and help her husband, who she says is being kept in jail as “leverage” to help the country’s central bank.Mechanical engineer Robert Pether, 46, remains behind bars in Baghdad without the means to contact his family after being arrested without warning three weeks ago. Continue reading...

At least 45 people have died at a religious festival attended by tens of thousands of pilgrims in the country’s north

Academy says it was in ‘impossible’ situation, but it faces questions over delays in offering safeguarding to alleged victims

William Styles says he had thought of Usman Khan as a ‘success story’ before he killed Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones

People tell of unfolding horror at Mount Meron as inquiry begins into one of the country’s worst peacetime disasters

This is about so much more than wallpaper. A pattern of lying, betrayal and callousness is ruining livesYes, it’s a real scandal. Despite the apparent absurdity of a Westminster village obsessing over soft furnishings and the precise class connotations of the John Lewis brand, there is a hard offence underneath all those cushions and throws. By refusing to tell us who first paid for the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat, Boris Johnson is denying us – his boss – the right to know who he owes and what hold they might have on him.Offence is the right word because, even before the Electoral Commission determines whether the law on political funding was broken, Johnson’s failure to come clean may well be, by itself, a breach of the ministerial code. That bars not only actual conflicts of interest between ministers’ “public duties and their private interests” but even the perception of such conflicts. In refusing to tell us who first paid that bill for overpriced wallpaper, or to give full details of who paid for his December 2019 holiday in Mustique, Johnson has offended the public trust. Continue reading...

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

While local elections are complicated and give me the blues, the London race has big characters and bizarre real-world consequencesLocal elections give me the blues. All political parties talk down their chances ahead of them, then a bunch of psephologists weigh in to describe what normal results look like at this stage in the electoral cycle, as if anything were normal nowadays. Local elections remind me of Emmerdale – not enough happens, but what does is way too complicated.The London mayoral elections, on the other hand, unfold like a novel – a neatly bracketed timeline (they only started in 2000), with great big characters and the most bizarre, upside down consequences. No London mayor has enough power to solve the housing crisis, which is what all Londoners, renters at least, really think about; yet the office can bestow enough significance on an insignificant person that he can accrue the power to ravage the nation. Continue reading...

Some programmes will have their funding cut by 85% or more as the UK reduces its spendingBritain announced last year that it would cut aid spending from 0.7% of national income to 0.5% – a reduction of more than £4bn. The cuts are not split evenly, with some programmes having funding reduced by 85% or more.The Foreign Office said it would still spend more than £10bn this year to fight poverty, tackle the climate crisis and improve global health and would return to its 0.7% target when economic circumstances allowed – but it did not give a date or criteria for this. Among the cuts so far are: Continue reading...

Broadcaster cancels plans to show primetime drama Viewpoint as actor denies women’s accusations

Countries across Europe are starting to relax coronavirus restrictions as case numbers fall

Analysis: MPs and broadcasters are losing their reluctance to openly call out the PM’s deceitIt was a jaw-dropping moment. This week the SNP Commons leader, Ian Blackford, asked Boris Johnson a question in parliament that was unsurprising and yet somehow extraordinary. “I can’t possibly call the PM a liar in this house,” Blackford said, beaming in remotely from Scotland. “But … are you a liar, prime minister?”There was an awkward silence. It was as if Johnson – facing off at the dispatch box against the Labour leader, Keir Starmer – was genuinely mulling an answer. The Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, intervened, chastising Blackford for his unparliamentary remark. MPs were not allowed to accuse each other of lying, Hoyle said, even if this was what appeared to be going on. Continue reading...

Thousands sign petition calling for rethink as work on €9.38m museum about comic strip is given go-aheadA spat over the wisdom of spending millions of Euros of public money on a museum about a popular newspaper comic strip featuring an obese anthropomorphic cat is dividing opinion within Belgium’s artistic community.The decision by the Brussels-Capital Region to give building approval for the Musée du Chat on Rue Royale, the location of some of the country’s most respected cultural institutions, has prompted what artists Denis De Rudder and Sandrine Morgante have described as “feelings of incomprehension and concern, even consternation and revolt” in a letter and petition addressed to Rudi Vervoort, minister-president of the Brussels-Capital Region. Continue reading...

UN sets out plan for return, or relocation, of refugees in Dadaab and Kakuma camps on a voluntary basis in ‘safety and dignity’Kenya has again postponed the closure of Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps, according to details of a meeting on 29 April between the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, and top government officials.A joint statement put out after the meeting said there were currently 433,765 refugees living in the camps. Of the total, almost 280,000 are from Somalia, with others coming from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Continue reading...

Two separate cases involving breaches of trans-Tasman travel bubble reported, one in Brisbane and one in Perth. This blog is now closed

The prime minister has imperilled peace in Northern Ireland, and every day the economic fallout worsensAmid slippages, losses, vanishing investments and export drops, the drip, drip of Brexit damage never stops. I collect examples every week, as if picking up spent mortar rounds from a battlefield. On Wednesday, it was 450 jobs lost as car parts manufacturer Toyoda Gosei prepares to shut factories in Rotherham and Swansea, and relocate to the Czech Republic.A breathtaking £800 roll of gold wallpaper distracts our eye. A prime minister who caused tens of thousands of bodies to pile high, while apparently fixing taxes for pals and contracts for cronies, has our eyes out on stalks. No one knows how deep in slurry Boris Johnson can sink and still swim out. Continue reading...

With stirring songwriting that considers grief, philosophy and ecological collapse, the French quartet have become one of the world’s greatest heavy bands. They discuss their journey so farJoe and Mario Duplantier grew up in a calm idyll – perhaps surprisingly for two of metal’s most forthright rabble-rousers. Born to a sketch-artist father and yoga teacher mother, the brothers were raised in Ondres, a remote commune on France’s western coast. Their house was so rural that, when a journalist visited, he compared it to a “hermitage”. Music was always playing, from folk to Mike Oldfield; it only stopped when poets and painters stayed the night and the children overheard the grownups discussing international philosophies.The pair often passed the time on the beach. Joe collected wood and stones – only to come home to find his hands black with crude oil. Mario, meanwhile, had plastic bags flying in his face when he was out surfing. The serenity of the fairytale upbringing cracked. “We were confronted by nature hurting all the time, and nature hurting hurts you,” says Joe, the elder brother. Continue reading...

Fair Work Commission finding that nursing home was ‘prudent and reasonable’ could have implications for Covid vaccinationThe Fair Work Commission has upheld the sacking of an aged care worker who refused a flu vaccine, the second time in a month it has found that an employer can require staff to be vaccinated.In her unfair dismissal claim, the former receptionist at Imlay House in Pambula, New South Wales, Jennifer Kimber, said she had had an adverse reaction to a flu vaccine in 2016 and produced a note from a practitioner of Chinese medicine who prescribed her “immune boosting herbs”. Continue reading...

A veg patch on the dancefloor, invites printed on cheese, $30,000 makeovers every six weeks … a new show at V&A Dundee celebrates a half-century of club culture. Is it a thing of the past?Dancers grind, twist and pump their bodies beneath a billowing parachute, while other revellers sprawl across six-metre long polyurethane silk worms, or perch on seating made from washing machine drums and refrigerator cases. A VJ mixes trippy visuals to the beat of the music, using junkyard scraps mixed with water and food colouring on an overhead projector, her psychedelic creations drifting across a vegetable patch sprouting from the centre of the dancefloor.

Kurdish parliament legislation could lead to trial of Isis suspects detained across Middle East and beyondIraqi Kurdish officials plan to establish a special criminal court to prosecute accused Islamic State (Isis) members in a move that could lead to senior members of the terror group being brought to Iraq to face trial.Legislation introduced to the Kurdish parliament on Wednesday has raised the possibility that suspects detained in the years since the extremist group’s collapse could be transferred to a court in the northern city to Erbil to be prosecuted with international backing. Continue reading...

The anniversary marks the 1806 visit of Moehanga, from the Ngāpuhi tribe, to BritainNew Zealanders have quietly acknowledged an anniversary this week: Moehanga Day, or the day Māori “discovered” Britain.In a tongue-in-cheek nod to their former colonial power, some Kiwis have began an annual remembrance of the first trip by a Māori to London. Continue reading...

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Detectives do not believe the thieves knew the dogs belonged to the pop star and that the motive was the French bulldogs’ valueThe woman who returned Lady Gaga’s stolen French bulldogs was among five people arrested in connection with the theft and shooting of the music superstar’s dog walker, Los Angeles police said Thursday.Detectives do not believe that the thieves knew the dogs belonged to the pop star, the Los Angeles police department said in a statement. The motive for the 24 February robbery, investigators believe, was the value of the French bulldogs – which can run into the thousands of dollars. Continue reading...

Cases of variant B1617 reach 400, but Public Health England says there is no evidence of a threat to vaccines

For the first single from her hugely anticipated second album, Eilish uses a disarmingly dreamy sound to confront a man preying on a young womanTo say that Billie Eilish’s forthcoming third album is eagerly-awaited is an understatement. It wasn’t just that 2019’s triple-Grammy winning When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was incredibly popular, although it was. Eilish was already a phenomenon among tweenage girls, but its commercial success – it went platinum or multi-platinum in 17 countries – catapulted her into a different sphere of fame, where everyone from Tyler, the Creator to Pete Townshend expressed their approval, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it among the greatest albums of all time and the producers of the James Bond franchise commissioned Eilish to sing the theme to No Time To Die.What invites quite so much anticipation, though, is that its success clearly impacted on the music industry: you don’t have to look too far in 2021 to find Eilish acolytes, hastily signed in an attempt to mimic her success. The question of what the 19-year-old and her brother and co-collaborator Finneas do next – on an album that was apparently hastened by the Covid pandemic and the cancellation of Eilish’s world tour – is an intriguing one. Continue reading...

Survey of 6,000 prospective foreign candidates finds those set on studying in Australia becoming impatient for border restrictions to lift

Kremlin critic makes first public appearance since announcing he was gradually ending hunger strikeAlexei Navalny has made his first public appearance since holding a 24-day hunger strike, appearing gaunt but spirited during a courtroom appeal against a defamation conviction that he has called politically motivated.A photograph released by the court showed Navalny, appearing by video link, with a shaved head and wearing a prison jacket. “I am a creepy skeleton,” said Navalny, who appeared in the courtroom on a video feed. “I weighed this much in 7th grade.” Continue reading...

Alexei Navalny has made his first public appearance since staging a 24-day hunger strike.Navalny, who was fined 850,000 roubles (£8,200) in February for defaming a second world war veteran who backed a 'reset' of Vladimir Putin’s presidential terms, has said the case against him was concocted to further damage his reputation among Russians.In a courtroom speech, Navalny accused the government of turning 'Russians into slaves' and called Putin a 'naked king', a reference to Hans Christian Andersen’s folktale The Emperor’s New Clothes.Navalny is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence on an embezzlement conviction from 2013.He was arrested in January upon his return to Russia from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he blames on the Kremlin – accusations Russian officials reject.

Expert accepted ‘backstory’ about why Usman Khan was wearing a thick coat indoors that concealed fake suicide vestA prison counter-terrorism expert has admitted to an inquest that he failed to pick up on warning signs about Usman Khan when he talked to him just before his deadly terror attack at Fishmongers’ Hall in London.Steve Machin, the head of counter-terrorism at Whitemoor prison, where Khan had been held 11 months before his attack, said he was not in a work “headspace” when he chatted to Khan at a prison education event in the hall, hosted by Cambridge University’s Learning Together organisation. Continue reading...

In bid to end corruption, Francis bars employees from accepting gifts worth more than €40

Police appeal for information about community officer who was last seen taking dog for walk in SnowdownTributes have been left for a murdered police community support officer who was described by one of those who laid down flowers as “the kindest person I ever met”.Detectives are investigating the killing of Julia James, who was last seen taking her dog for a walk in a quiet hamlet in south-east England and found with head injuries.

Airline cites research that suggests overseas holidays would have little impact on hospital admissions

Latest updates: prime minister dismisses row about the funding of his Downing Street flat refurbishment

Former PM urges G7 leaders to help finance rapid immunisation programme to stem spread of virus

PM makes solo visit to memorial wall despite families asking him for weeks to meet them there

Body recovered from Thames believed to be that of 13-year-old who went missing on way to schoolThe body of a schoolboy who had fallen into the Thames from Tower Bridge in London last week is believed to have been found by police.The 13-year-old, a pupil at Ark Globe academy in Elephant and Castle, south London, was reported to have been on his way to school with a friend by bus on the morning of 20 April when he went missing. Continue reading...

BioNTech submitting applications in US and Europe for vaccine to be available to those aged 12-15

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British cronyism is not on the same level as the billions of dollars flowing out of Nigeria. But that money is being spent somewhereThe British self-proclaimed reputation for probity seems to have taken a battering recently. If it’s not Boris Johnson’s dubious WhatsApps, it’s David Cameron’s lobbying on behalf of the doomed financial services company Greensill. I have to admit my first reaction to the latter was glee at the comeuppance for a former prime minister who once described Nigeria (my country of origin) as “fantastically corrupt”. I thought to myself, look who’s fantastically corrupt now? My second reaction was distaste for my schadenfreude. After all, if my private texts were held up to public scrutiny, I might have much to be ashamed of. If I had easy access to powerful and influential members of the cabinet, who is to say I wouldn’t try to use this access on behalf of my friends? A little more grace, I reminded myself.Strictly speaking, what has been reported in the Greensill scandal is “cronyism”, the preferential treatment shown to old friends and associates, and not corruption, which involves the criminal appropriation of public funds. But as the Nigerian proverb says, it starts with clapping, before escalating to dancing. Continue reading...

‘Unjustifiable’ purchase demonstrates need for federal anti-corruption body, inquiry hears

Victoria says 500-bed $15m facility to be built in Mickleham; Australia’s medicine regulator says the deaths of two men in NSW not linked to coronavirus jab. Follow the day’s news live

The head of Australia’s drugs regulator urges caution about linking blood clot deaths to Covid-19 vaccines

The Triumph of Silenus was relegated to storerooms but new study casts it in a new lightIt was bought by the National Gallery in the 1820s as a painting by Nicolas Poussin, the 17th-century French master. But The Triumph of Silenus – a bacchanalian revel – has long been relegated to the storerooms, having been repeatedly rejected by some of the 20th-century’s foremost experts as a mere copy.Now doubts about the picture have been dispelled and it will hang in the main galleries with a new label bearing Poussin’s name. Continue reading...

German national Bernhard ‘Bery’ Glaser took advantage of his ‘rich white foreigner’ status to systematically abuse girls in his care. Photographer DeLovie Kwagala captured the stories of 15 womenEve was just eight years old and recently orphaned when she was taken to live at a girls’ shelter on Bugala island, in the Ugandan sector of Lake Victoria.Bery’s Place had been set up in 2006 by Bernhard “Bery” Glaser, a German national living in Uganda, as a refuge for traumatised children and victims of sexual violence. Yet Eve and other girls living there at the time say that Glaser was hiding a dark secret. Taking advantage of his “rich white foreigner” status to entice parents to leave their daughters at the home, Glaser was using Bery’s Place as a cover for routine and systematic sexual and emotional abuse of the children in his care, the girls allege. Continue reading...

New Zealand’s glaciers are retreating. After years of inaction, Covid could be a wake-up call for change – but is it already too late? Continue reading...

Three Dublin lads and their super-smart classmate face an uncertain future in a tale that only hints at dark possibilitiesHere is an ensemble coming-of-ager in which someone actually says the line: “That summer may have changed everything …” It’s in a style I associate with the 90s: movies such as Trainspotting or Human Traffic, with people clubbing and yearning and discovering the value of friendship together as the sun comes up. There’s certainly an impressive cast lineup for this one, but there’s also something weirdly formless and frustrating about it as well; the film gestures at some dark and disturbing possibilities in human nature without quite knowing if or how to follow through.Matthew (Dean-Charles Chapman), Kearney (Finn Cole) and Rez (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) are three Dublin lads who leave school without much idea of what they want to do – not like their super-smart classmate Jen (Anya Taylor-Joy) who has some ambitious life plans figured out and on whom sweet, sensitive Matthew has a massive crush. But then the boys witness something horrible that shakes them up and reveals a sinister side to Kearney, who has a creepy attitude to Jen and a droog-like enthusiasm for torturing homeless people. Continue reading...

Under existing climate policies, electric vehicles could wipe out use of 2m barrels a day of diesel and petrolThe number of electric cars, vans, trucks and buses on the world’s roads is on course to increase from 11m vehicles to 145m by the end of the decade, which could wipe out demand for millions of barrels of oil every day.A report by the International Energy Agency has found that there could be 230m electric vehicles worldwide by 2030 if governments agreed to encourage the production of enough low-carbon vehicles to stay within global climate targets. Continue reading...

Decision taken despite the risk of politicising music competition, head of European Broadcasting Union saysBelarus had to be banned from this year’s Eurovision after it repeatedly submitted songs calling for “no dissent” despite the risk of the decision politicising the music competition, the head of the event’s organising body has said.Noel Curran, director general of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the industry body that produces the annual international competition, said a stand needed to be taken with Belarus cracking down on anti-government protests, while also conceding the danger of stoking controversy over future country submissions. Continue reading...