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Rémy Daillet-Wiedemann is claimed to have planned abduction with child’s motherFrench police have issued an international arrest warrant for a far-right conspiracy theorist living in Malaysia, who they allege helped organise the abduction of an eight-year-old girl in eastern France at the request of her mother.In a case that has prompted concern about the spread of QAnon and survivalist ideas in France, police said they sought the arrest of a former local politician who has called in online videos for a “popular coup d’état”. Continue reading...

Three returned travellers staying in adjoining rooms at the Mercure hotel tested positive to the South African variant, after initially testing negativeNew South Wales health authorities are investigating another potential transmission of Covid-19 between people staying in hotel quarantine in Sydney, as Western Australian officials confirmed two new cases had been acquired in hotel quarantine in Perth.Three returned travellers arrived on 3 April on the same flight, and stayed in adjacent rooms at the Mercure hotel on George Street in Sydney’s CBD. Continue reading...

Cleverly tells MPs that cuts come at ‘terrible’ time, with 16m close to famine as Covid infections doubleThe UK government has admitted that no assessment has been carried out of how “dire” the impact of the 60% cut in foreign aid to Yemen will be.Related: UK 'balancing books on backs of Yemen's starving people', says UN diplomat Continue reading...

Hollywood Foreign Press Association expels Philip Berk after he shared article calling Black Lives Matter a ‘racist hate group’The crisis-plagued Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the body that organises the Golden Globes, has expelled Philip Berk, its former president who sparked widespread outrage by sharing an anti-Black Lives Matter article that described the movement as a “racist hate group”.In a brief statement, the HFPA said: “Effective immediately, Phil Berk is no longer a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.” The HFPA’s move follows outspoken criticism from NBC, the TV network that broadcasts and pays for the Golden Globes, which called for Berk’s expulsion. “NBC strongly condemns Phil Berk’s actions … [and] swift action on this front is an essential element for NBC to move forward with the HFPA and the Golden Globes.” Continue reading...

Families with older children are turned around under Title 42, invoked last year by Trump due to supposed health risk from CovidDazed and dejected, Mimi was sitting on park bench in the Mexican city of Reynosa, Mexico, not far from the border with Texas. Clinging to her side was her six-year-old daughter.The young Honduran mother seemed shocked by how close they had come to their American dream – and the realization that her own words had pushed it out of reach. Continue reading...

Experts’ assessment comes on eve of US-hosted climate summit pressing countries for bigger commitments and deeper cuts to emissionsThe Morrison government has been warned it needs to massively increase investment in clean technology if it is serious about its “technology, not taxes” climate policy after promising $540m for “clean” hydrogen and carbon capture programs.Scott Morrison visited the New South Wales central coast on Wednesday to promise $275m for hydrogen hubs over five years and $263.7m for carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects and hubs over the next decade. Continue reading...

Martha Beck survived abuse, went to Harvard, left her husband – then began working with the world’s biggest TV star. She discusses self-help, nonconformity and the power of truth“This has almost been like a global meditation. What isn’t working in your life rises to the surface. Going back to the way it was? It’s not going to happen.” Martha Beck – the bestselling author and Harvard-trained sociologist known as “Oprah Winfrey’s life coach” – is talking about responses to the pandemic.“Every act of creation begins with the destruction of the status quo,” she continues. “It looks like chaos. But, really, it’s a freedom from the tyranny of ‘how things have always been done’. Pascal said that most of our misery comes from the fact that we are unable to sit quietly in a room. And, by the billions over the past year, we have been forced to sit quietly in a room. Now people’s questions are coming from a much deeper place. Before, it was: ‘How do I change my life?’ Now, it’s: ‘What do I want from my life?’” Continue reading...

Brittany Higgins to ask Scott Morrison to fix ‘systemic coercive control’ in Parliament House. This blog is now closed

Canberra diplomat tells press club China should not be milked with a ‘plot to slaughter it in the end’A senior Chinese diplomat has accused the Australian government of triggering a downward spiral in the relationship by “conniving with the United States in a very unethical, illegal, immoral suppression” of Chinese telco Huawei.Wang Xining, the deputy head of the Chinese embassy in Canberra, told the National Press Club that China had “done nothing intentionally to hurt this relationship”, despite the Australian government’s complaints about Beijing trade actions against a range of export sectors over the past year. Continue reading...

‘We will not have our national game taken away from us for profit,’ says Oliver Dowden

The Fair Work Commission upholds the sacking of a childcare worker who refused to get a flu jabEmployers’ power to direct employees to be vaccinated has received a boost in the Fair Work Commission, which has upheld the sacking of a childcare worker who refused a flu jab.Although the commission said the decision “relates specifically to the influenza vaccination in a childcare environment”, the case confirms labour law experts’ belief that an employer’s direction to get a vaccination can be “lawful and reasonable”. Continue reading...

Breakthrough could create thousands of jobs for villagers and help exports to other marketsA company in Lesotho has become the first in Africa to receive a licence to sell medical cannabis to the EU.The country’s top medical cannabis producer, MG Health, announced it had met the EU’s good manufacturing practice (GMP) standards, allowing it to export cannabis flower, oil and extracts as an active pharmaceutical ingredient. Continue reading...

Rise in cases feared as murders halt campaigns and leave many women too afraid to workGul Meena Hotak was on her regular rounds, going door-to-door giving polio vaccinations in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, when she heard gunshots.The 22-year-old’s immediate concern was for the safety of her friend Negina and other colleagues nearby. “Negina and my supervisor were in a neighbourhood close by when a gunman approached and shot at them. My supervisor escaped with gunshot injuries, but Negina was killed on the spot,” Hotak said. Continue reading...

Push for transparency comes at a time of heightened tensions in regionSecret archives concerning some of the most controversial episodes from the inception of Northern Ireland could be opened amid pressure from historians advising on its centenary commemorations.They include an archive dedicated to the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) – a quasi-military and overwhelmingly Protestant reserve police force known as the “B Specials” – and files potentially shedding light on their involvement in atrocities against the Catholic population. Continue reading...

Having ‘washed up’ on the island due to travel restrictions, our writer finds joy in hiking the Camí de Cavalls coastal trail and swimming in secluded covesI’m walking along a sandy path through a forest high above the flashing kingfisher-coloured coast. It smells of hot pine and wild rosemary. The sound of bells deep in the wood stops me in my tracks. Have I finally lost my mind, after months of piloting solo through the pandemic on this small island far from home?From between the trees step a herd of cows, as if from a child’s picture book, caramel coloured, soft noses, liquid eyes and each with a collar from which a large bell swings. Mystery solved, I pick up my water bottle and keep going. Continue reading...

The Queen spending day quietly while still in official royal mourning for Prince PhilipThe Queen is marking her 95th birthday on Wednesday while still in official royal mourning for her husband of 73 years, the Duke of Edinburgh.For a second consecutive year, the traditional 41-gun and 21-gun salutes, traditionally fired in Hyde Park and the Tower of London on the occasion, have been cancelled. Continue reading...

After embarking accidentally on his career, Pappenheim has created innovative soundscapes for theatre, opera and radioMax Pappenheim’s journey into sound design comprises a series of happy accidents. Music – and especially organ music – was his first love. He spent a year as a cathedral organist and it was only his predilection for experimentation and finding “the weirdest corners of the repertoire” that stopped him from pursuing a professional career in liturgical music.Instead, he went to Cambridge University, read classics and began teaching at a school in the Midlands. There, he was asked to direct a musical, Sweeney Todd, and it was then the ground began to shift beneath his feet. Continue reading...

Investigation finds one in six were solo and under 15, as experts say cross-border cooperation ‘nonexistent’At least 18,000 unaccompanied child migrants have disappeared after arriving in European countries including Greece, Italy and Germany.An investigation by the Guardian and the cross-border journalism collective Lost in Europe found that 18,292 unaccompanied child migrants went missing in Europe between January 2018 and December 2020 – equivalent to nearly 17 children a day. Continue reading...

Painting has helped one of Britain’s most revered actors survive Covid restrictions and the loss of a child. We join the actor for an art class that never quite happensIf you go down to the woods today, you may just come across Juliet Stevenson dangling from a branch, fumbling to photograph the light falling through a caterpillar hole on a particularly disobliging leaf, with her partner Hugh chuckling, resigned, as yet another quick stroll turns into a day trip. Upside down Juliet Stevenson has been a rare constant of Suffolk’s lockdown landscape, even as snow buried it and tides hacked away at its crumbling coastline. The 64-year-old has been all over the East Anglian country, leaving a trail of snow angels on her quest to find its most picturesque – and acrobatic – angles.What’s an actor to do when the West End goes dark? All that creative energy must go somewhere – and this actor is training the newly discovered painter’s eye that has kept her sane over lockdown. “By the time you get to my age,” she says, when I question why painting would be the basis of our interview, “you become too settled into the skills you know you have. I can sort of do my job. I know quite a lot about parenting. But to be absolutely at the beginning of something – at square one – it’s just a great feeling.” Continue reading...

Two months into Covid vaccine rollout the Coalition is reviewing initial plan to send dedicated teams into nursing homes to deliver jabsThe federal government still has no clear plan for vaccinating aged care workers under the age of 50 and the initial strategy of inoculating staff at their workplace is now “under review”.Aged care workers, the main route of Covid-19 transmission into aged care facilities, have widely reported missing out on vaccinations despite being prioritised in phase 1a of the rollout. Continue reading...

A railway worker in India sprung into action after a six-year-old boy fell on to the tracks at a train station in Mumbai. The child was with his partially sighted mother and was struggling to get back onto the platform before Mayur Shelke ran up and scooped him to safety. Continue reading...

The elderly millionaire fell prey to con artists posing as Chinese security officials who told her she was the victim of identity fraudA 90-year-old Hong Kong woman has been conned out of US$32m by fraudsters posing as Chinese officials, police have said, in the city’s biggest recorded phone scam.Police said on Tuesday that scammers had targeted an elderly woman living in a mansion on The Peak, Hong Kong’s ritziest neighbourhood. Continue reading...

Exclusive: coordinator of UN’s relief operation to say agencies not listening to needs of those in need

A ‘double mutant’ strain, lack of medical supplies and the relaxation of lockdowns have combined to foment disasterIndia has seen a terrifying increase in coronavirus cases in the past few weeks. Monday saw another new record when the country racked up 273,810 new cases, with no sign that the surge is abating.The capital, New Delhi, was placed in lockdown for a week from Monday, and Maharashtra state, the centre of the surge and home to the financial capital, Mumbai, further tightened restrictions on shops and home deliveries from Tuesday. Continue reading...

Man kept under police guard in Queensland hospital burns unit on counts including breaching domestic violence orderCharges against a man accused of murdering Gold Coast mother Kelly Wilkinson and setting her alight have been heard at a Queensland court.A lawyer who spoke with the accused man says no one could have predicted the tragedy. Continue reading...

Two men seen leaving the stolen Sesame Street costume with apology note were unable to be located by police dog squadA $160,000 Big Bird costume has been returned after being stolen from a circus in Adelaide by the self-proclaimed “Big Bird Bandits”.The 213cm-tall, bright yellow costume reportedly made of ostrich feathers, was found dumped near the south-western end of the circus, with a note saying “no harm” had come to “Mr Bird”. Continue reading...

Downplaying the risk with inappropriate comparisons will not build coronavirus vaccine confidence, Australian medical panel says

US president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris have spoken of the need to dismantle systemic racism during an address to the nation following the guilty verdict in Derek Chauvin’s murder case. ‘Today, we feel a sigh of relief’, Harris said. ‘Still, it cannot take away the pain. A measure of justice isn’t the same as equal justice.’ Biden said ‘such a verdict is also much too rare’, adding that saying systemic racism is ‘a stain on our nation’s soul’

Researchers in Canada find that population did not make the 6,000km roundtrip in 2018-2019As the ice melts at pace in the Arctic, the mining and shipping industry has carved itself an opportunity out of the crisis. Meanwhile, the marine ecosystem is left to coping with the heat, noise, pollution and the cascade of other changes that come with the upheaval of the environment.Now researchers have found a whale species that typically migrates away from solid sea ice each autumn and returns every summer to feast on tiny crustaceans did not make the 6,000km (3,700-mile) roundtrip in 2018-2019. Continue reading...

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George Floyd’s death at the hands of a white police officer touched off a new civil rights uprising that rippled across the worldThe jury’s guilty verdict on the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd signaled the conclusion of a historic police brutality trial and a key moment for policing and for the battle for racial equality in America.Observers have talked about this case being so significant that it will stand as a watershed between the way law enforcement was held to account in the US before George Floyd was pinned by the neck under Chauvin’s knee, and after. Continue reading...

Junior minister had indicated he was preparing to quit over concerns about prosecutions of Northern Ireland veteransJohnny Mercer has been abruptly dismissed as a junior defence minister after accusing Boris Johnson of breaching a commitment to implement a controversial pledge to prevent veterans who served in Northern Ireland from being prosecuted.The junior minister was preparing to quit on Wednesday but his resignation was accepted by the chief whip early on Tuesday evening, eager to put a stop to speculation he was on the brink of departure. Continue reading...

Incident comes as Boris Johnson pledges to cut Brexit border checks that have inflamed tensions in region

Disillusionment among French progressives could open the door to a Marine Le Pen presidencyIt was less than 10 years ago that France last elected a Socialist party president, but it now seems like another age. The unpopular reign of François Hollande, who stood down after one term, was the precursor to an electoral implosion for the party of Jean Jaurès and François Mitterrand. In 2017, as Emmanuel Macron successfully redrew the political map from the centre, the Socialist presidential candidate received a humiliating 6% of the first-round vote. In the subsequent general election, the party’s presence in the National Assembly was reduced to a miserable rump of 30 MPs.“Things can only get better”, to use a phrase from happier times on the European left. But for French progressives, the danger is that they get even worse. A year out from the next presidential election, every opinion poll points towards another second-round duel between President Macron and Marine Le Pen. Accordingly, last weekend, the fractious forces of the left met to try to agree on a united front. But after inconclusive talks it seems likely that the progressive vote will be split between at least two presidential candidates: Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the radical left party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), and whoever the Socialist party and the French Greens put forward. A first-round defeat for all concerned would be virtually guaranteed. Continue reading...

If it’s a problem in the city, it’s worse in the country. We look at one town as an example of the obstacles faced by people looking for adequate mental health care in rural and remote areas

Déby had ruled for 30 years and won a sixth term in elections last weekChad’s president, Idriss Déby, has died from wounds sustained in combat, the country’s military has said, sending shockwaves through the region as rebel forces continued to advance on the capital N’Djamena.The extraordinary announcement of the 68-year-old’s battlefield death on Tuesday came days after an election in which he won a sixth term in office, extending his 30-year, increasingly authoritarian rule. Some observers fear there could be extensive fighting in the strategically important central African country before a stable political settlement is reached. Continue reading...

Migrant rights organisations are concerned that those due to fly have not had full access to legal adviceCharities and human rights campaigners have expressed alarm at a decision by the Home Office to charter its first ever deportation flight to Vietnam.The Guardian has learned that the flight is due to take off on Wednesday, though it is unclear why the government has decided to remove the Vietnamese nationals at a time when deportations are at a historically low level due to the pandemic. Continue reading...

Ruling removes limits on some teachers and provincial politicians but maintains ban for police, judges and other civil servantsA Canadian court has struck down part of a disputed Quebec law against public employees wearing religious symbols, removing limits on some teachers and provincial politicians but maintaining the ban for police officers, judges and other civil servants.The 2019 law, which the Quebec government said was designed to preserve secularism in the mainly French-speaking province, prohibits many civil servants, including police officers, from wearing religious symbols such as hijabs and turbans on the job. Continue reading...

The actor is about to hit the TV big time as a girl with special powers in Netflix’s new young adult fantasy. And the internet is in a frenzy

If the pandemic has left you devoid of promise, purpose and delight, sociologists have the perfect term to describe it

Lukasz Koczocik grabbed pike from wall to hold off terrorist attacker Usman Khan near London BridgeThe head porter at Fishmongers’ Hall in London was stabbed in the hand and shoulder by terrorist attacker Usman Khan as he tried to fend him off with an ornamental boarding pike, an inquest has heard.Lukasz Koczocik grabbed the pike after Khan, a convicted terrorist released on licence, had fatally stabbed Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23, at a prisoner rehabilitation event on 29 November 2019. Continue reading...

Vladimir Putin’s system is killing the one person who can deliver Russians from their leaderHave you ever watched a person being killed? I will answer for you. You have. You are watching it right now, not in some sick social media experiment, but as Vladimir Putin and his corrupt regime slowly but steadily murder a prisoner. It isn’t the first time they have done that, but this time, their intended victim is Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition, who also happens to be my boss.Navalny has been on hunger strike for 20 days now. He is demanding medical attention from an independent civilian doctor. A basic request, but not when Putin views you as his number one problem. No food, no supplements, just water. His health is deteriorating quicker than world leaders can express concern, as he loses at least 2lbs a day. We got his blood test results last week. I couldn’t read a word of the scribbled note on a scrap of paper. But when we showed it to the doctors, there was that long doctors’ pause everybody knows, followed by their unanimous agreement: “He could die any minute.” He needs urgent treatment in an ICU, starting yesterday. Continue reading...

Calls to separate passengers come amid fears that Covid variants could spread in airport arrivals halls

The time for compromise is over. We must wrest football back from the coterie of billionaires who have deformed it

Ex-chief superintendent, former DCI and solicitor accused of seeking to ‘mask failings’ of policeTwo former South Yorkshire police officers and the force’s lawyer in 1989, when 96 people were killed at Hillsborough football ground, altered police accounts given about the disaster to “mask the failings” of the force, a court has heard.Peter Metcalf, 71, who was a partner at the firm of solicitors that acted for the force, Hammond Suddards, Donald Denton, 83, a police chief superintendent at the time, and Alan Foster, 74, a detective chief inspector, are accused of intending to pervert the course of justice by overseeing and making the alterations. Continue reading...

CDU leader may radiate ‘jovial continuity’ but polls suggest many voters doubt his suitability to succeed Angela MerkelIt is often said of Armin Laschet that he never even wanted to go into politics, but ended up joining the CDU only due to the persistent persuasion of an acquaintance. Four decades on, he is the leader of Germany’s most populous state, leader of the Christian Democrats and the conservative alliance’s candidate for chancellor.If the CDU – which has governed Germany for 51 of the past 71 years – wins September’s federal election, he will step into Angela Merkel’s shoes as the leader of Europe’s largest economy. Continue reading...