Northern Ireland's justice minister, Naomi Long, of the Alliance party, said 'dishonesty' over Brexit had fuelled resentment but condemned the violence and rioting that has hit the region over the past week. Long said scenes of children wreaking havoc in their communities, cheered on by adults, were 'depressing and disgraceful'. Arlene Foster, the first minister and Democratic Unionist party leader, also condemned the violence, as more police officers were injured on Wednesday night
My father, Ismail Ahmed Ismail, who has died aged 94, was the founding commander of the Custodial Corps of Somalia, overseeing the country’s prison system. From 1970 to 1988 he expanded the corps from a force of 1,500 men and women to around 12,000. They were responsible for the security, supervision and management of penal institutions in the republic, including special units and a series of schools for homeless young people.Ismail was born near Erigabo, in the British Somaliland Protectorate. His father, Ahmed Ismail, was a policeman in Aden, Yemen, and Jubaland territory under the British East Africa administration. He later became a head clerk in the port of Aden. Ismail’s mother, Halwo Mohamoud, was a multi-linguist from Aden. She ran a successful business trading spices, food and clothes between the region’s Red Sea coastal towns and Yemen. Continue reading...
Protais Mpiranya is top of a list of remaining fugitives indicted by an international tribunalUnited Nations investigators tracking one of the most notorious killers in the Rwandan genocide believe he is hiding in Zimbabwe and are launching a new effort to convince authorities in Harare to allow the 60-year-old fugitive to face trial.Protais Mpiranya, the former commander of the presidential guard of the Rwandan army, has been on the run for 27 years charged with war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Continue reading...
The singer who backed the Rolling Stones, Coldplay and more weathered a miscarriage, then the loss of her legs in a car accident – but her new album Beautiful Scars shows she refuses to give upMerry Clayton has an excellent memory. The 72-year-old singer tells tales with such particular detail: the warmth of falling asleep between gospel legends Mahalia Jackson and Linda Hopkins in the pews of her father’s church in Louisiana; the recording sessions with Bobby Darin, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Rolling Stones, for whom she delivered the searing holler of Gimme Shelter.What Clayton has no memory of is the 2014 car accident that was so severe that doctors were forced to amputate both of her legs below the knee. She remembers waking up in hospital, but the incident itself, and much of the five months she spent recovering, is lost. “It was like I was in another place,” she explains, speaking from her home in Los Angeles. “I knew I was here in the world, but it was just like I was somewhere else. I was in la-la land.” Continue reading...
This blood-splattered gangster flick with a romantic subplot follows Tae-Gu as he hides out from his enemiesThis gleefully blood-splattered Korean gangster film with an unlikely romantic subplot looks for most of its running time like the sort of cult-friendly genre discovery one could watch and then crow over before an inevitable Hollywood remake comes out. That said, the ending is so relentlessly bleak that a faithful remake would be unlikely – while an unfaithful one with a happier conclusion would be absurd given the ruthless logic of writer-director Park Hoon-jung’s plotting.The initiating setup is that after something really bad happens, moody pretty-boy gangster Tae-Gu (Eom Tae-goo) must hide out on a resort island in off-season before he is ultimately resettled in Vladivostok, Russia. En route he stays with a grumpy arms dealer, a former gangster himself, and that man’s troubled, taciturn niece Jae-Yeon (Jeon Yeo-been). But it soon transpires that there’s hidden depths in both Jae-Yeon and Tae-Gu, who after the de rigueur initial verbal sparring become unlikely friends – and maybe potential soul mates, especially when they end up bonding over their shared affection for mulhoe, a spicy raw fish soup which plays a significant role in the story. In fact, there are a lot of meals throughout, discussions of who is hungry and a key plot-furthering sit-down among gangsters in a restaurant that involves one of those huge rotating trivets typical of Korean restaurants so that people can share dishes more easily. Continue reading...
Chief constable briefs party leaders after another night of riots in Belfast increases political crisisNorthern Ireland’s power-sharing executive is holding an emergency meeting in Stormont after another night of riots scarred parts of Belfast and ratcheted up a political crisis.Simon Byrne, the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, briefed party leaders on the security situation on Thursday before a debate at the assembly, which has been recalled from its Easter break. Continue reading...
Andrés Arauz and Guillermo Lasso are seeking to expand support by broadening agendas to include LGBTQ+ rights, race and genderWomen and young people could play a decisive role in determining the outcome of Ecuador’s elections this weekend – and the two male candidates are doing all they can to attract the oft-sidelined sectors of the country’s electorate.Andrés Arauz, the protegé of former president Rafael Correa won 32.7% of the vote in the first-round vote in February and faces three-time presidential candidate, conservative banker Guillermo Lasso, who won 19.7%, in a runoff vote on this Sunday, 11 April. Continue reading...
We would like to hear from people in Northern Ireland and their thoughts about the recent unrest and violenceNorthern Ireland saw a sixth consecutive night of violence after a bus was hijacked and set on fire in Belfast on Wednesday evening. There has been violence in parts of the country, including Derry, Belfast and parts of county Antrim, since last Friday.If you live in Northern Ireland, we would like to hear your reaction to the recent unrest and violence. What is your view on the protests? Are there any issues you feel need to be addressed? What are your concerns? Continue reading...
A Buddhist monk who was trapped while meditating inside a flooded cave for four days has been freed. Phra Ajarn Manas, 46, was on a pilgrimage from another province and had gone into the Phra Sai Ngam cave in Phitsanulok, Thailand, on Saturday to meditate.Seventeen divers helped rescue him after an unseasonal rainstorm struck on Sunday and continued through to Tuesday, flooding parts of the cave while he was inside
While younger generations remain suspicious, growing numbers of senior citizens are taking up the jabThey may be old, frail, and vulnerable but they are the foot soldiers at the front of Zimbabwe’s Covid vaccination drive. Amid widespread scepticism among the younger population, it is elderly people who are coming out to lead by example.The queues at the vaccination centres in the capital, Harare, are dominated by older people. At Wilkins Hospital, Felda Mupemhi, 85, grasps her walking stick as she trudges toward a white tent, where nurses are administering the Sinopharm vaccine. Continue reading...
The AEC is looking into multiple pages run by the Queensland Liberal MP purporting to be community groupsThe Australian Electoral Commission has asked Facebook to provide information about dozens of pages operated by Andrew Laming, as Labor calls for the government to cut ties with the besieged MP.Guardian Australia understands the AEC’s legal services team made contact with Facebook on Thursday morning as it began its investigation into a slew of pages operated by Laming under the guise of community and news groups without political disclosures. Continue reading...
Former US president had gradually cut virtually all US money to Palestinian aid projectsThe US will restore more than $200m (£145m) in aid to Palestinians, reversing massive funding cuts under the Trump administration that left humanitarian groups scrambling to keep people from plunging into poverty.“[We] plan to restart US economic, development, and humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people,” the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said in a statement. Continue reading...
Nicola Lo Calzo’s images celebrate migrants in the Mediterranean and the veneration of the 16th-century Sicilian Saint Benedict the Moor, the first black saint in modern history Continue reading...
by Rebecca Ratcliffe South-east Asia correspondent, a on (#5GANP)
Social media accounts of Paing Takhon, who has a huge online following, are taken down following anti-coup commentsOne of Myanmar’s most popular celebrities, the model and actor Paing Takhon, has been arrested by a military that is increasingly targeting celebrities who have criticised the coup.Paing Takhon, who has a huge online following, was detained at 5am on Thursday, and is the latest of thousands of people to be held since the February coup. Continue reading...
Captain heads for Fremantle at reduced speed after blaze engulfs supply ship’s port engine room and destroys two inflatable boats onboardDramatic images have revealed the scale of a fire that erupted on the Antarctic supply ship MPV Everest on Monday while the ship was days away from returning to Australia.No one was injured but the captain changed course for the closest Australian port at Fremantle, Western Australia, after the fire engulfed the port engine room and destroyed two inflatable rubber boats stored on the deck. Continue reading...
The seminal album, with its extraordinary hit single O Superman, was unlike anything the writer had ever heard. As Bad Science returns, Atwood pays tribute to its prophetic dissection of 80s AmericaHere come the planes. They’re American planes! Musicologists and the less young will recognise those lines, which are from Laurie Anderson’s 1981 unlikely voice-synthesiser hit O Superman. This song, if it is one – try humming it in the shower – led to Anderson’s first multi-song album, 1982’s Big Science.Big Science is being reissued at a very timely moment: America is reinventing itself again. It’s a self-rescue mission, and just in time: democracy, we have been led to believe, has been snatched from the jaws of autocracy, maybe. A New Deal, leading to a fairer distribution of wealth and an ultimately liveable planet, is on the way, possibly. Racism dating back centuries is being addressed, hopefully. Let’s hope these helicopters don’t crash. Continue reading...
After a tumultuous childhood, he helped organise the UK’s first Gay Pride in 1972 – going on to battle against homophobic media, in a lifetime devoted to change
Who are the people who have come to follow wild conspiracy theories about Covid-19?When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Anna, a young woman from Bradford, was waiting for surgery for endometriosis. The surgery was cancelled, leaving her in excruciating pain. She was forced to close her business, a small tattoo studio that she had opened two years earlier, at the age of 24. She could no longer pay for the weekly counselling that had been helping her deal with her troubled childhood. Her partner lost his job. Anna was convinced that if she caught Covid, she would die. “I was in a terrified bubble, having the news on constantly, crying, worrying, panicking,” she told me. For weeks, she waited anxiously for news about support for shuttered businesses. The cash grant, when it finally came, fell far short. Other business expenses – insurance, bills – went on her credit card. She considered suicide.Feeling abandoned by the government and frustrated by the daily press briefings, Anna and her partner researched the virus online. On Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, they came across theories about the origins of coronavirus that the mainstream media weren’t talking about – that it was engineered in a lab in China, say, or that it had been artificially spliced with HIV. Some of it seemed implausible to Anna, but it was enough to convince her that the media wasn’t telling the full story. “Loads of people were saying ‘even if you die from a heart attack, they’ll put it down as a Covid death’. I was looking into that, and how many people who died had pre-existing health conditions,” she said. “It was to make me feel better, so I wouldn’t be as scared.” Continue reading...
We’d love to see the outfits you have loved in lockdown but hope never to wear again – as well as the ones you have planned for freer timesLockdown has been an interesting time for how people get dressed. Many of us, freed from the shackles of being seen in public, have reverted to wearing the same thing on repeat. Be it a uniform of navy polo shirts, head-to-toe tie-dye, a Victoriana housedress or a now-threadbare pair of tracksuit bottoms, there is likely one outfit that you have returned to again and again. And, despite appreciating its merits, you have no plans to wear it ever again post-lockdown.On the flip side, you might have big plans for what will take its place; escapist dressing to celebrate the newfound freedoms of a life less locked-down. Have you already laid out a frou frou frock for that first trip to a beer garden, a feather boa for a long-awaited BBQ, or perhaps you’re planning to wear a suit and tie for the first time in a year? Continue reading...
Increased workload and diminishing respect for the profession are main reasons why 35% of teachers wish to leave within five yearsOne in three UK teachers plan to quit the classroom within five years because of increased workload and diminishing respect for the profession, according to a major union survey.The poll by the National Education Union revealed an education workforce exhausted after a year of Covid disruption, with 70% reporting increased workload over the last 12 months and 95% worried about the impact on their wellbeing. Continue reading...
A bus was torched in Belfast, stones thrown at police and press photographer assaulted in attack condemned by all sidesThe Northern Ireland executive will meet on Thursday morning to be briefed on the ongoing unrest, after a bus was hijacked and set on fire in Belfast during a sixth consecutive night of violence.The vehicle was set alight at an intersectional area between nationalist and unionist communities, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said. Stones were thrown at police while a press photographer was assaulted during the course of their work on Wednesday evening on the junction of Lanark Way and Shankill Road in West Belfast. Continue reading...
South Australia police say a second man has been charged with possessing extremist materialSouth Australian police have arrested a man for possessing an improvised explosive device while a second has been charged with the possession of extremist material during a series of raids across Adelaide targeting members of the far-right.SA police confirmed it had searched “a number of domestic premises across the metropolitan area” on Wednesday. Continue reading...
Homesick and unable to afford the airfare, Brian Robson embarked on a crate escape to Wales. Now he’s looking for the two Irish men who nailed it shutA Welsh man has issued a public call to help find two Irish men who helped him return home from Australia in 1965 by packing him up and mailing him in a crate.Brian Robson, a 75-year-old from Cardiff, is looking for two men he only knew as Paul and John. Continue reading...
Buddhist Phra Ajarn Manas was fitted with a diving mask to help him swim out of flooded cave he visited in order to meditateThai rescue workers have freed a meditating Buddhist monk who was trapped inside a flooded cave for four days .The monk, identified by rescuers as 46-year-old Phra Ajarn Manas, was on a pilgrimage from another province and had gone into the Phra Sai Ngam cave in Phitsanulok on Saturday to meditate. Continue reading...
Families say they were ‘blindsided’ by last week’s announcement and that many opposed itFamilies of the miners killed in the Pike River mining disaster say they disagree with the representative group who last week accepted the government’s decision to stop funding efforts to recover bodies or evidence from the explosion.Twenty-nine men were killed when an explosion ripped through the Pike River mine on the west coast in November 2010. Their bodies remain in the mine. Continue reading...
Foreign Office acts over alleged sexual misconduct by staff in Democratic Republic of CongoThe UK has halted aid funding for Oxfam following allegations of sexual misconduct made against staff in the Democratic Republic of Congo.The charity confirmed last week that two members of staff in the DRC were suspended as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations of abuses of power, including bullying and sexual misconduct. Continue reading...
Order comes less than a week after plans to reopen businesses reversed while vaccine teams will target high-risk workersCanada’s most populous region has declared a one-month stay-at-home order and announced plans for mobile vaccine teams to target high-risk workers – including teachers and factory and warehouse workers – as it battles a surge of Covid-19 cases.Launching the measures on Wednesday, the Ontario premier, Doug Ford, pleaded with residents to remain at home. “The risks are greater and the stakes are higher,” said Ford. Continue reading...
Discovery by Essex police on Monday is confirmed to be 19-year-old student missing since 22 MarchA body found in a lake in Epping Forest has been formally identified as missing 19-year-old Richard Okorogheye, the Metropolitan police has said.Officers from Essex police made the discovery on Monday. The Met said the student’s death is being treated as unexplained and they do not believe at this stage there was any third-party involvement. Continue reading...
Archaeologists believe 4,000-year-old engravings on Saint-Bélec Slab resemble topological featuresArchaeologists in France have uncovered a stone with 4,000-year-old etchings they believe may be the oldest three-dimensional map in Europe.The engravings on the broken stone appear to resemble topological features including hills and a river network. Continue reading...
Coroner rules seriousness of Mulubrhane Medhane Kfleyosus’s illness went unrecognisedA teenage refugee killed himself after the serious nature of his mental illness was not recognised, a coroner has concluded.Mulubrhane Medhane Kfleyosus, 19, was the fourth from his friendship group of Eritrean refugees to take his own life within a 16-month period after arriving in the UK. Continue reading...
Russian opposition leader losing feeling in hands as concerns for his medical care in prison growAlexei Navalny has two herniated discs in his back and is losing feeling in his hands, his lawyers have said, as concerns mount about the opposition leader’s health in a Russian prison.Olga Mikhailova, a lawyer for the Kremlin critic, confirmed that he had been placed in a prison sick ward and had undergone an MRI after complaining of numbness and pain in his legs and back. She said a doctor had told Navalny about the herniated discs, calling them “difficult to treat”. Continue reading...
The Scottish travel restrictions are a postcode lottery, writes Robin M White, while Paul and Caroline Boyce are feeling a bit hemmed inMargaret Vandecasteele (Letters, 4 April) indicates one end of the arbitrariness spectrum of telling people in Scotland to stay within their local authority boundaries, by pointing out that she can travel from Wick to Fort William (say, 160 miles). Living towards the eastern boundary of Dundee city, I exit that boundary in less than a mile, and the western in about seven miles. If I did live over the eastern boundary, I would be in Angus, and could go, say, 35 miles to the Angus glens. If I lived over the western boundary, I would be in Perthshire, and could go nearly as far as Dunfermline (say, 50 miles) to the south, nearly as far the Cairngorms (say, 75 miles) to the north, and nearly as far as Glencoe (say, 110 miles) to the west.
Azam Mangori convicted of killing 32-year-old in his room in Exeter and dismembering her bodyA man who murdered and dismembered a woman who went missing on a night out has been jailed for life and told to serve a minimum of 20 years’ imprisonment.Azam Mangori, 24, killed Lorraine Cox, 32, in his room above an Exeter kebab shop in September last year. Continue reading...
Fighter jets’ latest incursion into island’s air defence zone is further show of force from BeijingChina has sent more fighter jets into Taiwan’s air defence zone in an increased show of force, as Taiwan’s foreign minister vowed the island would fight to the end if China attacks.Taipei’s defence ministry said it scrambled aircraft to broadcast warning messages to the latest incursion, which included 12 Chinese fighters. Continue reading...
by Rebecca Ratcliffe South-east Asia correspondent on (#5G9KQ)
Group says junta has carried out hundreds of extrajudicial killings, as well as torture and illegal detentionsA group representing Myanmar’s ousted elected government has said it has gathered 180,000 pieces of evidence showing human rights abuses by the military, including hundreds of extrajudicial executions, torture and illegal detentions.The Committee for Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), which was set up in the aftermath of the coup to represent MPs from Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, said its legal representative would meet UN investigators to discuss the abuses on Wednesday. Continue reading...
‘Left to her own devices, she’d be in a T-shirt and out in the dirt. But she’s been told to be good, stand still and not mess up her dress’This photo was easy because this is my niece, who’s getting ready for her first communion. Her normal state was to be very active, never stationary for more than a minute. Left to her own devices, she’d be wearing a T-shirt and probably out there in the dirt. What I see in this picture is that she’s been told to be good, stand still and not mess up her dress.It was 1987 and the family lived in Stoughton, Massachusetts. It’s a blue-collar area, not particularly fancy. There were always kids playing outside, which you didn’t see so much in more prosperous neighbourhoods. There was a lot of excitement. First communion is a very big deal. The rationale is that the girls are becoming brides of Christ, so their outfits are like a wedding dress, and the boys wear white suits, white shirts, white ties. They’re seven years old, considered old enough to have a notion of sin. My niece must have just turned 40 now. Continue reading...
by Richard Partington Economic correspondent on (#5G9JK)
Meetings of finance ministers follow change in US stance, with consensus growing on tackling tax avoidanceG20 finance ministers are exploring a global minimum tax on corporate profits, amid growing international consensus on tackling avoidance after the pandemic.The virtual meetings between the group of 20 major industrial nations come after the US made the case for an international base rate this week, in a move by the Biden administration to end US resistance to international tax reforms. Continue reading...
by Bethan McKernan in Istanbul and Oliver Holmes in J on (#5G92W)
Israel suspected of planting explosives on MV Saviz anchored in Red SeaThe Iranian foreign ministry has confirmed that an Iranian cargo ship believed to be covertly deployed for military use off the coast of Yemen has been attacked, in an incident that threatens to inflame a proxy war between Iran and Israel.Officials in Tehran said on Wednesday that the MV Saviz had been targeted in the Red Sea, a day after media reports said the ship had suffered damage after being hit by limpet mines. Images broadcast by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency showed parts of the ship on fire. Tasnim said an explosion had targeted the hull. Continue reading...
Justice minister Naomi Long points finger at UK ministers after four nights of street violence in Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland’s justice minister has said the government’s “dishonesty” over the consequences of hard Brexit has contributed to the anger felt by loyalists, as police counted the cost of 41 officers injured during violence on the streets over four nights.Naomi Long’s remarks came as tensions escalated in Northern Ireland, with the first minister and Democratic Unionist party leader, Arlene Foster, hitting out at the “arrogance of Sinn Féin” and telling the BBC the IRA army council still existed. Continue reading...
Leader of new Alba party criticised for refusing to say whether Russia was to blame for 2018 novichok attackAlex Salmond has been accused of being an apologist for Vladimir Putin’s Russian regime after he refused to say whether Moscow was to blame for the Salisbury poisonings in 2018.The former Scottish first minister was asked three times during a BBC Scotland interview whether Russia was behind the novichok poisoning attacks on Sergei and Yulia Skripal, and each time refused to give a yes or no answer. Continue reading...
Clues in The Golden Treasure of the Entente Cordiale could lead readers in the UK and France to a historic treasure presented by Britain to the French president in 1903
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