Alessandro Donati speaks only to confirm his identity and will be sentenced laterAn Italian national has admitted his role in a £25m raid at the Kensington mansion of Tamara Ecclestone.Alessandro Donati, 43, pleaded guilty at Isleworth crown court on Tuesday to a single count of conspiracy to burgle properties between 29 November and 18 December 2019. Continue reading...
UK-born billionaire forged empire spanning luxury stores such as Fortnum & Mason and food brands including Twinings and Loblaws in CanadaW Galen Weston, the patriarch of one of Canada’s wealthiest families and a retail titan, has died aged 80.Weston was the third generation of his family to lead George Weston Limited, an already-prosperous retail empire founded by his grandfather, which he expanded significantly. Continue reading...
Duel between Armin Laschet and Markus Söder threatens sister parties’ delicate symbiosisA heated struggle is under way between two leading German politicians over who should stand as Angela Merkel’s successor as chancellor candidate in the next election, with the conservative alliance under pressure to choose between a consensual team player with a reputation for pliability or a charismatic political all-rounder in the populist mould.After attending a meeting of the CDU/CSU’s parliamentary faction on Tuesday afternoon, rivals Armin Laschet and Markus Söder emerged to say that the talks were productive and that they hoped there would be a decision by the end of the week. Continue reading...
by Dan Sabbagh, and Andrew Roth in Moscow on (#5GH2G)
Alliance warns about ‘largest massing of Russian troops since annexation of Crimea’Nato’s secretary general has called on Russia to halt its military buildup around Ukraine, describing it as “unjustified, unexplained and deeply concerning”.Later on Tuesday, Moscow hit back, saying the deployments were a reaction to what it claimed were Nato plans to move troops closer to Russia’s borders in the Baltic and Black Sea regions. Continue reading...
Holt made mesmerising works that filtered stars and vanished in the desert heat. But land art was seen as a male preserve. A new exhibition redresses the balanceThe story of land art is generally believed to be a tale of white men in weathered denim descending on what they thought of as the empty canvas of the American west in the 1960s with bulldozers and big ideas to make their work. But what of the women who were also making their mark? “Today, land art appears as an almost perfect distillation of the art world’s history of male privilege, with its conviction that man is entitled to space to roam, to make his mark,” critic Megan O’Grady wrote in 2018. “It is one of the contemporary art movements most urgently in need of reconsideration.”A forthcoming exhibition at Lismore Castle in County Waterford, centred on the work of the late Nancy Holt, hopes to redress that balance. The Irish venue launches its post-lockdown programming with Light and Language, a group show looking at her legacy in contemporary art as a central member of the land art and conceptual movements. It is an uncommon opportunity to see a sizeable group of Holt works, many of which haven’t been exhibited in decades. There is a large-scale installation, several video and sound works, photography, drawing and a scattering of her “concrete poems”. The most recognisable piece of Holt’s is a mesmerising earthwork entitled Sun Tunnels – four cylindrical, concrete forms, large enough to walk through, installed in the desert in Utah. Continue reading...
Ville de Bitche in north-east France had fallen foul of social network’s algorithmLife’s a Bitche for one historic town in north-east France that has received an apology from Facebook after its page was shut down for apparently using offensive language.Bitche in the Moselle, population 5,000 and home to the Bitchois, fell foul of the social network’s algorithm, which deemed it insulting and removed it without explanation last month. Continue reading...
The Russian poet’s eloquent writing is caught between a pursuit of the past and the meaninglessness of memorialisingTranslated poetry seldom finds its way into this column. It is too high risk: there is the probability the original voice will seem muffled or will not travel. But an exception has to be made for Maria Stepanova, born in Moscow and a leading voice in post-Soviet culture: poet, journalist, publisher and force for press freedom (founding editor of Colta.ru, an online independent site) who has been showered with prizes in Russia but has not, until now, been much known here. She is translated by Sasha Dugdale, a poet herself, whose imaginative instincts serve her tirelessly. Having said this, a sense that we might be playing Russian whispers (I don’t speak the language) cannot be altogether avoided if only because, as Dugdale explains in her introduction, there is much in Stepanova’s challenging writing that does not translate at all. And yet it has been Dugdale’s remarkable project to give Stepanova a parallel life by dextrously furnishing her modernist poems with English examples.It is essential to read War of the Beasts and the Animals alongside its companion work, the richly absorbing “documentary novel” In Memory of Memory (just nominated for the International Booker prize). Stepanova scrutinises the memorialising drive of writers and artists: Proust, Mandelstam, Susan Sontag, Joseph Cornell, WG Sebald, Charlotte Salomon – the book is, in part, a Jewish history. Yet she has a simultaneous regard for oblivion, for not recording, for the right to vanish definitively. Holocaust photographs, she argues, need protecting from their audiences. Her writing exists on an edge between an avid pursuit of the past and an acknowledgment of the eventual meaninglessness of memorialising. There is a sense that she might, at any point, be tempted into silence. She writes eloquently about modern technology’s influence on memory, about the wantonly comprehensive record digital photography makes possible – its images persisting into an unwanted immortality. By contrast, she salvages piercingly personal material, including letters from “Lyodik”, her grandfather’s cousin, killed in 1942 in the siege of Leningrad. Continue reading...
Investors turn to cryptocurrency after Erdoğan’s sacking of central bank governor caused further fall in liraThe neighbourhood teahouse is a focus of daily life across Turkey, an Ottoman tradition that has endured through the centuries. At the Red Lightning teahouse in Çorum, the enterprising owners have one foot in the past and one in the future: it’s the first one in the country where customers can pay in bitcoin.“Everyone we know in Çorum is starting to invest in cryptocurrency. We think that in five years or so regular currency will be in decline, it will be replaced by digital ones. So we wanted to be in a good position now,” said co-owners Hüseyin Nalcı, 38, and Kerem Kutay Yıldırım, 28. Continue reading...
Recruitment marks significant step in social media company’s plans to establish presence on continentTwitter has announced it will recruit 11 people in Ghana, the company’s first hires on the African continent, and that it is looking into opening an office there.The social media company joins Facebook and other tech companies moving into Africa. Continue reading...
From the outside, the country seems like a likely candidate for progressive drug laws but internally, change is proving hard to bringAfter New Zealand’s referendum to legalise cannabis failed, social service agencies across the country are seeking a new path to decriminalisation of drug use, but obstacles are plenty.On Monday, a broad coalition of social service, advocacy and health organisations released an open letter calling on prime minister Jacinda Ardern to repeal and replace the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 “to ensure drug use is treated as a health and social issue”. Signatories include the New Zealand Medical Association, Public Health Association, Auckland and Wellington City Missions, Mental Health Foundation, and the Māori Law Society, along with 20 others. Continue reading...
Pedro Castillo will face Keiko Fujimori, the far-right heiress to one of the country’s enduring and controversial political dynastiesPeru faces a polarizing presidential runoff vote, in which a hard-left schoolteacher – who caught a wave of popular discontent over the coronavirus and a cratering economy – will face the far-right heiress to one of the country’s most enduring and controversial political dynasties.Pedro Castillo, a veteran teachers’ union leader, took pollsters and voters by surprise in Sunday’s first-round vote winning 18.47%, with 84% of the official vote counted. In second place, Keiko Fujimori – daughter of the jailed former leader Alberto Fujimori – polled 13.12%, closely followed by two more far-right candidates. Continue reading...
Owner Annette Edwards offers £1,000 reward for return of Guinness World Record-holding giant rabbitA rabbit proclaimed the biggest in the world has been stolen from its home in Worcestershire, police have said.West Mercia police believe the 129cm-long continental giant rabbit, named Darius, was taken from its enclosure in the garden of the property in Stoulton overnight on Saturday. Continue reading...
Tuesday: Coalition support drops amid vaccine rollout chaos. Plus: Parrtjima light festival passes knowledge from one generation to the nextGood morning. The slow Covid vaccination program has left many Australians unimpressed, judging by the latest Guardian Essential Poll.More than half of Australians think the Covid vaccine rollout is too slow, according to the latest Guardian essential poll. The latest survey suggests the government is in a vulnerable political position as it attempts to recalibrate the vaccination program. Scott Morrison’s approval rating hit its lowest level in 12 months, dropping to 54% in this fortnight’s survey from 65% in February. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says the delay in the vaccine rollout “is not expected to derail” economic recovery, despite the December mid-year economic forecast assuming the rollout would be fully in place by late 2021. Morrison admitted that all Australians may not be vaccinated by year’s end and has offered no new timetable to replace the previous October target. The government has ruled out buying the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, saying it was not interested in purchasing any more adenovirus vaccines, which is the same technology as the AstraZeneca jab. Continue reading...
Scottish first minister calls UK government decision ‘morally repugnant’ as bills were passed unanimouslyNicola Sturgeon has condemned the UK government’s decision to refer two bills passed by Holyrood unanimously to the supreme court as “morally repugnant” amid an outcry from MSPs.The Scottish parliament passed the United Nations convention on the rights of the child bill and the European charter of local self-government bill in the weeks before it went into recess. Continue reading...
by Jessica Elgot Deputy political editor on (#5GG60)
Boris Johnson orders independent investigation into former prime minister’s lobbying on behalf of collapsed finance firmDavid Cameron is at the centre of an unprecedented formal inquiry after Boris Johnson ordered a probe into lobbying by the former prime minister on behalf of the collapsed company Greensill Capital.The independent investigation will examine the firm’s role in government, supply chain financing and communications by employees, including Cameron, who joined Greensill as an adviser in 2018, two years after resigning as prime minister, and who stood to make millions of pounds from his role. Continue reading...
Fears increase for those refusing to leave homes as La Soufrière eruptions continue for fourth dayThree days after La Soufrière volcano began to erupt on St Vincent, the eastern Caribbean island remains under a shower of ash and subject to severe water restrictions as authorities grow increasingly concerned for the safety of those who refused to evacuate.La Soufrière, which last erupted in 1979, has been firing an enormous amount of ash and hot gas into the air since Friday morning. In the early hours of Monday, the largest explosion of the current eruption sent pyroclastic flows down the volcano’s south and south-west flanks. Continue reading...
Blood spills, kneecaps shatter and excitement dwindles during a thriller that fails to build on a taut opening actUltraviolence is too often seen as a cinematic end in itself – but the results are often ugly, boring, or both. This Canadian home-invasion thriller falls into this trap, so ferociously focused on the scent of blood that it double-kneecaps one character not once but twice: by hammer, then by gunshot. But given that co-director Gabriel Carrer’s past credits include Kill, The Demolisher, and Death on Scenic Drive, we probably shouldn’t be expecting The Bridges of Madison County here.Related: Does Lars von Trier’s ‘vomitive’ new film spell the end for provocative cinema? Continue reading...
E-commerce firm feels penalty by Chinese regulators means focus on company is at an endShares in Alibaba surged on Monday after the e-commerce company said that a record $2.8bn fine handed down by Chinese regulators marked the end of an investigation into anti-competitive practices at the company.Top executives at the company, founded by the billionaire Jack Ma, told investors that while Chinese regulators continued a wider investigation into the sprawling conglomerates in the country’s tech industry, they believed the multibillion dollar fine announced at the weekend marked the end of the focus on Alibaba. The company is listed in Hong Kong and its shares climbed as much as 9% on the management’s comments. Continue reading...
Parents describe overcrowded emergency room and South Australian premier admits situation ‘not good enough’A young girl’s appendix ruptured as she waited for hours in a crowded hospital emergency department in Adelaide, prompting an official investigation and an apology from the South Australian premier.Annabelle and David Oates took their seven-year-old daughter, Audrey, to the Women’s and Children’s hospital in March after their GP diagnosed her with acute appendicitis. Continue reading...
Queensland MP had vowed to retire from parliament after it was alleged he had harassed women online and taken an inappropriate photoThe Liberal National party in Queensland has blocked Andrew Laming from recontesting his seat at the next federal election after he backflipped on his decision to quit parliament.Laming faced the state executive on Monday night after he met with the party’s applicant review committee earlier in the day. The ARC decided not to endorse him for preselection and the state executive accepted that recommendation. Continue reading...
These series rely on gimmicks - whether contestants are required to take off all their clothes or get married at first sight. But romance can flourish regardless
TV commentators ‘could hardly speak’ as 29-year-old becomes first Japanese man to win a majorHideki Matsuyama has recorded one of Japan’s greatest international sporting successes after winning the US Masters golf , months before Tokyo is scheduled to host the summer Olympics.His compatriots were preparing for work, perhaps pausing to catch glimpses of the last few holes on TV, when the 29-year-old secured a one-shot victory over the American Will Zalatoris at Augusta National in Georgia. Continue reading...
Diverse nominees translate into fairly traditional winners, with Emerald Fennell’s directorial debut taking best British film and Hopkins becoming oldest ever male acting winnerNomadland, Chloé Zhao’s elegiac drama about the life of ageing van-dwellers in America, has confirmed its position as Oscars frontrunner with four wins at the 74th Bafta awards, including best film.Zhao took best director, making her only the second woman – following Kathryn Bigelow in 2010 – to pick up the award. Nomadland also won cinematography and leading actress for Frances McDormand. Continue reading...
Storm downgraded to a tropical low after leaving trail of damage and homes without power in Kalbarri and GeraldtonTropical Cyclone Seroja, which slammed into the coast of Western Australia and tore through townships on Sunday night, has left a trail of damage and power outages.Seroja made landfall south of Kalbarri about 8pm on Sunday as a category three storm with wind gusts up to 170km/h. Continue reading...
Monday: NSW police handling of allegations against the former attorney general again in the spotlight. Plus: Kevin Rudd on the vaccine rollout ‘epic fail’Good morning. New information has emerged about the police handling of allegations against Christian Porter, Scott Morrison is accused of “gaslighting” Australians over the vaccine rollout and, as the Queen mourns her husband’s death, speculation she is about to abdicate has been quashed. Here are the headlines on Monday 12 April.NSW police passed up an offer by South Australian police to take a statement alleging sexual assault against Porter – apparently without putting the option to the alleged victim – new documents reveal. The documents, provided to the NSW Legislative Council after a motion by the MP David Shoebridge, also reveal how a request to travel interstate to take the statement was rejected in March 2020 because it was not deemed essential. Shoebridge told Guardian Australia the documents show NSW police “made two separate decisions to delay taking a statement, neither of which appears to have had a valid basis”. Porter strenuously denies the allegations. Continue reading...
Request to travel interstate to take accuser’s statement was rejected in March 2020 because it was not deemed essential, documents revealThe New South Wales police passed up an offer by South Australian police to take a statement alleging sexual assault against Christian Porter – apparently without putting the option to the victim – new documents reveal.The documents, produced to the NSW Legislative Council after a motion by MP David Shoebridge, reveal how a request to travel interstate to take the statement was rejected in March 2020 because it was not deemed essential. Continue reading...
by Martin Chulov Middle East correspondent on (#5GESN)
Shutdown happened hours after Natanz reactor’s new centrifuges were startedIsrael appeared to confirm claims that it was behind a cyber-attack on Iran’s main nuclear facility on Sunday, which Tehran’s nuclear energy chief described as an act of terrorism that warranted a response against its perpetrators.The apparent attack took place hours after officials at the Natanz reactor restarted spinning advanced centrifuges that could speed up the production of enriched uranium, in what had been billed as a pivotal moment in the country’s nuclear programme. Continue reading...
Martin Buckley, Carl Gardner, Margaret Vandecasteele and Pete Bibby on the death of the Duke of Edinburgh and media coverage of it“Inevitably he will be remembered for the gaffes,” BBC TV told me on Friday. I interviewed the Duke of Edinburgh for the BBC over 20 years ago for a documentary presented by George Monbiot. The duke (whom we were talking to as president of the WWF) was informal and funny, and his intelligence shone through; he had a manifest love of nature and a terrifically detailed grasp of his environmental brief. The gaffes are a tired trope, endlessly headlined by our alternately sycophantic and feral media. Yes, the duke was impatient with the constraints he was permanently under, and yes, he occasional showed archaic attitudes. But at this time, it would be nice to acknowledge his positive qualities.
World news | The Guardian