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Firm did not stop sale of panels despite two blazes involving similar materials, inquiry hearsOne of the most senior US executives at the company Arconic was likely told its cladding panels were unsafe for buildings above 12 metres in height, two years before the Grenfell Tower disaster, the public inquiry has heard.The $7bn a year turnover aluminium specialist sold the plastic-filled panels for use on the apartment block in west London, which was more than five times taller than that maximum and went up in flames in June 2017 – killing 72 people. Continue reading...

Luca Attanasio and two others killed in attempted kidnapping north of Goma in eastern DRCItaly’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and two other people have been killed in an attack on a United Nations convoy in the restive east of the central African country.The convoy from the World Food Programme (WFP) was attacked at about 10.30am local time (0830 GMT) during an attempted kidnapping near the town of Kanyamahoro, about 10 miles north of the regional capital, Goma, a spokesperson for Virunga national park said. Continue reading...

Rwanda National Congress describes shooting of Seif Bamporiki as an ‘assassination’A Rwandan opposition figure exiled in South Africa has been shot dead in Cape Town in what his party described as an “assassination”.Seif Bamporiki, 49, who was the Rwanda National Congress (RNC) coordinator in South Africa, was killed as he delivered furniture in the crime-ridden township of Nyanga. Continue reading...

Relatives, friends and neighbours name couple as Daniel and Kaylie Rudge and their child as Lilly

Member states agree to impose measures under so-called Magnitsky act over arrest of opposition leaderRussians responsible for the “arrest, sentencing and persecution” of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny will be hit by EU sanctions in the first use of the bloc’s so-called Magnitsky act.Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, said the 27 member states had agreed to impose restrictive measures under powers adopted earlier to target people behind human rights abuses. Continue reading...

Readers respond to an article by Ian Jack on proposals for a rail tunnel between Scotland and Northern Ireland and a long-lost railway lineIan Jack (A tunnel linking Scotland and Northern Ireland? Fantasy has replaced British modesty, 19 February) mentioned “a vast munitions dump on the seabed” on the route of the proposed rail tunnel between Scotland and Northern Ireland. The dump lies in the Beaufort Dyke, a deep trench in the North Channel. I reported its presence nearly 30 years ago for BBC News. The Ministry of Defence originally told me that it had dumped munitions there since the end of the second world war, that it knew what they were and that they totalled around 100,000 tonnes.Some months later, with British Gas by then planning an undersea pipeline there, the MoD rang me with an update. It had been using the dyke since the end of the first world war, it said. It did not know what munitions were down there, but the total was about a million tonnes. I’d fancy my chances of crossing the North Channel in a tunnel as little as on a bridge.

First real data from mass vaccinations programmes in England and Scotland is promising

Ban comes as Boeing urges airlines to ground all planes with Pratt & Whitney PW4000 enginesThe UK has barred from its airspace Boeing 777s with the same type of engine that caught fire in the US at the weekend, as the plane’s manufacturer urged airlines to ground all 120 of these aircraft worldwide.Boeing said carriers using 777 planes with Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines should suspend operations until full inspections could be carried out, after the United Airlines jet was forced to make an emergency landing having scattered debris over residential areas in Denver. Continue reading...

Scott Morrison responded last week to Brittany Higgins’ allegations of sexual assault in parliament by a former Liberal party staffer by saying he was taking the advice of his wife to think about what he would want to happen ‘if it were our girls’. Amy Remeikis has heard this rhetoric before – after her own assault. On this episode, she shares her story as an assault survivor and explores the problems with selective empathyIn Australia support for sexual assault survivors is available at 1800 RESPECT or 1800 737 732. Children and young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, and adult survivors of child sexual assault can seek help at the Blue Knot Foundation.You can read the columns Amy Remeikis discusses in the episode here: Continue reading...

Tax breaks announced for companies who pay for manuscript by the Marquis de Sade, valued at €4.5mThe French government is appealing for corporate help to acquire the manuscript of the Marquis de Sade’s notorious The 120 Days of Sodom, valued at €4.5m (£3.9m), for the National Library of France.Related: ‘The most impure tale ever written’: how The 120 Days of Sodom became a ‘classic’ Continue reading...

Angela Constance says she is committed to introducing full range of treatments in ‘national mission’Scotland’s new minister for drugs policy, Angela Constance, has said she is determined to see a reduction in the country’s horrific drug-related death toll and significantly more people in treatment within the year.“I’m talking about the full range [of treatment]: residential, in the community, harm reduction, recovery services, medication where it’s appropriate … I’m not punting my preferred option,” Constance said. Continue reading...

Survey of people in France, Germany, Italy and UK shows high level of belief in conspiracy theories – with mistrust highest in France

Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo do not explain split, after big hits including Get Lucky and One More TimeDaft Punk, the French duo whose sci-fi aesthetic and euphoric sense of pop transformed electronic music forever, have split up.They announced the split with a YouTube video featuring a clip from their film Electroma, featuring an intertitle with the dates 1993-2021. Their publicist Kathryn Frazier confirmed the split to Pitchfork, but did not elaborate. Continue reading...

‘Gene Hackman was scary as hell. At the premiere, he pulled me aside and said: “I didn’t think you had a clue what you were doing!”’My wife and I were about to take our first cruise and I needed a book. I hadn’t read any Elmore Leonard novels but Get Shorty was about Hollywood so I thought it’d be interesting. I bought it and loved it. A few years previously I had shot Throw Momma from the Train with Danny DeVito and I called him and he said: “I’ll buy it, you direct it and I’ll produce and star in it.” I saw Danny as Chili Palmer because, for me, the strength of Chili and the strength of Danny is self-confidence. Continue reading...

Spanish police release video and photos of people from north Africa found in trucks and containersSpanish police have released photographs and video footage of people trying to reach Europe from north Africa by hiding in containers of broken bottles and in sealed bags of toxic ash.Last Friday, officers from Spain’s Guardia Civil rescued 41 people who were trying to enter Europe via the port in the Spanish enclave of Melilla in north Africa. The migrants were found in trucks, containers and articulated lorries waiting to be loaded on to ships bound for the mainland. Continue reading...

Exclusive: NPCC’s drugs lead backs wider supply of naloxone after successful trialsThe overdose antidote naloxone should be made available to all police officers in areas where there is a clear need, the police chiefs’ drug lead has urged after successful pilot schemes.North Wales police and Police Scotland are trialling having beat officers carry naloxone nasal sprays that can be used to treat opiate overdoses, and West Midlands police have extended their pilot scheme, with a rollout due to be announced. Continue reading...

Awkward timing lays bare fractures in royal familyOn the last Commonwealth Day, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex appeared in public with the Queen and other senior royals for a final time before they departed the UK for North America.One year on, and the fracturing of the royal family is clearly marked as the Queen, Prince of Wales and Duke and Duchess of Cambridge appear in a special televised broadcast to celebrate the Commonwealth, while hours later the Sussexes appear on TV in the US for an “intimate” and “wide-ranging” interview with Oprah Winfrey about their experience of leaving the royal fold. Continue reading...

Protesters compare date – 22.2.2021 – to 8 August 1988, when military cracked down on pro-democracy ralliesProtesters across Myanmar have held a general strike, taking to the streets across the country and shutting many businesses, in one of the largest nationwide shows of opposition to the military since it seized power three weeks ago.Crowds assembled in Yangon, Naypyidaw, Mandalay and elsewhere on Monday, despite an apparent threat from the junta that it would again use deadly violence against demonstrators. Continue reading...

Longtail Aviation cargo plane scatters small metal parts over Meerssen, injuring womanDutch authorities are investigating after a Boeing 747-400 cargo plane dropped engine parts shortly after takeoff from Maastricht airport.The Longtail Aviation Flight 5504 cargo plane scattered mostly small metal parts over the southern Dutch town of Meerssen on Saturday, causing damage and injuring a woman. Continue reading...

Queen’s husband has spent six nights in hospital after complaining of feeling unwell last weekThe Duke of Edinburgh is said to be “OK” after spending a sixth night in hospital for “observation and rest”.The Duke of Cambridge, visiting a Covid-19 vaccination centre in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, on Monday, was asked about his 99-year-old grandfather, who was admitted to the King VII private hospital in central London last week. Continue reading...

Indigenous leaders want retailer held accountable over planned alcohol store near three dry communitiesAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and health leaders want Reconciliation Australia to revoke its support for Woolworths over the retail giant’s plans to build one of Australia’s largest alcohol stores in Darwin, near three dry Aboriginal communities.A letter signed by health, legal, domestic violence and community group leaders draws comparison to Rio Tinto, which was dumped by Reconciliation Australia over the destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site in the Pilbara, which said Rio’s actions were a “breathtaking breach of a respectful relationship”. Continue reading...

Spielberg might have claimed the 90s classic ‘depends on credibility’ – but with no dinosaur DNA, get set for fewer ferocious beasts and more … chickensIn the Guide’s weekly Solved! column, we look into a crucial pop-culture question you’ve been burning to know the answer to – and settle it, once and for allDon’t pretend you’ve never thought about it. Yes, yes – there’s the odd teensy downside to populating an island with once-extinct reptiles. Sure, the T rex turns out to show a disregard for road safety. And velociraptors’ approach to hide and seek is frankly unsportsmanlike. But the majestic song of the brachiosaurus! The incredible dino-flocks! The glistening magnificence of Jeff Goldblum’s chest rug! Could Jurassic Park happen in real life? Continue reading...

The film-maker and wife Soon-Yi Previn claim film is ‘hatchet job riddled with falsehoods’ on abuse allegationsWoody Allen has rebutted renewed allegations, in the HBO documentary Allen v Farrow, that he sexually assaulted his daughter Dylan in 1992, calling the series “a hatchet job riddled with falsehoods”.In a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, said that film-makers Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick had “spent years surreptitiously collaborating with the Farrows and their enablers to put together a hatchet job riddled with falsehoods”. Continue reading...

Free speech protests have continued since the jailing of musician Pablo Hasél last week for exalting terrorism in his lyrics

We’ll be reporting on human rights worldwide, elevating the voices of those working on the frontline to protect rights and freedomA year on from the start of the world’s biggest health crisis, we now face a human rights pandemic.Covid-19 has exposed the inequalities and fragilities of health and political systems and allowed authoritarian regimes to impose drastic curbs on rights and freedoms, using the virus as a pretext for restricting free speech and stifling dissent. Continue reading...

Yasmin Fedda’s powerful documentary lays bare the human cost of the Assad regime and salutes those who continue to fightDirector Yasmin Fedda, who is from a Kuwaiti and Syrian background and lectures in film at Queen Mary University of London, has created a powerful and urgent documentary tribute to those who have been “forcibly disappeared” by the Assad regime in Syria, estimated to be around 150,000 since 2011.Fedda focuses on two people: dissident writer and computer programmer Bassel Khartabil, who was abducted in October 2015 in Damascus, and Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, the hugely popular and admired Christian priest who was taken in July 2013 in Raqqa. She uses existing video of these two, from various family members and organisations, along with her own footage showing the campaigns of the loved ones left behind with their burden of anguish and their need to battle on and bring these crimes to the world’s attention. Continue reading...

Peter Lawrence, who has died aged 74, was in his early 60s when his youngest daughter, 35-year-old Claudia Lawrence, a chef at the University of York, went missing. Her disappearance in 2009 is a troubling case that remains unsolved. The event thrust Peter into the national spotlight, and in order to keep Claudia’s name alive and in the public consciousness, he led an energetic campaign for the rest of his life.Ably supported by his friend and media spokesman Martin Dales, along with Claudia’s best friends, Suzy and Jen, Peter ensured that Claudia’s case was not forgotten, and although an investigation by North Yorkshire Police was wound down after a detailed re-evaluation of the case in 2017, it will be reactivated again immediately when any solid leads come forward. Continue reading...

Speculation grows China seeking to block opposition candidates and overhaul judiciaryA top Chinese official has outlined plans to ensure only “patriots” run Hong Kong, as Beijing seeks to neuter any remaining democratic opposition and take a more direct role in how the business hub is run.The landmark speech by Xia Baolong, the head of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, came two weeks before the annual meeting of China’s rubber-stamp legislature and as speculation grew that further measures were being planned to sew up control of the city. Continue reading...

Finding devotees on the other side of the world let me escape from school, though my misbegotten responsibility soon became too much like hard work

Author Namina Forna loved JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis’ books as a child, but saw little that resembled the magic and rich mythology she saw in AfricaWhen I was a child, I was what you would call a JRR Tolkien fangirl. I read The Lord of the Rings over and over. I traipsed around the countryside, imagining it was Middle-earth. With just a flight of imagination, I could be snug in the Shire, exploring the mines of Moria, or even flitting through the woods of Lothlórien.When the first Lord of the Rings movie was finally released, I was 14 and so excited to see it. But immediately, I noticed something distressing: no one on screen looked like me. The darkest characters on screen, the orcs, were all male. Even as a monster, it seemed, there was no place for people who looked like me in Tolkien’s world. Continue reading...

Civil war has drastically cut support services for women already at high risk of violence while displacing others who are now vulnerable to armed groupsRima* was married the year civil war erupted in Yemen. She was 15 and for much of the time over the next five years, her husband kept her chained to a wall in their home in central Yemen. “He didn’t treat me as a wife, he treated me as a slave,” says the 21-year-old.An aunt eventually took pity on Rima, taking her to a psychosocial support centre in the town of Turba, 90 miles (145km) north-west of Aden. According to a doctor there, Rima now suffers from a neurological disorder brought on by the constant beatings. Continue reading...

PM to unveil proposals for England on Monday, with shops and restaurants facing longer wait

Fleeing to Kyrgyzstan in the 1960s, communities established mosques and villages but the local leaders, or dzhigit-beshchis, are a dying breedDzhigit-beshchi is the name Uighur people in Kyrgyzstan give to the leader they elect for their mahallah – or community. Usually it’s a respected person, mostly an elderly man.Pushed out of China during the repressions of the 1960s, tens of thousands of Uighurs went to the former Soviet Union when these ageing leaders were just young men. Sticking closely to relatives and acquaintances who had come to Soviet cities and villages in previous waves, they built mosques and mahallahs, each with its own dzhigit-beshchi. Continue reading...

The ABC reports another woman made a formal report at a police station in Canberra on the weekend

Police say ‘all possible investigations’ into whereabouts of Esther Dingley in France carried out without resultFrench police say they will probably have to wait until spring to continue the search for a British hiker who went missing late last year in the Pyrenees.Esther Dingley, 37, had been walking alone in the mountains near the border between Spain and France and was last seen on 22 November. Continue reading...

Agreement paves way for diplomatic talks between Tehran and the US over sanctionsThe UN’s nuclear inspectorate has struck a three-month deal with Iran giving it sufficient continued access to verify nuclear activity in the country, opening the space for wider political and diplomatic talks between Tehran and the US.Iran will go ahead with its threat to withdraw this week from the additional protocol, the agreement that gives inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) intrusive powers. Continue reading...

Crown Resorts director Harold Mitchell resigns; PM refuses to commit to release report into handling of rape allegation; and phase 1a of vaccine program starts. Follow all the latest news and updates, live

Jannis Stürtz has trawled Casablanca and rooted around a factory in Sousse for music. The Habibi Funk founder talks about his passion for Tunisian disco, Sudanese jazz and Lebanese soft rockNot long ago, Jannis Stürtz was at home in Berlin, checking the Instagram and Twitter pages for his record label, Habibi Funk. The former has 75,000 followers, testament to the treasure trove of information about “eclectic sounds from the Arab world” the feed contains: DJ mixes, old photos, posters, potted artist biographies, material that frequently goes beyond the stated remit and takes in visual art, film and sports – the story of Sudan’s first female football referee alongside stuff about 1950s architecture in Casablanca and clips of the latest fruits of Stürtz’s record-shopping expeditions in the area. But one new name among the followers stood out: “Drake started following the Habibi Funk Twitter feed,” says Stürtz, in delighted tones. “Cool! I mean, that doesn’t make sense in my head, but cool!” Continue reading...

‘These images are fleeting moments of the everyday,’ says Observer photographer Richard Saker. ‘More than anything I hope they are a testimony to the human spirit and show people getting on with their lives, as best they can in these uncertain times. It has felt more important than ever to take pictures during this particular period. One day soon we will look back and try to make sense of it all and I believe photographs are the best way of remembering’ Continue reading...

Forty hubs in England will field calls from frontline staff and contact those at higher risk directly

Exclusive: The ‘biggest international crisis in generations’ has rolled back years of progress and been used as a pretext to crackdown on freedoms, says António GuterresThe world is facing a “pandemic of human rights abuses”, the UN secretary general António Guterres has said.Authoritarian regimes had imposed drastic curbs on rights and freedoms and had used the virus as a pretext to restrict free speech and stifle dissent. Continue reading...

The Venetian lagoon is home to one of Italy’s greatest restaurants. Our gourmand recalls a dazzling lunch on its terrace, and shares one of its classic pasta recipesIt was autumn in Venice. Pale mist hung over the canals in the early mornings before vaporising as the sun rose, and the city dressed up in its familiar, magical brocade of opulence and decay, like a raddled courtesan donning her finery for one last flourish. It should have been a time of melancholy, as my great adventure – spending six months pottering around the Italian islands on a Vespa – came quietly to an end in this, the most romantic and melancholy of all cities.But it wasn’t remotely melancholic. I’d met my daughter, Lois, and my old Australian chum and former rugby compadre, Rory, beneath the lions in the Piazza San Marco, and gloom and despondency proved impossible in their humorous and diverting company. The day we met, we’d dashed off to a Venetian version of a crowded English pub to watch Australia trounce England in the Rugby World Cup, a victory that naturally had to be celebrated with numerous beers and several bottles of prosecco. That rather set the pace and the tone for the days that followed – high spirits, the rambling anecdotes of two old codgers, the amused tolerance of my daughter, food here and there, drink there and here, and a dash of culture in between. Continue reading...

26 February 1971 Construction of the concrete world of Thamesmead completes work begun by monks, 700 years agoKENT: The old estate map showed that the woodland had been divided into eight parcels. All coppiced, and the boundaries running down the steep slope from heath to marsh accorded closely with the alignment of the present footpaths. The tree stumps were gnarled and knotted from the lopping of many centuries. The ancient rabbit warren and orchard had gone, making way for an open grassy sward surround the foundations of the abbey that had once owned the woodland. Only in the last two decades have the ruined walls of Lesnes been rescued from the obscurity of time and an overgrowth of shrubs. Below the abbey ruins, the flat marshland began. It is still criss-crossed with drainage channels and earth banks initiated by the monks seven hundred years ago. We threaded a difficult route along the banks through a small world of silence broken only by the occasional duck taking off in frightened flight and a flock of agitated plovers. The old marsh farm still shown on my map had gone and the wet pastures were overgrown with thorn bushes and reeds, the timbered causeway was mouldering under a dense thicket.Related: Let’s move to Abbey Wood, south-east London Continue reading...

The virus has been used as a pretext in many countries to crush dissent, criminalise freedoms and silence reporting

UK exports including air-to-air refuelling equipment will prolong conflict, say campaignersOxfam has accused the British government of prolonging the war in Yemen by allowing the export of air-to-air refuelling equipment that it fears could be used to help the Saudi air force conduct indiscriminate bombing in the country.The technology was licensed to Riyadh last summer when arms restrictions were lifted, alongside £1.4bn of other sales, and can be used to help war planes fly longer missions at a time when the conflict is intensifying. Continue reading...

The Birmingham MP Jess Phillips has written a new book called Mother. She reflects on losing her own mum, having children – and fighting for women’s rights

With Lee Daniels’ film The United States Vs Billie Holiday out this week, the jazz star’s signatures – gowns, gloves and gardenias – are being reassessed. Could they be seen as a radical act?For her comeback concert at Carnegie Hall in March 1948, after 10 months in jail, Billie Holiday wore a long gown, gloves and that trademark gardenia. She was, as always, every inch the star. From those gowns on stage, to fur coats, ponytails and diamanté sunglasses offstage, Holiday oozed mid-century glamour.Lee Daniels’ The United States Vs Billie Holiday is released this month. The film, starring Andra Day, focuses on Holiday at the height of her fame in the late 40s and early 50s when she was targeted by the FBI, after she started singing Strange Fruit, a protest song about lynching in the south. Seen by the agency as a troublemaker when she refused to stop singing what was seen as a controversial song, the FBI recruited Jimmy Fletcher, a rare Black agent, to bust Holiday – a known heroin user – for drug offences. Daniels’ film, using Johann Hari’s 2015 book Chasing the Scream as its basis, tells the story of that time. And style is part of that story. Continue reading...

Quarantine, frontline health and airport workers among first to receive vaccine, which experts say will reduce virus escapes from hotels and protect vulnerable populations if it does• Follow the Australia liveblog

Many parts of central Christchurch are unrecognisable nowChristchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel was born and raised in the city she now represents. But she finds it hard to describe how it has changed since the earthquake.“I don’t know whether it’s a post-disaster thing,” Dalziel says. “But for me, it’s sometimes hard to remember what was there before.” Continue reading...

A minute’s silence was observed at 12.51pm, exactly 10 years after the quake struck the New Zealand cityThe victims of the Christchurch earthquake have been remembered at an emotional ceremony marking ten years since the tragedy.The memorial service was held on Monday afternoon at the Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial in the heart of the city, with tributes from Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and The Queen. Continue reading...