Andrés Arauz , a protege of former president Rafael Correa, will advance but too close to call which opponent he would faceEcuador is heading to a runoff presidential election in April after a young leftwing candidate won a first-round victory on Sunday, following years of austerity measures made more painful by the pandemic.Andrés Arauz , a 36-year-old protege of former president Rafael Correa, will advance to the 11 April runoff, but it was still too close to call whether he would face environmental activist Yaku Pérez or conservative banker Guillermo Lasso. Continue reading...
‘I hated the bath scene. They stuck awful little modesty circles on my nipples and they kept floating off’My Edgar Allan Poe adaptations began in 1960 with The Fall of the House of Usher. I held off doing The Masque of the Red Death, because I felt it had some similarities to Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, with its hooded figures, and I might be accused of copying. But it got to the point where it was the best unadapted one left, so I thought I’d go ahead and worry about it later. Continue reading...
International politicians say the bank, already under fire for backing China’s security law, could ‘gravely tarnish’ its reputationAn international group of senior politicians have written to the chairman of HSBC, Mark Tucker, urging him unfreeze bank accounts linked to a high-profile pro-democracy activist from Hong Kong.More than 50 members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China – including representatives from the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany and Switzerland – are calling for the immediate release of funds belonging to Ted Hui and his family, and a formal explanation of HSBC’s decision to freeze their accounts. Continue reading...
An experiment with the ‘one-minute city’ gives priority to pedestrians and cyclistsIt was a couple of parking spaces a few days ago. But now the area outside Malin Henriksson Talcoth’s gourmet sausage shop in Gothenburg has a bench, a picnic table and racks for cycles and e-scooters. It also has people talking, eating and enjoying themselves, despite subzero temperatures.The workmen had arrived the previous week and built the wooden unit with benches facing, importantly, towards the pavement. “When the sun was out on Friday and Saturday, it was absolutely full of people, just having a takeaway coffee and a sausage,” Talcoth said. Continue reading...
US court is threatening Léone-Noëlle Meyer, 81, with $3.5m fine if she does not halt proceedingsA French woman is being threatened with multi-million-dollar fines by a US court if she continues a legal battle to retrieve a Pissarro painting the Nazis stole from her adoptive father.The legal tussle over La Bergère Rentrant des Moutons (Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep), completed by Camille Pissarro in 1886 and worth an estimated €1.5m (£1.3m), is between Léone-Noëlle Meyer, 81, a former president of the Galeries Lafayette department store, and Oklahoma University’s Fred Jones Jr Museum of Art, which was gifted the painting by a local family. Continue reading...
Three-day rescue effort has so far failed to locate Ali Sadpara and two fellow mountaineersMuhammad Ali Sadpara, Pakistan’s most successful mountaineer and a national hero in his country, was acutely aware of the risks of climbing the world’s highest mountains in winter.A member of the first team to climb the 8,126-metre Nanga Parbat in winter in 2016, Sadpara was back three years later to help rescue the missing British mountaineer Tom Ballard who had died on Nanga Parbat. Continue reading...
The new Prime sci-fi anthology series imagines a future where computers could identify the ideal romantic partnerWe are 15 years in the future. Some pesky scientist or computer (or perhaps a pesky combination of the two) has uncovered the existence of the “soul particle” in humans, which means anyone can have a test that will reveal his or her perfect partner. So, what would you do?The premise of Amazon’s new six-part sci-fi anthology series is not the freshest – the idea of technology cutting through the delicate layers of emotion, connection and meaning with which we humble meatsacks insist on complicating our lives has been a trope of the genre almost as long as there has been sci-fi. But it is one of the most fun. Because – well, what would you do? What would you do if you were single? What would you do if you were married? What would you do if you were 20, 40, 60? What would you do if you had children? What would you do if you didn’t want to take the test, but your partner did? And all your friends had? And society had embraced it as the solution to the kind of messy, resource-sapping problems that have beset humanity down the ages? What happens when you hold out for the possibility of perfection in a world mostly getting by with good-enoughs? Continue reading...
by Written by Kris Manjapra, read by Lola Ogunyemi an on (#5DX9R)
In a suburb of Chicago, the world’s first government-funded slavery reparations programme is beginning. Robin Rue Simmons helped make it happen – but her victory has been more than 200 years in the making. By Kris Manjapra• Read the text version here
by Guardian reporter in Yangon and Michael Safi on (#5DWXK)
Water cannon used on demonstrators as marches take place in cities and towns across countryMassive crowds of protesters have marched in towns and cities across Myanmar in the largest show of popular defiance so far to a military coup a week ago.From the Himalayan town of Putao to cities on the shore of the Andaman Sea, demonstrators filled the streets for a third day of street demonstrations against the ousting of the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Continue reading...
by Flávia Milhorance in Rio de Janeiro on (#5DX6B)
Health ministry sends team to investigate ‘concerning’ virus cases in Yanomami territory near Venezuelan borderTen Yanomami children have died from Covid-19, fueling fears over the disproportionate impact the coronavirus is having on vulnerable indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon.“It is very concerning that so many kids died in less than one month,” said Júnior Hekurari Yanomami, the head of Condisi-YY, an indigenous health council. Continue reading...
Anti-Trumpists are growing but very slowly – convicting Trump in his impeachment trial would help speed things along, says FlakeBy now, Jeff Flake thought this would all be over.Flake, the former Arizona Republican senator and outspoken critic of Donald Trump, concedes that he expected the ripple effects in the Republican party Trump’s loss of the White House to have been bigger by now. Continue reading...
John Magufuli’s cavalier disregard of Covid’s impact in the great lakes region is fuelling conspiracies and endangering livesWhat is wrong with President John Magufuli? Many people in and outside Tanzania are asking this question.Magufuli claimed last year that God had eliminated Covid in the east African country of 60 million people, and has since made dismissing Covid vaccines his central priority – leaving many people asking: why? Continue reading...
Guardian photographer Sarah Lee has been finding comfort and relief from the lockdown by using her camera to focus on the quiet beauty that is around despite the darkness
by Josh Taylor and Matilda Boseley (earlier) on (#5DWN3)
Melbourne quarantine hotel worker tests positive to virus; NSW issues alert over returned traveller case. This blog is now closed.7.01am GMTThat’s where we will leave the live blog for Monday. Here’s what you might have missed today:6.33am GMTAAP has the latest on Covid restrictions in Western Australia:Face masks are mandatory for teachers and secondary students, a precaution that’s part of transition arrangements for Perth and Peel, after the five-day lockdown sparked by a hotel quarantine security guard’s infection.
As a black girl growing up in 1970s Glasgow, poet Jackie Kay developed a passion for Bessie Smith. In this extract from her new book, she remembers the wild spirit who helped her find her true self
Our Moscow correspondent reflects on a new wave of anger against Putin over the treament of dissident Alexei NavalnyOver the last decade, I’ve covered so many protests against Vladimir Putin in Russia that they all start to blur together.But the past month’s demonstrations against the jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny have seemed to me darker and more serious than ever. There are few fun signs and little chanting; the mood is joyless but determined. I’ve never seen the streets of Moscow locked down like they have been in 2021, patrolled by riot police called “cosmonauts” for their space-like helmets. Continue reading...
The gesture was first used after a coup in Thailand in 2014 and has since come to stand for solidarity and resistance across the regionFrom Thailand to Myanmar, pro-democracy protesters are raising the three finger salute in opposition to military dictatorships. Adopted from the Hunger Games films, the gesture has become a symbol of resistance and solidarity for democracy movements in south-east Asia.
The worst weather for a decade causes all trains to be cancelled but raises hopes of first traditional ice-skating marathon for 24 yearsAuthorities in the Netherlands declared a rare “code red” emergency for the entire country as it was hit by its first proper snowstorm in more than a decade.Storm Darcy, which has also sent temperatures plummeting across Germany, packed winds of up to 90km (55 miles) an hour and sent temperatures as low as 5C (23F). Continue reading...
by Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi and agencies on (#5DX05)
Fourteen confirmed dead as hundreds of military personnel look for survivors in Himalayan state of UttarakhandHundreds of Indian military personnel are searching for 170 people unaccounted for after a part of a glacier collapsed and released a torrent of water, rock and dust down a mountain valley in the country’s Himalayan north, killing 14.According to footage and witness accounts, a towering surge of water swept down the river at high speed on Sunday morning, gathering momentum as it moved through the narrow gorge, completely wiping out Rishiganga hydropower dam. It swept away five bridges and damaged dozens of homes. Continue reading...
Case near city of Butembo comes nearly three months after the end of an outbreak in the western province of Équateur, which killed 55Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo are racing to contain a possible Ebola outbreak, after a woman died from the virus near the eastern city of Butembo.The woman showed symptoms on 1 February in the town of Biena, North Kivu. She died in hospital in Butembo two days later. She was married to a man who had contracted the virus in a previous outbreak. Continue reading...
Singer says she did not have the confidence for a ‘big career’ such as her father, Frank, enjoyedThe singer Nancy Sinatra has said she lacked the confidence to pursue a “big career” in showbusiness as her father, Frank, did.The singer established herself as a musical force in her own right during the 60s with her signature hit These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ and the title song of the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. Continue reading...
Whitehall rejects reports of 68% drop in goods exported and says freight flows at normal levels on some daysThe government has sought to defend its record over Brexit after freight industry leaders claimed exports to the EU had nosedived since the transition period ended on 31 December.When Boris Johnson announced on Christmas Eve that he had secured a last-minute Brexit deal he insisted there would be “no non-tariff barriers” to trade with the EU. Continue reading...
Monday: Another hotel quarantine workers tests positive in Melbourne as a ‘low level’ case puts NSW on alert Plus: How good is Australia really?Good morning, it’s Imogen Dewey bringing you news of more coronavirus cases and a scandal for the Queen on Monday 8 February – the week of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.A second hotel quarantine worker has tested positive in Melbourne (where plans to bring in more defence personnel to help with the program were derailed last night). The infected woman is working with contact tracers, and authorities have named three potential exposure sites in Melbourne’s west. Just as top medical experts turn their eyes to a national proposal to test returned travellers two days after exiting their fortnight of hotel quarantine, a Wollongong resident, who returned from overseas, has tested positive to Covid-19 … two days after leaving hotel quarantine. Nine Sydney businesses have been fined for Covid breaches. And health authorities in South Australia, where testing numbers are dropping by thousands, are urging people to stay vigilant. Continue reading...
Julian Hill compiles data showing that the country is not in as good shape as the PM’s rhetoric suggestsHow good is Australia?It depends on the measure. Continue reading...
Singer calls for return to negotiation as touring artists face red tape and new costs, with Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood adding fresh criticism of UK government
Mwazulu Diyabanza has been fined and jailed for entering museums and forcibly removing ‘pillaged’ African artefacts. He tells our writer why the British Museum is now in his sightsMwazulu Diyabanza makes no secret of why he is in France. If coronavirus had not closed most of Europe’s museums, the Congolese activist would probably be inside one right now, wresting African objects from their displays to highlight what he sees as the mass pillaging of the continent by European colonialists.And it’s not just the mighty museums. Diyabanza and his supporters also plan to include smaller galleries, private collections and auction houses in their campaign. “Wherever the riches of our heritage and culture have been stolen,” says the 42-year-old, “we will intervene.” As the leader of a pan-African movement called Yanka Nku (Unity, Dignity and Courage), Diyabanza is on a mission is to recover all works of art and culture taken from Africa to Europe. He calls his method “active diplomacy”. Continue reading...
by Guardian reporter in Yangon and Rebecca Ratcliffe, on (#5DW53)
Large demonstration across country despite junta blocking internet access and restricting phone linesTens of thousands of people have poured onto the streets across Myanmar for a second day of demonstrations opposing the military coup and demanding the return of democracy.Myanmar’s army seized power on Monday, detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and president Win Myint, whose party National League for Democracy (NLD) won a thumping election victory in November. The military has refused to accept the results of the vote and has alleged widespread fraud, a claim observers have rejected. Continue reading...
Childbirth rights group supports examination into disproportionate health outcomesAn urgent inquiry to investigate how alleged systemic racism in the NHS manifests itself in maternity care will be launched on Tuesday with support from the UK charity Birthrights.The inquiry will apply a human- rights lens to examine how claimed racial injustice – from explicit racism to bias – is leading to poorer health outcomes in maternity care for ethnic minority groups. Continue reading...
When I decided to adopt orphaned twins from Ethiopia, it felt like the most natural thing to do. But it raised many questions about motherhood and the bond we have with our childrenI assumed I would conceive naturally when John and I decided to start a family. I didn’t. We turned to fertility drugs with ambivalence. Reports of the mood swings the drugs sometimes caused worried me. I had only gone through one round when I broke a wooden dish-drying rack over John’s head. I don’t remember what he said, but I’m sure it was something I’d otherwise have considered innocuous. Instead, a growling, uncontrollable rage emerged from nowhere and then overcame me like an emotional tsunami. We decided the drugs weren’t for us.I had gone along with fertility treatments for the same reason I went along with other non-decisions I’ve made in my life, like having an enormous wedding, because people whom I loved wanted it for me. I thought I was supposed to want it, just like I was supposed to want to get pregnant by any means. Yet I cried genuine tears when, month after month, I was unable to conceive. I felt like a failure. Continue reading...
Senior clergy call on church to act after Jarel Robinson-Brown subjected to racist abuse and death threatsA prominent clergyman has accused the Church of England of aiding a backlash against a trainee priest who tweeted there was a “cult of white British nationalism” surrounding Captain Sir Tom Moore, who died last week.Andrew Foreshew-Cain, chaplain of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, told the Observer: “What Jarel [Robinson-Brown] tweeted was actually very respectful of Captain Tom, but he raised questions about some of those lionising him. There has been a pile-on in response, and the church has aided that.” Continue reading...
The Golden Globe nominations prove that the industry is in the throes of a sea change for female writers and directorsCorks popped across the film industry when three female directors made history by getting Golden Globe nominations last week. Alongside Regina King and Chloé Zhao was British newcomer Emerald Fennell, until now best known as Camilla in The Crown and for stepping into Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s shoes as show runner on Killing Eve. Her alarming feminist thriller, Promising Young Woman, picked up a clutch of coveted nominations.“When those directors’ names were announced I ran around the room screaming,” said Jessica Hobbs, one of the directors on The Crown. “I messaged Emerald who couldn’t believe it. I told her I knew it was coming.” Continue reading...
Sydney’s Pencil Tower hotel will be 6.4 metres wide, 100 metres high and 34 metres deep. An ingenious solution – or foolhardy?The impossibly tall and thin aesthetic no longer limited to the runways of high fashion, the trend for slenderness has now moved into architectural design as Australian cities follow New York and Hong Kong in the construction of towers as narrow as they are high.Joining the Phoenix Apartments in Flinders Street, Melbourne – which first brought the skinny tower to Australia – will be the proposed Pencil Tower hotel in Sydney and the Magic Tower in Melbourne. Continue reading...
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey and Labour MP Chris Bryant urge officials and athletes to protest against oppression of Uighur communitiesSenior political figures have called for British athletes to boycott next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing in response to widespread human rights abuses in China.Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, and Labour MP Chris Bryant, a member of the foreign affairs select committee and a former junior foreign minister, said the government and the British Olympic Association should act. Continue reading...
Opposition says ‘a proper defence strategy’ is required after ‘a decade of decline’Labour has called for the government to devise “a proper defence strategy” and criticised “a decade of decline” after a leaked Ministry of Defence report said the army is running low on battle-ready soldiers.The Daily Mail reported the Ministry of Defence’s “Infantry Battalion Soldier Strength Summary – January 2021” showed the prestigious Scots Guards, which has a working requirement of 603 troops, had just 339 soldiers available for operations. Continue reading...
Populist 5-Star Movement and rightwing League signal support for government of national unityMario Draghi on Saturday secured preliminary support from two key parties for forming a new government that will decide how to spend more than 200bn euros (£175bn) in European Union funds to help relaunch Italy’s pandemic-ravaged economy.The populist 5-Star Movement and the rightwing League both signalled support for a Draghi-led government, saying they were ready to put aside bitter rivalries for the good of the country and increasing the potential for a broad-based government of national unity. Continue reading...
‘Don’t be a dick’ was one useful motto we came across in our podcast examination of how to be a modern manIn a Wellington cafe, one of New Zealand’s most respected academics talked about the disconnect between his feelings and the way he knew he was supposed to be: “I could not understand why anyone would see putting your head between two other men’s buttocks as being the high point of New Zealand culture. I was staggered by it. But I never said that, of course – I just buried those thoughts.”Jock Phillips would go on to become the national historian, but as a boy growing up in the 1960s he knew the wisdom of keeping his cranium down in a land where rugby was next to a religion. Continue reading...
Deadline to choose new president likely to be missed after negotiations collapseSomalia’s leaders have failed to break a deadlock over the country’s elections, with no clear path to a vote just days before the government’s mandate expires.The fragile country is likely to miss the 8 February deadline for choosing a new president after days of negotiations between the central government and federal states collapsed on Friday. Continue reading...
As a teenager, true love seemed like an impossible dream, but I was determined to marry for love and not obligationThis year, my husband Richard and I will have been married for 10 years. It may not sound all that long, but it feels quietly significant to me, this decade of us, not least because there was a time that I could not fathom a world in which we could ever be together at all.I grew up expecting to marry someone my parents chose for me: a suitable young man who would share my Pakistani family background, my cultural heritage and faith. I can’t remember how old I was when I understood this – only that I did, without it needing to be explained. It was what my cousins did and the daughters of our family friends did. It was the way things were. Continue reading...
A family from Kent who shared a video of their living room performance of a third lockdown-themed Totally Fixed Where We Are has gone viral. Ben and Danielle Marsh and their four children first found fame with their version of a Les Misérables song, when they changed the lyrics of One Day More to reflect common complaints during the Covid-19 lockdown. The full rendition is available on the family’s YouTube channel Continue reading...
Donald McNeil, reporter who used racist slur on student trip, and Andy Mills, Caliphate podcast producer, departed, staff memo saidTwo New York Times journalists have left the paper over separate controversies including its high-profile public health and Covid-19 reporter Donald McNeil following disclosures about his use of racist language while on a company-sponsored student trip.Following allegations of McNeil’s conduct when he had used the N-word in front of high school students on a 2019 trip to Peru, the paper initially investigated and said he had been disciplined. Continue reading...
Twenty-five-year-old woman found dead with injuries thought to be caused by Staffordshire crossA 25-year-old woman has died after a suspected attack by a dog at her home in Birmingham, police have said.West Midlands police said they were called to an address in Sunbeam Way, in the east of the city, shortly after 2pm on Friday by one of the woman’s relatives. Continue reading...
Teaching via Instagram and Zoom is both more and less intimate than a real-life classFifteen people lie down in rectangles on my screen. I am telling them to relax their jaws and soften the muscles around their eyes. I am also having a silent, hand gesture-based conversation with a five-year-old girl in one of the rectangles. This morning the girl’s mother sent me an email that read: “I’m going to attempt as much of the class as she will allow me to do – sometimes she is fine with it, and sometimes not.” In the next box, a cat strolls into view and settles down on its owner’s back as they rest in the child’s pose. Elsewhere, a dog is causing chaos at the back of someone’s mat. This is what I’ve learned from teaching Zoom yoga; mostly, small children and pets rule a household.I’ve observed couples having conversations in class, giving me a delicious feeling of embarrassment and curiosity Continue reading...
Life before was a little different, but not a lot. Now I feel a new resilience and hopeRead more: Laura Barton on how a daily call to California got her through lockdown and Elle Hunt on moving to the other side of the world and the pandemicI’ve been inside my cramped terrace house for nearly a year now. There haven’t been walks outside, or trips to the shops. Every morning, I wake into a day the same as yesterday. I reach out a hand to the cat who I know will be curled by my right side, listen for the creak of my son climbing down from his bunk bed. He will come and bundle himself under my covers, and we will begin again, another day juggling his schoolwork and my writing work, all conducted mostly from my bed.I remember, dream-like, two weeks in the summer last year when it felt safe enough for my partner to fly over from Denmark, after six months apart. We drove to quiet places and he pushed me in my wheelchair. I wept, happy to see him and the green trees, and to eat picnics on the warm ground, a family again. It has been six months since then, and so we sit each day in front of iPads, touching fingers to the screen, baffled and smiling to still be in this strange, unforeseen predicament – falling in love, still, because distance does nothing to halt that. My life is one of pain, fatigue, activity, laughter. Continue reading...
The furniture chain is trying to tackle the throwaway culture problem, but it has drawn criticismIf spending more time at home has made you consider a furniture update, do not sling out that Billy bookcase just yet. Instead of taking it to the tip, you may be able to raise some cash through Ikea’s new buyback service. The scheme, which it announced last autumn, allows customers to take their furniture back to the store to be refunded and receive a voucher worth up to half of the item’s original value. It will then be resold to a new home, giving it “a second chance at life”.The furniture retailer says the service will reduce waste and increase sustainability, and is part of its efforts to go greener. Last week it told the FT it was also looking at offering a wider range of spare parts to help people repair its products. Continue reading...
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