Robert Del Naja, of the Bristol pioneers, talks about the power and danger of nostalgia as well as his work collaborating with Adam CurtisMusicians have been faced with an impossible puzzle since March 2020: with gigs and festivals mothballed for the foreseeable future, how to maintain a profile? For Massive Attack, a solution was probably less of a reach than for many artists. After all, for the Bristolian pioneers, sound and vision have been interacting in unconventional ways for decades.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...
Thousands of people took to the streets of Yangon on Saturday to denounce this week’s military coup and demand the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the country's ousted leader. Myanmar’s junta has tried to silence dissent by temporarily blocking Facebook and extended the social media crackdown to Twitter and Instagram on Saturday in the face of the growing protest movement
Longing for a cuddle? Newlyweds, siblings and housemates hug the people they can – and look forward to being close with those they miss Continue reading...
While football and rugby make adjustments, clashes of heads continue in Japan’s national sportThe crack of two skulls colliding echoed around the sumo arena. One of the wrestlers returned to his starting position in the ring, apparently unfazed. But his opponent, Shonannoumi, was clearly in distress.“Is he OK?” asked the TV commentator after Shonannoumi’s leg buckled as he attempted to raise his 164kg (25st 11lb) frame from the ground. The referee and judges exchanged looks but with no ringside doctor to consult none seemed sure how to react. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#5DV22)
Zoom hearings will not give traumatised members of community what they need, says Grenfell UnitedKey witnesses at the Grenfell Tower public inquiry must not be allowed to give evidence “from their sofas”, survivors of the disaster have warned as hearings restart remotely over Zoom next week after a two-month Covid suspension.With witnesses due to appear from Arconic, which made the combustible cladding, and the tower’s owner, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Grenfell United said fully remote hearings meant traumatised members of the community would miss out on the catharsis of seeing figures with responsibility before the fire being held accountable in person. Continue reading...
Police say a Holden Statesman ‘aggressively’ following a stolen Hyundai i35 hit a motorcycle head-on, leaving the rider deadThe death of a motorcyclist in Townsville has prompted police warnings about the dangers of continued vigilante action in the city.Police said a grey Holden Statesman was “aggressively” following a stolen silver Hyundai i35 at speed late on Friday night in Thuringowa Central, in the city’s south-west. Continue reading...
by Guardian reporter in Yangon and agencies on (#5DV17)
Economist from Macquarie University tells Reuters news agency ‘I am fine and strong and not guilty of anything’Sean Turnell, an Australian economic adviser to Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, has told the news agency Reuters that he is being detained, days after the Burmese leader was arrested in a military coup.“I guess you will soon hear of it, but I am being detained,” he said. “Being charged with something, but not sure what. I am fine and strong, and not guilty of anything,” he said in a message, with a smile emoji. It was not subsequently possible to contact him. Continue reading...
The subject is guaranteed to attract a tsunami of bile, stemming from resentment, sexism and disgustMy friend E has written a book. “It’s not as though it hasn’t all been said before,” she said. “I suppose the most interesting thing about it is how many times it can be said without anything changing.”I can’t work out whether I’ve forgotten what my friends are like, or forgotten how to have a conversation, but this doesn’t sound like E at all. It sounds sheepish, like she has stepped on a toe, or overshared, or fallen in some way beneath her standards (which are, granted, as complicated and precise as the laser alarm system in Mission: Impossible). But I’ve never heard that tone in her voice. Politically, she is a radical. Personally, she is more radical. You can’t get a sheepish radical – it’s a philosophical impossibility. It would be chased straight back into its pen by the dogs of convention. Continue reading...
I don’t actually care what happens, as long it’s someone else’s faultAt 8.45am there is a knock on the door of my office shed.“Yes?” I say, with the distracted air of someone who has been interrupted at work, although even the casual observer would probably notice that I’m holding a banjo. Continue reading...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern helps cook breakfast on the national holiday, which celebrates the signing of the treaty of Waitangi on 6 February 1840 by Māori chiefs and the British Crown Continue reading...
Victoria has reimposed some restrictions and the majority of WA is in lockdown, so what exactly is and isn’t allowed? Do I have to wear a mask and where can and can’t I go in Australia? Untangle Australia’s Covid-19 laws and guidelines with our guide
Thousands of Kiwis turn out early to mark 181st anniversary of founding documentLeaders from all walks of New Zealand life have commemorated the country’s national day with a dawn service at Waitangi in the culmination of almost a week of celebrations, speeches and ceremonies.The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, was joined by other political figures, religious leaders, military and police chiefs and countless others for the sombre, soulful occasion, which marks the country’s founding. Continue reading...
Government has not been presented with widely reported $39bn plan for Daru Island in Torres StraitA Chinese-built multibillion-dollar city proposed for the tiny island of Daru in the Torres Strait is not being formally considered by the Papua New Guinea government, which says it has not seen the proposal.The national planning minister, Rainbo Paita, told the Guardian that the government has not been presented with the proposal widely reported in the media, from the Hong Kong-based WYW Holding Company, to build a $39bn city on Daru Island, in PNG’s Western Province. Continue reading...
Palestinian Authority welcomes ruling that could see prosecution of Israeli officials and military as well as Hamas figuresThe international criminal court has announced that it has jurisdiction in Palestine, clearing its chief prosecutor to investigate alleged atrocities despite fierce Israeli objections.Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned the ruling and said the country would “protect our citizens and soldiers in every way from legal persecution”. Continue reading...
German chancellor condemns expulsion of European diplomats as Alexei Navalny appears in court againAngela Merkel has condemned as “unjustified” Russia’s expulsion of European diplomats for participating in unauthorised demonstrations in support of the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.“We consider these expulsions to be unjustified. We believe it is yet another aspect that can be observed right now of Russia being quite far from the rule of law,” the German chancellor said on Friday at an online press conference with France’s president, Emmanuel Macron. Continue reading...
MI5 concluded three Beijing security ministry employees used cover of working for Chinese press agenciesBritain quietly expelled three Chinese spies last year who it said were posing as journalists, it has emerged, as tensions flare between the two countries over a range of media issues.The intelligence agency MI5 concluded the three worked for China’s powerful Ministry of State Security (MSS) but had been using the cover of working for the country’s press agencies. Continue reading...
by Jamie Grierson Home affairs correspondent on (#5DT8W)
‘Abject failure’ to protect men from Covid-19 at Kent site truly shocking, say lawyersAn asylum seeker and victim of torture held in a controversial army barracks has been urgently rehoused following a high court ruling, lawyers have said.In the second such move this week, a high court judge ordered the relocation of the man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, from Napier barracks near Folkestone, Kent, into hotel accommodation. Continue reading...
by Bethan McKernan Middle East correspondent on (#5DSY1)
Joe Biden’s decision to end support for Saudi-led coalition seen as important step towards peaceYemenis have cautiously welcomed Joe Biden’s announcement that the US is ending its support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in the country’s complex war, saying the decision is an important step on the long road towards finding a peaceful solution to the conflict.In his first foreign policy speech as president on Thursday, Biden announced a broad reshaping of US relations with the rest of the world, including his predecessor Donald Trump’s unquestioning support for Gulf monarchies with poor human rights records at home and abroad. Continue reading...
From detective missions to prison breakouts, playful puzzles to cosy diversions, here are some great games perfect for twoAs the long, boring Covid winter drags on and sitting in front of Netflix together has long since lost its appeal, video games remain one of the few social pleasures allowed to us. Though most of the best multiplayer games are online – meaning you need two consoles at home if you want to join someone you live with – there are still plenty you can enjoy together on the couch. Some of these recommendations are two-player games you can play cooperatively, others are shorter story-based games that are fun to play with company, and all will happily fill an evening or two. Continue reading...
The actor who rose to fame as ‘Meth Damon’ on Breaking Bad has fast become Hollywood’s favourite new character actor. He talks about his ‘sick enjoyment’ of pressure, his fiancee, Kirsten Dunst, and his latest role, as an FBI officer hunting the Black PanthersJesse Plemons has a square, pink face, the unassuming air of a neighbourhood handyman and a tendency to sigh as he speaks, so it sounds as if he is hoisting each sentence up on to a high shelf. At 32, he has already starred in two Spielbergs (Bridge of Spies, The Post), a Scorsese (The Irishman) and a Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master). He and his fiancee, Kirsten Dunst, who met in 2015 when they played happily married murderers in the second series of Fargo, will also be seen later this year in Jane Campion’s western, Power of the Dog. Most recently, Plemons and Jessie Buckley were stunning as a couple cracking up on a road trip in Charlie Kaufman’s largely car-bound horror-comedy I’m Thinking of Ending Things, which made for perfect pandemic viewing.“Time didn’t exist for us,” he says from the Los Angeles home he shares with Dunst and their two-year-old son, Ennis, who at one point during our conversation bursts in before being scooped up and whisked off by his mother. “We were in that car for four days, but you could have told me it was two years or 20 minutes and I’d have believed you. The vehicle was being rocked like a boat – it wasn’t even on a sound stage, it was in this warehouse filled with antiques and oddities. There were guys throwing fake snow at the windscreen for the entirety of these 15-minute takes. And I thought to myself: ‘This is exactly why I do this.’ I mean, who else gets to do that in their job, you know? I enjoy being pulled in different directions and going down all these rabbit holes.” Continue reading...
Party stalwart Win Htein detained at his daughter’s house in Yangon days after military coupA key aide of Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been arrested on Friday, days after a coup that has sparked outrage and calls by US President Joe Biden for the generals to relinquish power.The arrest of Win Htein follows that of Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar president Win Myint who were detained on Monday as the military seized the levers of government, granting army chief Min Aung Hlaing control of the country. Aung San Suu Kyi is facing two years in jail. Continue reading...
The teenagers and young women were found in East Brisbane and Mount Gravatt and are alleged to have been drugged and tattooed as being the property of a manAt least four teenage girls and young women have been freed from alleged sexual servitude after police raids in Brisbane.Queensland police have arrested and charged a 35-year-old man and 23-year-old woman after the females were freed during the raids in East Brisbane and Mount Gravatt on Thursday. Continue reading...
Lockdown lifted after Crosshouse hospital stabbing, another incident in town centre and a serious road crashA lockdown at an Ayrshire hospital has been lifted after police were called to a “serious incident” following reports of a stabbing at the site and another two “potentially linked” incidents in the area.Crosshouse hospital in Kilmarnock was placed under lockdown for about three hours and ambulances were diverted to University Hospital Ayr while officers dealt with the first incident. It is not currently known who has been injured. Continue reading...
Letter criticizes handling of complaint that reporter Donald McNeil Jr used racist language while on a company-sponsored student tripMore than 150 New York Times staffers sent a letter on Wednesday to its executive leadership criticizing the paper’s response to complaints from parents that the journalist Donald McNeil Jr had used racist language while on a company-sponsored student trip, and for the handling of the scandal once those complaints were first reported.“Our community is outraged and in pain,” staffers wrote, adding that despite the paper’s “seeming commitment to diversity and inclusion, [they’ve] given a prominent platform – a critical beat covering a pandemic disproportionately affecting people of color – to someone who chose to use language that is offensive and unacceptable by any newsroom’s standards”. Continue reading...
Liberal MPs Bev McArthur and Bernie Finn broke party ranks and voted against the government’s legislationGay conversion practices have been banned in Victoria following a lengthy debate in parliament overnight, during which two Liberal MPs broke with party ranks to vote against the bill.The Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill passed the legislative council on Thursday night 29 votes to nine following a 12-hour debate. Continue reading...
by Guardian staff and agencies in Mexico City on (#5DRT2)
Mario Marín also charged with ordering illegal arrest of Lydia Cacho, who investigated his protection of a paedophile ringMexican authorities have arrested a former state governor on charges that he ordered the illegal arrest and torture of a prominent reporter who investigated his protection of a paedophile ring.Mario Marín, the former governor of Puebla state, was scheduled to appear before a judge on Thursday after he was detained the previous day in Acapulco. Continue reading...
Escalating protests over the appointment of a state-approved rector at a prestigious Istanbul university have become an unexpected catalyst for Turkey’s disillusioned and underemployed youth to vent their frustrations at President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government.Demonstrations by both staff and students erupted last month after the former political candidate Melih Bulu was appointed. The decision was denounced as undemocratic
‘Febrile’ atmosphere in region after supplies of goods from Britain disruptedThe Police Service of Northern Ireland’s chief constable has urged people to step back from the brink of violence amid rising tensions over disruption to supplies of goods and food from Britain to the region since Brexit.Simon Byrne warned of a “febrile” atmosphere after 26 graffiti incidents were detected across Northern Ireland, and EU and local officials were withdrawn from Brexit check duties at ports in Belfast and Larne following threats. Continue reading...
Threats to the agreement between the UK and the EU are coming from all quarters. This is a time for cool heads and practical compromisesThe Brexit agreement’s Northern Ireland protocol is an unhappy compromise. It attempts, at one and the same time, to embody the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union as well as its treaty obligation to uphold the Northern Ireland peace process. It guarantees the soft Irish land border that was devised to end the Troubles in 1998 in return for compulsory post-Brexit checks on a range of plant and food-related goods travelling between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.The protocol therefore attempts to fuse together two different approaches to borders and sovereignty, as well as to Ireland itself. It is not surprising that, throughout the Brexit process, these have proved hard to reconcile, first in the negotiations in 2017-18, then in the parliamentary confrontations of 2018-19. The implementation of the protocol has long been an argument simmering under the surface, waiting to erupt. Continue reading...
Alleged killer of Harry Dunn was working for an intelligence agency, so could still face extradition to UKAnne Sacoolas, the woman who fled the UK with her family after killing 19-year-old motorcyclist Harry Dunn in August 2019 was working for an intelligence agency at the time, a court in the US has been told.Downing Street on Thursday said she had been notified to the UK as a diplomat’s spouse with no role, and it had not been aware she was an intelligence officer. Continue reading...
Assadollah Assadi supplied explosives for intended attack on Iranian opposition rally in France in 2018An Iranian diplomat who masterminded a failed bomb attack at a rally outside Paris attended by five British MPs has been sentenced to 20 years in jail by a Belgian court for attempted murder and involvement in terrorism.Assadollah Assadi, 49, had been attached to the Iranian mission in Vienna when he supplied explosives for the intended atrocity at an Iranian opposition rally in France in 2018. Continue reading...
When I think of the last year, I don’t think of the pandemic as its defining moment. I think of the young people trying to stay afloat, and rising above
With Australia’s borders all but closed, many young people who long dreamed of an antipodean education are going elsewhereSabid Hossain and his three friends knew what university they were going to. They had been planning it, he says, since he was in eighth or ninth grade.At the end of 2020, they would graduate from their high school in Rangpur in Bangladesh. They would go – all four of them – to the University of Melbourne, more than 9,000km away. Continue reading...
In a new exhibition, the work of 37 artists has been brought together to show how art can react to the epidemic of violence towards black AmericansAt a time when black Americans are twice as likely to die of Covid-19 as their white counterparts while a reckoning continues over ongoing police brutality, a new group exhibition is opening to tell the story of black grief in America, from the 1960s to present day.Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America opens 17 February at the New Museum in New York City, featuring 37 artists whose work ties into loss linked to racial violence – including artworks by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Carrie Mae Weems, among others. Continue reading...
Arthur Conan Doyle’s master detective has been endlessly rewritten. But nearly a century after the author’s death, how new writers portray him remains contested
With the release of her new film Rams, the actor remembers her love of westerns and John Wayne, playing male parts at her all girls’ school and the thrill of frightening humourI grew up in Southport, Lancashire, with a cinema about 50 yards from my house. So Saturday mornings were spent with The ABC Minors: the Saturday cinema club with the theme song set to the tune of Blaze Away by Abe Holzmann, a red ball bouncing over the lyrics so you could sing along. Continue reading...
Sir Peter Westmacott says ‘pie in the sky promises’ on post-Brexit trade distorted UK foreign policyBritish prime ministers have been absent from the world stage for the past four years while becoming too close to Donald Trump and his “pie in the sky promises” of a free trade deal, a former UK ambassador to Washington has said.Sir Peter Westmacott, who was ambassador from 2012 to 2016 and got to know many of Joe Biden’s foreign policy team when they were working for Barack Obama in that period, said the start of the new US administration gave Britain a chance for a diplomatic reset, so long as ministers “bring bread to the table”. Continue reading...
Regulator concludes news network CGTN is ultimately controlled by Chinese Communist partyThe Chinese state broadcaster CGTN has lost its broadcast licence in the UK after Ofcom concluded that the news network, formerly known as CCTV, was ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist party.The decision will come as a serious blow for the organisation, which was hoping to use an expanded presence in London as the foothold for a substantial international operation. Continue reading...
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