World news | The Guardian

‘Electronics and optics’ among wreckage of suspected surveillance craft shot down off South Carolina after recovery efforts endThe US has finished work to recover sunken remnants of the Chinese balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina and the debris reinforces that it was for spying, officials have said.The White House national security spokesman, John Kirby, said the wreckage included “electronics and optics” but declined to say what the US had learned from it so far. Continue reading...

Volodymyr Zelenskiy urges west to speed up its support as world leaders gather at Munich security conference

UK PM expected to urge leaders at Munich Security Conference to ‘double down on our military support’ for Kyiv

Peta Bradley won bronze at the ice swimming world championships after training in a NSW country dam

Zelenskiy speaks at Munich security conference as Scholz, Macron and Kamala Harris are in Germany; French leader says Ukraine needs more support

Munich security conference also saw Scholz defend Germany’s steady approach in supporting Ukraine

PM is embarking on frantic weekend of diplomacy in attempt to break post-Brexit deadlockRishi Sunak faces the threat of a fresh Conservative rebellion as he sets off on a weekend of frantic diplomacy in an attempt to break the post-Brexit deadlock in Northern Ireland.With some in his party fearing an intervention by Boris Johnson, the prime minister has been warned his proposed deal on the Northern Ireland protocol does not go far enough after talks with unionists in a Belfast hotel on Friday. Continue reading...

The 400-year-old Grade II-listed Brightwell Manor in Oxfordshire boasts five acres and a moat fed by its own natural springBoris Johnson is understood to have agreed to buy £4m nine-bedroom Grade II-listed Georgian manor house in Oxfordshire.The former prime minister and his wife Carrie have in recent weeks viewed Brightwell Manor, in the picturesque village of Brightwell-cum-Sotwell near Wallingford. The Guardian has been told they have now made an offer which has been accepted. Continue reading...

Ukraine president tells world leaders in Munich to ‘hurry up’ before Putin gains military advantage

Residents of Eskdale, in New Zealand, recount fears on night of flooding as they return to salvage belongings and rescuers continue search for bodiesCrouched in the dark, gripping the slick corrugated iron, Michael and Kelly McKendry hauled themselves and their daughter on to their rooftop. A few feet below, the flood moved in a seething brown mass, roiling under the gutters. “I couldn’t feel anything, I was just doing,” says Kelly. “As we went out our kitchen window, we heard a woman go past in the water screaming.”Almost a week after Cyclone Gabrielle hit New Zealand, the couple have returned to find the green valley where they made their home a moonscape. Orchard vines are stripped from the wires, cornfields are flattened, and everything is coated in a metres-thick layer of iron-grey sludge. Motorhomes and caravans lie tossed across the landscape, windscreens smashed, metalwork caved in, some upside down and stacked on top of one another, others submerged to their roofs in the mud. The railway line running through the valley has buckled in on itself, twisted into looping ribbons. One house has been carried almost a kilometre from its foundations, logs impaled through walls shredded like damp cardboard. Continue reading...

Formal identification yet to take place but officers believe man to be Cole, last seen in Walthamstow on 21 JanuaryThe body of a 32-year-old man who went missing last month has been found in a north London canal, police have said.While formal identification is due to take place at a later date, police believe the man to be Nathan Cole and have informed his family, who are being supported by specialist officers. Continue reading...

Trial heard trio from far-right group discussed using ceramic knife to stab French president in 2018A French anti-terror court convicted three people on Friday over a plan to attack President Emmanuel Macron after a trial that threw the spotlight on a radical far-right online group.The three men, part of a Facebook group known as the “Barjols”, were convicted for conspiracy to commit a terrorist act after the court heard how they discussed using a ceramic knife to stab Macron in 2018 at a first world war commemoration. Continue reading...

Chris Licht says Lemon’s comment that Republican ‘isn’t in her prime’ left him ‘disappointed’CNN’s chairperson Chris Licht has reproached Don Lemon for his sexist on-air comments about Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, whom the news anchor had said “isn’t in her prime”.Licht issued a stern rebuke against Lemon on Friday, saying the anchor’s comments had left the chairperson “disappointed”, according to a recording of his daily editorial call, obtained by the New York Times. Continue reading...

Footage seems to show 10 officers training to neutralise one man using fabric bannersHow many police officers does it take to neutralise a single unarmed protester? According to a video purported to be from China, it takes at least 10 highly disciplined members of law enforcement, as well as some bespoke blue banners.In footage that emerged on Thursday, black-clad officers are shown practising a drill to surround a single person holding up a white piece of paper – an item that became the symbol of the anti-lockdown protests that rocked several major Chinese cities at the end of last year, and the demonstrations against the security laws imposed on Hong Kong in 2020. Continue reading...

19 women aged 62 to 91 take case to Haarlem district court for abuse from 1951 to 1979Nineteen women in the Netherlands have accused an order of Catholic nuns of years of forced labour while locked up in convents, saying they were “abused on industrial scale”.The case before the Haarlem district court relates to about 15,000 teenage Dutch girls who were the wards of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd at convents across the country from 1951 to 1979. Continue reading...

World Food Programme calls for urgent $125m injection after being forced into axing supplies into Bangladesh refugee camps by 17%The UN has been forced to cut food rations for Rohingya refugees by 17% and has warned of “unconscionable” further cuts in April as a result of dwindling international donations.The World Food Programme (WFP) said it needs $125m (£104m) urgently to avoid the further cuts. Continue reading...

Alison Rose becomes group’s second-highest-paid boss as bank reports largest profits since 2007NatWest has been accused of “unjust” profiteering as it handed its boss Alison Rose a £5.2m pay package and upped its bonus pool for bankers, after the bailed out lender made its biggest profit since 2007 on the back of higher mortgage costs for customers.The bank – which is still 44%-owned by the taxpayer – revealed on Friday that Rose’s pay had soared by 46% from £3.6m a year earlier, partly because of the higher value of shares doled out as part of her long-term incentive plan. Continue reading...

Jeffrey Donaldson says ‘big moment’ looming in Rishi Sunak’s effort to cut a post-Brexit deal with EU

Zelenskiy to speak at Munich security conference; Ukrainian officials says negotiations to extend grain deal will start next week

Isla Bryson case has led to climate of growing hostility towards trans people, say equality campaignersThe furore surrounding the placement of transgender offenders in Scottish prisons has sharpened personal safety fears across Scotland’s LGBTQ+ community, the Guardian has been told.Soon after Nicola Sturgeon announced her resignation on Wednesday, Scottish equalities campaigners expressed unease at the loss of such a visible LGBTQ+ ally. Continue reading...

Minette Batters accuses ministers of ‘dereliction of duty’ in failing to ensure safety of agricultural importsBritain is in danger of a “disastrous” food scandal, owing to lax post-Brexit border controls on agricultural imports, the leader of the UK’s biggest farming organisation has warned.Minette Batters, the president of the National Farmers’ Union, accused ministers of a “dereliction of duty” in failing to ensure food and other agricultural imports were safe. She warned that the government had failed to learn the lessons of the horsemeat scandal of 2013. Continue reading...

Superbonus 110 initiative led to a surge in home renovations but has been blighted by widespread fraudThe Italian government has scrapped a generous tax credit scheme aimed at making homes more energy -efficient amid warnings of dire effects on the construction sector.The popular Superbonus 110 initiative, which entitled homeowners to a tax credit of up to 110% on the cost of upgrading their property, led to a surge in home renovations and helped to fuel Italy’s economy after the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading...

Judge tells David Ballantyne Smith, 58, his ‘treachery’ put his former colleagues at ‘maximum risk’

Former defender of Truss’s failed plans advises former leader to figure out new backbench roleLiz Truss’s political interventions “should be like sex in a long and happy relationship, infrequent but anticipated with glee”, the former Conservative party chairman has said.Sir Jake Berry, formerly a key defender of Truss’s failed radical plans, said it is time for the former prime minister to figure out her new backbench role. Continue reading...

Rail and road services disrupted amid yellow weather warnings for wind in Scotland, north and north-east EnglandStorm Otto has left thousands of homes in Scotland without power and led to travel disruption and school closures.The Met Office has issued yellow weather warnings for wind covering the whole of Scotland and a stretch of north and north-east England, running from Sheffield to the Scottish border until 3pm on Friday. Continue reading...

Frank Bainimarama, who launched a blistering attack on the president on Monday, was suspended for three yearsFiji’s opposition leader and its long-serving former prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, has been suspended from parliament for three years for sedition and insulting the president.The suspension came days after he launched an extraordinary verbal attack on the country’s president, Ratu Wiliame Katonivere.Lavenia Lativerata-Vuadreu works for Mai TV in FijiReuters contributed to this report Continue reading...

Judges say policy for communal areas had a distressing effect on those who did not wish to practise themSpain’s supreme court has ruled that a group of naturist property owners at a holiday home development was wrong to insist communal areas could only be used by naked residents, and wrong to hire security guards to police access to the shared swimming pool.The decision came after eight people in the development in the Andalucían province of Almería took legal action, claiming the enforced nudity policy violated their basic rights. Continue reading...

Free satellite package is part of attempts to cut off occupied population from rest of Ukraine, say analysts

Pat Cullen says prime minister must step in if 48-hour strike across 120 hospitals is to be avertedThe prime minister has been urged to step in to avert fresh strike action by nurses that is likely to have a “significant impact” on NHS services in England.Tens of thousands of nurses will walk out of 120 hospitals for 48 hours next month as soaring inflation continues to impose real-terms pay cuts. For the first time, the strikers will include those working in cancer wards, emergency departments and intensive care units – marking a significant escalation in the dispute. Continue reading...

Few would have expected the technocratic, cautious PM to be the leader able to help close one of the deepest wounds of BrexitIt has taken three prime ministers, three Northern Ireland secretaries, seven lawsuits by the EU and an epic breakdown of relations with Ireland before surgery was finally performed on one of the deepest wounds caused by Brexit.The UK and the EU are inching closer to a deal on the Northern Ireland protocol and – if Rishi Sunak pulls it off and faces down opponents in the DUP and European Research Group (ERG) – he will have achieved something that eluded Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Continue reading...

French firm’s 2022 pre-tax figure of £1.1bn in Britain relates to nuclear operations and higher energy pricesThe UK arm of the French energy company EDF bounced back to profit last year, making more than £1bn, as it was boosted by the rising cost of wholesale energy, which allowed it to sell the electricity it generated at a higher price.The firm made a pre-tax profit of £1.1bn in the UK last year, before one-off items, a recovery from a loss of £21m a year earlier. Continue reading...

More than 200m people treated for virus and death rate now ‘lowest in the world’, says governmentThe Chinese government has declared a “decisive victory” in the battle against Covid-19, claiming it had created “a miracle in the history of human civilisation” in successfully steering China through the global pandemic.The comments were made at a meeting presided over by President Xi Jinping on Thursday. The government said more than 200 million people had been treated for Covid and that China’s death rate from coronavirus was “the lowest level in the world”. Continue reading...

Joseph Watts pleads guilty to attack on Gunners keeper at end of north London derby last monthA 35-year-old man has admitted assaulting the Arsenal goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium at the end of the north London derby.Ramsdale, 24, was kicked in the back shortly after the Gunners beat Spurs 2-0 in a Premier League match on 15 January. Continue reading...

Reports that fighters have threatened those issuing birth control medicines come as Afghan midwives and activists warn of impact on women’s health and rightsTaliban fighters have stopped the sale of contraceptives in two of Afghanistan’s main cities, claiming their use by women is a western conspiracy to control the Muslim population.The Guardian has learned that the Taliban has been going door to door, threatening midwives and ordering pharmacies to clear their shelves of all birth control medicines and devices. Continue reading...

But critics decry death penalty ‘experimentation’ that state is developing after a series of botched lethal injectionsAlabama is close to completing a protocol that will use nitrogen gas as a new form of execution in the state, officials have said, amid warnings from advocacy groups that it is an experimental move after botched lethal injections.On Wednesday, Alabama commissioner John Hamm, who heads the state’s prison systems, told the Associated Press, “We’re close. We’re close,” in reference to the new execution method. Hamm added that the protocol should be completed by the end of this year. Continue reading...

Deputy first minister calls for party to unite and ‘anchor SNP in mainstream of Scottish politics’

In Tokyo speech to conservative lawmakers, former British PM issues warning about Chinese aggressionLiz Truss has used her first overseas speech since resigning as British prime minister to call on the west to safeguard Taiwan’s security and economy in the face of Chinese aggression “before it is too late”.Speaking in Tokyo at a meeting of mainly conservative lawmakers that included the former Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, Truss said Britain had been naive to court the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in 2015, adding that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should serve as a warning of what happens when democracies fail to stand up to authoritarian regimes. Continue reading...

But grocery purchases fall in January, with cost of living crisis still putting households under pressureRetail sales in Great Britain picked up slightly in January, driven by cheaper fuel prices for motorists and shoppers snapping up bargains at jewellers and carpet and furniture stores in the new year sales.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the general trend pointed downwards despite the 0.5% increase in retail sales last month, as people tightened their belts during the cost of living crisis. As a result, last month’s overall sales volumes remained 1.4% below pre-pandemic levels recorded in February 2020. Continue reading...

Special legislation passed by the Albanese government with Coalition support. This blog is now closed

Family of Die Hard and Pulp Fiction actor, 67, releases statement to share diagnosis following retirement from acting owing to aphasiaBruce Willis, who retired from acting last May as a result of aphasia, has been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, his family announced on Thursday.In a statement posted to the website for the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, the Die Hard actor’s family – wife Emma Heming, ex-wife Demi Moore and daughters Rumer, Scout, Tallulah, Mabel and Evelyn – revealed Willis’s aphasia had progressed into a diagnosis of dementia. Problems with language and memory, which instigated rumors about his cognitive state and prompted his retirement in May 2022, are “just one symptom of the disease Bruce faces”, they wrote. Continue reading...

Workers at the Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, New York, allege employees were fired in response to a union organizing driveTesla workers at the Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, New York, allege over 30 workers were fired on 14 February in response to the announcement of a union organizing drive at the 1,000-worker facility.The Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, has fought union drives in the past. The campaign, Tesla Workers United, is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate Workers United and has filed an injunction with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking to halt the firings. Continue reading...

Purple T rex gets a facelift for new TV, film, online and musical projects – but some fans aren’t happy about itBarney the purple dinosaur is getting a makeover as he seeks to revive his US TV career – and not everyone is happy about it.One social media user asked: “Why would they give a dinosaur a [nose] job and Botox?” Continue reading...

Working group member challenges Dutton’s account of the meeting, saying they were ‘not that far apart’ on the voice questionConflicting accounts have emerged about a meeting between Peter Dutton and the Indigenous voice referendum working group after a key member of the group said the opposition leader’s personal views showed they were “not that far apart” on the voice.Dutton said on Friday the Indigenous voice referendum is on track to fail, blaming the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, for a “conscious decision” to withhold detail. Labor has said the detail is still being developed. Continue reading...

Online videos from Tehran and other centres appear to show demonstrations including anti-government chants as execution of protesters commemoratedProtesters in Iran have marched through the streets of multiple cities in the most widespread demonstrations in weeks, online videos purported to show on Friday.The demonstrations overnight on Thursday marked 40 days since Iran executed two men on charges related to protests that began last year and went on to grip the Islamic Republic for month. Continue reading...

Extreme conditions in the north of the state with Victoria, NSW and Queensland also experiencing high temperatures

Chief medical officer Paul Kelly says a long Covid strategy is ‘well under way’ but will not be finalised until advice is received from the inquiry

Relations between Beijing and Washington have soured since the US accused China of sending a spy balloon into its airspaceA top Pentagon official will visit Taiwan in coming days, according to reports, as attempts between the US and China to repair relations continue to backslide after the US shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon in its airspace.Michael Chase, deputy assistant secretary of defence for China, is expected to visit Taiwan in coming days, according to the Financial Times, after he leaves Mongolia where he is meeting its military. Continue reading...

Exclusive: freedom of information requests reveal overspill on cancer wards, maternity units and A&E departmentsHospitals in England have recorded more than 450 sewage leaks in the last 12 months, data shows, putting patients and staff in danger and prompting warnings that the NHS estate is “falling apart” after a decade of underinvestment.Freedom of information requests to NHS trusts by the Liberal Democrats found alarming examples of sewage leaking on to cancer wards, maternity units and A&E departments. The investigation also uncovered multiple cases of urine and faeces flowing into hospital rooms and on to general wards. Continue reading...

Australian Museum’s installation is 10 metres long, sports a rainbow Lycra swimsuit and has captured the hearts of manyWhen an event thrusts a city into the global spotlight, designing a mascot is a highly deliberated undertaking. But in Sydney, where the month-long WorldPride celebrations have just commenced, it has happened entirely by accident.And the result is a giant great white shark wrapped in rainbow Lycra. Continue reading...

A year after the conflict began, the consensus against Russian aggression has held but alarm bells are ringing in CongressVladimir Putin has proven adept at exploiting the US political divide, so the solid bipartisan consensus behind arming Ukraine over the past year may well have come as a surprise to him. The question one year into the war is: how long can that consensus last?Two weeks before the first anniversary of the full-scale invasion on 24 February, a group of Trump-supporting Republicans led by Matt Gaetz introduced a “Ukraine fatigue” resolution that, if passed, would “express through the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States must end its military and financial aid to Ukraine, and urges all combatants to reach a peace agreement”. Continue reading...