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The foreign minister claims public interest immunity over Dfat advice. This blog is now closed

Timor Leste's president alludes to 2004 spying scandal as he brushes off concerns about new strategic partnership with China

Teenager to appear at youth court charged over rush-hour killing of schoolgirl in south LondonA 17-year-old boy has been charged with the murder of 15-year-old Elianne Andam in Croydon, south London.The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, will appear at youth court, sitting at Croydon magistrates court, on Friday. He has also been charged with possession of a knife. Continue reading...

Placating Conservatives in marginal seats, inflation in construction and a maze of bureaucracy have seen the cost balloon from 32bn to 71bnShould the enormous engineering feat of HS2 become Rishi Sunak's white elephant, these could be its expensive tusks.At what was once a staging post but now looks like the end of the line, Old Oak Common, two brand new tunnel boring machines are to be buried underground, unused, ready for action - a mere 40m of kit that may never now drill the route's last six miles east into central London. Continue reading...

Pro-China presidential candidate Mohamed Muizzu accuses incumbent Mohamed Solih of allowing traditional benefactor India too much influenceAs the archipelago of the Maldives goes to an election run-off on Saturday, it will not just be two presidential candidates on the ballot.This election is being pitched as a larger geopolitical battle between India and China, which over the past decade have been engaged in a tug-of-war to gain influence over the Maldives. Continue reading...

Immigration experts say home secretary's speech criticising global treaties related to refugees against guidance from her own departmentSuella Braverman's claim that increasing numbers of asylum seekers find refuge in the west because the threshold to qualify for asylum has been lowered does not apply in the UK under guidance in her own department, lawyers have said.In a controversial speech on Tuesday, the home secretary said that as case law has developed since the Refugee Convention 1951, what we have seen in practice, is an interpretive shift away from persecution', in favour of something more akin to a definition of discrimination'." Continue reading...

Exclusive: Sir John Leighton says galleries still need to broaden audience beyond Edinburgh middle classes and touristsScotland's national galleries, which house some of the country's greatest works of art, need to do far more to make themselves accessible and inclusive, their outgoing director general has said.Sir John Leighton, who is retiring in February after 17 years as head of the National Galleries in Scotland (NGS), said the organisation still has a long way to go" to broaden the audience beyond Edinburgh's middle classes and tourists. Continue reading...

Show celebrating Cecilia Gimenez, who achieved unwanted global fame, premieres in Las Vegas this weekendEleven years after a simple act of devotion in a remote church in north-east Spain unleashed a media storm, spawned countless memes and created an unlikely tourist phenomenon, the trials and triumphs of the amateur artist behind the Monkey Christ" restoration are being celebrated in an opera that premieres this week in Las Vegas.Cecilia Gimenez, now almost 93, achieved unwanted global fame in the summer of 2012 after attempting to restore a small fresco of the scourged and thorn-crowned Christ in the Santuario de Misericordia near her home town of Borja. Continue reading...

Exclusive: IfG says sums raised unlikely to be transformative' and there is little public appetiteCharging patients for using NHS services would be hugely expensive and complicated to implement and would not banish the health service's problems, a thinktank has found.Several senior Conservative politicians have proposed introducing fees for accessing NHS care and Rishi Sunak has previously backed 10 fines for people who miss a GP or hospital appointment. Continue reading...

The 4bn project was due to be finished by mid 2020s but delays mean it will not be able to head off current capacity crisisPlans for 20,000 additional prison places by the mid 2020s are not expected to be completed until 2030 due to planning delays.The 4bn programme has been hit by further problems this summer, a Whitehall source said, which means the new cells will not be available to head off the current capacity crisis. Continue reading...

Mark Dreyfus promises transparent' process to recruit for new federal merits review body, which will review decisions on migration, the NDIS and Centrelink

People with disabilities continue to experience high rates of violence and abuse, multiple forms of neglect, and sexual and financial exploitation', final report states

Commission has spent four and a half years investigating conditions for people with disabilities in schools, workplaces, jails, group homes, hospitals, and day programs

Police in north of England say teenager arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damageA 16-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage in connection with the felling of the 300-year-old Sycamore Gap tree in the north of England.Officers arrested the teenager amid an outpouring of sadness over the destruction of the landmark, which has been a feature of the site at Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland for hundreds of years. The boy is in custody and assisting officers with their inquiries, Northumbria police said on Thursday. Continue reading...

Syriza leader says it will be an honour' to take a break from politics for obligatory service, which he has to start by the beginning of 2024Just a few days after being elected the new leader of Greece's leftwing main opposition party, Stefanos Kasselakis has said he will take a brief break from politics - to join the military.Kasselakis, 35, said he plans to present himself soon" for military service, which is obligatory for all Greek men. Continue reading...

Martin Lewis and Citizens Advice among those telling PM poorer Britons must get help, as industry source calls idea unworkable'More than 140 organisations and individuals, including the consumer champion Martin Lewis, have told Rishi Sunak to make good on a promise to help Britain's least well-off households with a social tariff for their gas and electricity.The group has written to the prime minister reiterating calls to fulfil a government pledge to help vulnerable households with a discounted rate for energy bills before the last remaining support schemes come to an end in April. Continue reading...

Payouts rose by 5% after operating profits increased to 756m and pension advisory business was soldThe average income of Deloitte's more than 640 equity partners in the UK rose to 1.1m this year, despite a recent slowdown in spending and company deals.Deloitte UK said revenue grew 14% to 5.6bn in the year to May, as buoyant markets in the first six months of its financial year bolstered demand for audit and advisory work. It helped offset the increased caution" among more cash-strapped clients and a slowdown in merger and acquisition activity in the months that followed. Continue reading...

Thinktank calls for bold solutions to address high dropout rates and rise in part-time workingThe NHS has to train two GPs to produce one full-time family doctor because so many have started to work part-time, new research reveals.The finding helps explain why GP surgeries are still struggling to give patients appointments as quickly as they would like, despite growing numbers of doctors training to become a GP.One in eight nursing students in England do not complete their degrees.For every five students doing a nursing degree at university, the NHS only gets three full-time nurses.One in five newly qualified nurses working in hospitals or community settings quit within two years.The number of UK nurses joining the NHS fell by about a third in both 2020/21 and 2021/22 - a new and worrying dynamic". Continue reading...

Suspect, arrested in Peru, allegedly threatened schools after failing to sextort' nude photos from schoolchildrenA Peruvian man was arrested in Peru for sending more than 150 fake bomb threats to US schools, airports and a synagogue.Eddie Manuel Nunez Santos, 33, was arrested by Peruvian officials on Tuesday in Lima, according to a press release from the justice department. Continue reading...

Republican House speaker says he will not take up Senate bill to keep government running despite his party's lack of an alternativeA government shutdown appeared all but inevitable as the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, dug in on Thursday, vowing he will not take up Senate legislation designed to keep the federal government fully running despite House Republicans' struggle to unite around an alternative.Congress is at an impasse just days before a disruptive federal shutdown that would halt paychecks for many of the federal government's roughly 2 million employees, as well as 2 million active-duty military troops and reservists, furlough many of those workers and curtail government services. Continue reading...

PM accuses Keir Starmer of stoking a class war' and Tories seek to portray Labour as flip-flopping on policyRishi Sunak has accused Keir Starmer of stoking a class war" by maintaining his vow to add VAT on to private school fees if Labour wins the next election, a move that Sunak said would punish" affected parents.The prime minister said Labour's approach illustrates that they don't understand the aspiration of families like my parents who were working really hard". Continue reading...

Exclusive: Potential plan to restrict measures such as 20mph speed limits and levying fines from traffic cameras alarms travel groupsRishi Sunak is to prioritise the interests of millions of car owners with a series of measures that will provoke environmentalists and curb the power of local councils.In a package expected to be announced at the Tory conference on Monday, the prime minister will set out his plan for motorists" that will limit the number of 20mph speed restrictions and favour drivers over bus passengers. Continue reading...

Rex Heuermann, charged over deaths of three women on Long Island, speaks briefly as he bids to regain 280 guns seized by policeThe man accused of killing three women as part of a notorious serial-killing case in New York spoke briefly in a court hearing as prosecutors presented DNA evidence they argued demonstrated the man's connection to the killings.The hearing came months after police arrested architect Rex Heuermann at his home in Massapequa Park in Long Island. Heuermann has been charged over the killings of three women in the so-called Gilgo Beach case, a case that has captivated Suffolk county residents, police and the nation for more than a decade. Continue reading...

Melanie Dawes says regulator will consider any complaints about Lee Anderson's interview with Suella BravermanOfcom's chief executive has said there is nothing under current rules to stop GB News using the Conservative MP Lee Anderson to interview the Tory home secretary, Suella Braverman.Melanie Dawes said she did not want to pre-judge the interview, which will be broadcast on Friday night, because the media regulator was not a censor". She said Ofcom defended freedom of expression" but would consider any complaints about the programme after it aired. Continue reading...

Hopes fade of deal being struck, with one sticking point being right to occasionally breach detention centre standardsEuropean Union member states have failed to reach an agreement on changes to the bloc's migration laws after Germany and Italy clashed over key proposals relating to human rights guarantees in detention centres and the role of NGOs in facilitating migrant arrivals.But, as hopes faded on Thursday of a deal being struck, ministers said they expected fine tuning" in coming days to lead to a pact that would apply in the event of a sudden refugee crisis such as that of 2015 when more than 1 million people arrived from Syria and beyond. Continue reading...

September brings 11 deaths as country rocked by wave of violence, much of it suspected to be linked to split within criminal gangSeptember has become the worst month for shooting deaths in Sweden since records began in 2016, after two people died in separate shootings on Wednesday night, bringing the monthly total to 11.Another person died on Thursday morning after a bomb blast. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed, you can read more of our UK political coverage hereThe former SNP minister Fergus Ewing has claimed his party no longer stands up for Scotland as he was suspended for a week after a disciplinary vote by fellow MSPs.The sanction, which was backed by 48 votes to nine with four abstentions, came about after Ewing voted against the SNP-Green government in a no-confidence motion against the Scottish Green minister Lorna Slater.The SNP I joined would never have asked me, or indeed any other elected politician, to choose between loyalty to party and loyalty to constituents ...It was never an ordinary political party because it was one which put Scotland first.Fergus is a long standing MSP, he has been a minister, he understands the procedures here and what the outcome is of voting in the way that he did.No, you are and you're her direct line boss. So why didn't you deal with that situation, as her boss?The way it works for MPs is slightly different, in the sense that they themselves are elected by their constituents and we have a separate process for them stopping the job that they're in. It is not my ability to do that, actually. Ultimately people elect their MPs regardless of who the prime minister is. Continue reading...

Research finds 114 councils in England, Scotland and Wales facing budget gaps of more than 10mCouncils are facing a record cash shortfall of more than 3.5bn in the coming year with jobs and services facing cuts, according to an analysis.Data compiled by Unison, the trade union, found there were 114 councils in England, Scotland and Wales - almost a third - facing shortfalls of more than 10m. It said 15 councils were likely to be in the red by more than 40m next year. Continue reading...

Shadow ministers used charitable status' as shorthand for main goal of introducing tax changesHas Labour flip-flopped on stripping private schools in England of their charitable status? Senior party figures from Keir Starmer down have certainly been guilty of using loose language, conflating such a move with their plan to apply VAT to private school fees and other tax breaks.Starmer said in July last year: When I say we are going to pay for kids to catch up at school, I also say it'll be funded by removing private schools' charitable status." Continue reading...

The dogs at Paris Puppies Paradise, who were underweight and living in their own feces, were housed with a rescue organizationIowa authorities rescued nearly 100 dogs from a puppy mill over the weekend, many of whom were living in their own excrement.On Friday, a deputy from the Boone county sheriff's office was conducting a welfare check on a missing woman and came across what appeared to be a puppy mill, the sheriff's office said in a press release. Continue reading...

This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story herePoland's ambassador to the EU, Andrzej Sado, told the Guardian today that Warsaw is refusing to accept any elements of mandatory relocation, the distribution of some mandatory quotas" and is also opposed to any obligatory payment for not accepting migrants."EU countries, he wrote in response to a question, should have full discretion in choosing between different type of solidarity measures." Continue reading...

Retail chain hopes to raise 150m to fund store updates and invest in online operationsJohn Lewis is looking into raising 150m from the sale and leaseback of a dozen Waitrose supermarkets to fund investment in updating the business.The staff-owned retailer, which this month announced a half-year loss of 59m, wants cash to update stores, improve prices and invest online operation, including expanding online grocery deliveries. Continue reading...

Comment from Ukraine's president comes after Jens Stoltenberg's trip to KyivSuspilne reports, citing the regional authority, that one person has been injured and hospitalised by a Russian attack on Antonivka near Kherson.British defence secretary Grant Shapps discussed how to bolster Ukraine's air defences during talks in an unannounced visit to Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president's office said on Thursday. Continue reading...

Wildfires and soaring temperatures around Mediterranean have damaged harvests and forced producers to import supplies from South AmericaEurope has almost run out of local olive oil supplies and is set for more shortages, after extreme weather around the Mediterranean this summer damaged harvests for a second year.The world's largest producer has said it is having to import supplies from South America to keep up with demand. Today it is almost physically impossible to buy olive oil. It is sold out," Walter Zanre, the chief executive of the UK arm of Filippo Berio, said. Continue reading...

Jason Billingsley charged with first-degree murder after Pava LePere, 26, found dead in apartment complex on MondayA suspect has been arrested over the murder of a Baltimore tech chief executive, following a citywide manhunt.Jason Billingsley, 32, was arrested on charges of first-degree murder on Wednesday by Baltimore police over the killing of 26-year-old Pava LaPere on Monday. Billingsley was reportedly apprehended at a Maryland train station, ending a day-long manhunt for the suspect. Continue reading...

Former PM will push for plan to make Britain grow again', in attempt to put pressure on Rishi SunakLiz Truss will assemble her acolytes for a growth rally" intended to show Rishi Sunak she will keep pushing for the policies she tried to enact during her 49-day premiership.Though the former prime minister faced humiliation at last year's Conservative party conference, she will not shy away from the limelight when activists and MPs gather in Manchester later this week. Continue reading...

Recent skirmishes between Labour and Tories have become competition to see who can appear the most hardline on crime

Judges and magistrates told to consider high prison population opting for suspended sentences instead of immediate jail terms

Women aiming to reach UK or Ireland realised lorry was heading in wrong direction and contacted BBC journalistSix women have been rescued from the back of a refrigerated lorry in France after a panicked text message to a BBC reporter set off a frantic cross-border search.The women - four Vietnamese nationals and two from Iraq - spent more than 10 hours in the cramped space, surrounded by boxes of bananas, in hopes of making it to the UK or Ireland, according to the BBC. Continue reading...

Hundreds of Brecon households sign up for scheme in which they get money for every container they recycleIt is best known as a picturesque base for mountain walks but over the last three months a small Welsh market town has been taking part in a world-first environmental scheme that it is hoped may help revolutionise recycling.People in Brecon (Aberhonddu) have been given manifold ways of returning drinks containers in exchange for a small financial reward. Uptake for the project, a digital deposit return scheme (DDRS) in which citizens get 10p for every container they recycle, has been good with 1,300 of the 4,300 households eligible signing up and 25,000 containers set to be processed. Continue reading...

First time since early July that average rate has been below 6%, with some deals now under 5%The average new five-year fixed mortgage rate has fallen back below 6% for the first time since early July, according to the sector's leading data provider.Across all deposit sizes, the typical five-year fixed residential mortgage rate on sale is now priced at 5.99%, Moneyfacts said, down from 6.03% on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Boyband singer, who told the woman he wanted her chocolate children', given 12-month suspended sentenceThe boyband singer Lee Ryan has avoided a jail term for drunkenly assaulting a black flight attendant and abusing her by saying he wanted her chocolate children".Ryan, who found fame with the pop group Blue, received a 12-month suspended prison sentence for racially aggravated common assault by beating and behaving in an abusive way towards the cabin crew member. Continue reading...

President of Armenia's unrecognised republic signs decree under which it will cease to exist by 1 January 2024The breakaway government of Nagorno-Karabakh has announced it will dissolve itself and that the unrecognised republic will cease to exist by 2024.The president of Armenia's self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Samvel Shahramanyan, signed a decree to dissolve all state institutions by 1 January 2024, Karabakh Armenian authorities said in a statement. The republic would cease to exist from that day, the decree said. Continue reading...

Met police commissioner says attack during morning rush hour is impossible to comprehend'A 17-year-old boy continues to be questioned by detectives after a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death on her way to school in an attack described by the Met police commissioner as impossible to comprehend".The girl, who has not been named, died after being attacked during the Wednesday morning rush hour in Croydon, south London, on her way to the private Old Palace of John Whitgift school for girls, where she studied. Continue reading...

Put-downs and non-Maga replies could help her displace Ron DeSantis as the leading alternative to Donald TrumpHonestly, every time I hear you I feel a little bit dumber for what you say."Nikki Haley's put-down of Vivek Ramaswamy was perhaps the closest thing to a zinger in an otherwise messy Republican primary debate in which Mike Pence's jokes bombed, Chris Christie's Donald Duck" jibe fell flat and Ramaswamy suffered second album syndrome. Continue reading...

A new legislation will create a panel that will set wages and other standards for the industryIn the face of recent intense pressures on fast-food workers, employees in the sector in California are about to get a boost with the creation of a body that will set wages and other standards for the industry.The move is a hard-fought win for the labor movement in the state and is expected to be signed into law - called the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act - by Gavin Newsom, the California governor, later on Thursday. Continue reading...

Industrial action could affect more than 50 flights including routes from Perth to regional towns and mine sites

European Commission calls for tougher enforcement by member states to ensure sanctions are not circumventedBrussels has warned European companies and governments that it could ban the sale of certain components to Turkey and other countries from where Iran and Russia are sourcing parts for drones and other weapons striking Ukrainian cities.The comments from the European Commission follows a leak to the Guardian of a 47-page document in which the Ukrainian government detailed the use of western technology and appealed for long-range missiles to attack drone production sites in Russia, Iran and Syria. Continue reading...

Two MPs distance themselves from home secretary's talk of existential challenge' as she called for human rights reformSuella Braverman has been criticised by two Conservative MPs for an alarmist" speech about the need for human rights reform due to the existential challenge" posed by illegal migration.Speaking from Washington DC on Wednesday, the home secretary riled some in her party by suggesting that being gay or a woman and fearful of discrimination should not be enough to qualify as a refugee in the UK. Continue reading...

Switching off cameras and sharing footage on WhatsApp among more than 150 incidents found in BBC investigationPolice officers are accused of mishandling body-worn video in more than 150 incidents, including switching off cameras and sharing footage on WhatsApp, a BBC investigation has found.Body-worn video is widely used by police in England and Wales but cases released under freedom of information detail a catalogue of misuse. Continue reading...