World news | The Guardian

Sergei Lavrov praises Kim Jong-un for unambiguous support' for Ukraine war on visit that could pave way for summit with Vladimir PutinRussia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said Moscow's relations with North Korea have reached a new level", as concern grows over deepening military ties between the two countries amid the war in Ukraine.Speaking on Thursday in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, Lavrov hailed last month's summit in Russia's far east between Vladimir Putin and the North's leader, Kim Jong-un, as evidence that bilateral ties were at a qualitatively new, strategic level". Continue reading...

Treasurer Tim Pallas says refunds being considered after high court ruled charge was unconstitutional

Tough decisions' need to be made if Australia's university sector is to remain competitive in attracting international students

Leaked memo suggests party's votes could halve to 30% in Tamworth and Mid BedfordshireIn the world of expectation management, a leaked" memo can be a useful tool for a political party on the eve of a tricky byelection. So the publication of an internal report prepared for the Conservative party chair, Greg Hands, was initially met with some scepticism.The document, based on telephone canvassing data from recent days, claimed the Tory vote in Thursday's two byelections in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire could halve to about 30%, creating more problems for Rishi Sunak. Continue reading...

Designer says soulless structures make people stressed and lonely as he launches book and campaignBoring, soulless buildings are making people stressed and lonely, according to Thomas Heatherwick, the British designer behind the 2012 Olympic cauldron.The designer is embarking on a crusade to persuade architects and developers to create buildings that inspire feelings of joy and stimulation. Continue reading...

Bobby Baker's An Edible Family in a Mobile Home (1976) will be recreated - this time with a vegan optionWhen Bobby Baker's sculptural work An Edible Family in a Mobile Home was installed nearly 50 years ago, art lovers were invited to not only touch her work but eat it. Now, the seminal work by the intersectional feminist is coming back - except this time, there's going to be a vegan option.From 8 November, Tate Britain will present a restaging of Baker's radical installation. Continue reading...

Path to Treaty laws passed with bipartisan support five months ago would be ripped up by an LNP government, opposition leader says

Proposed changes include extending trading hours and not allowing single noise complaints to help put an end to red tape' on city's nightlife

The Liberal backbencher says Peter Dutton's call for a royal commission into child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities is divisive and inconsistent

The 16-year-old was found dead near the coastal town of Wynyard after he was reported missing by his family

Stephen Rue is now paid five times more than prime minister Anthony Albanese's salary of $587,000, annual report confirms

Lib Dem MP who has extended family in Gaza was asked if she had any advance knowledge of Hamas's attack on IsraelAn MP who has extended family in Gaza said she has accepted the broadcaster Richard Madeley's apology after he asked whether there was any word on the street" before Hamas's attack on Israel.Layla Moran, the Lib Dems' foreign affairs spokesperson, said she thought the question during Tuesday's Good Morning Britain programme came from a place of ...... ignorance" but was not asked out of malice. Continue reading...

Streaming company announces plans to increase prices as profits rise, even as Hollywood strikes threaten to affect programmingNetflix announced its global crackdown on password sharing was working and unveiled plans to increase prices as it announced its latest quarterly results on Wednesday.The streaming media company added 8.8 million new subscribers over the last three months, far better than expected and up from 2.4 million in the same quarter last year. The increase came even as a strike by Hollywood actors and writers threatened to affect the rollout of new shows. Continue reading...

Humza Yousaf warns against unnecessary travel with heavy wind and rain expected across Britain and IrelandHumza Yousaf has warned against unnecessary travel in parts of Scotland as Storm Babet is forecast to hit several towns between Dundee and Aberdeen and pose a risk to life" on Thursday.Great Britain is bracing for heavy wind and rain from the storm, which is moving east from Ireland after sweeping in from the Atlantic. The Met Office issued a rare red weather warning, stating that there is a risk to life" from flooding in Aberdeenshire and Angus. Continue reading...

Labour leader's letter comes amid warnings that dozens of councillors could resign over party's stance on conflictKeir Starmer has written to Labour councillors expressing his sympathy for innocent Palestinian and Israeli people amid warnings that dozens could resign over the party's stance on the conflict.Several councillors have resigned since last week and at least 20 more are braced to quit the party over the leadership's unwillingness to show value to the humanity of Palestinian lives", the Guardian understands. Continue reading...

Tree that's withstood storms and firewood collectors wins contest highlighting those in urban areasA 480-year-old sweet chestnut that has withstood storms, firewood collectors and, increasingly, parties and picnics beneath its boughs has been crowned tree of the year.The stately ancient tree in Wrexham's Acton Park fought off competition from 10 other urban trees in the Woodland Trust competition, which this year highlighted city trees which are widely enjoyed by the public but are often still vulnerable to destruction. Continue reading...

Ambassador says text was unacceptable as it did not mention Israel's right to self-defence

Sebastian Kurz, former wunderkind' of Europe's conservatives, said he is innocent and condemned politicisation' of caseAustria's former chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, insisted he was innocent as he went on trial for allegedly giving false testimony to an inquiry into corruption scandals that have rocked the country.Once hailed as a wunderkind" of Europe's conservatives, Kurz is the highest-profile figure implicated in a series of scandals. The case marks the first time in more than 30 years that a former chancellor has stood trial. Continue reading...

Jill Mortimer faces criticism after claiming her office was besieged by asylum seekers' and her staff were intimidated by young menA Conservative MP has been accused of playing up to racist stereotypes after claiming that her office was besieged by asylum seekers" and that her staff were intimidated by young men, most of whom she said should be expelled as illegal migrants".Jill Mortimer told Rishi Sunak during prime minister's questions in the House of Commons that people in her constituency of Hartlepool were afraid and angry". Continue reading...

The broadcaster says increased production costs mean the show has become unviableThe medical TV drama Doctors will end after more than 20 years, the BBC has announced, blaming super inflation in drama production".The BBC said it had faced a very difficult decision" on whether to reinvest in the Birmingham site where the show, which helped to launch the career of many actors, is filmed. It said costs had increased significantly" at the location and had decided instead to finance new shows in the West Midlands. Continue reading...

Safe access zones' entered law in England and Wales in May but the Home Office has delayed their implementationWomen using abortion clinics are still being harassed despite MPs voting a year ago to create buffer zones to stop protesters intimidating them, medical and abortion groups say.Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has failed to commence" the legislation to introduce buffer zones in England and Wales, even though parliament approved the move on 18 October last year. Continue reading...

US tech giant reveals new generation of drones at Seattle HQ but declines to comment on where in each country they will launch firstAmazon has announced plans to start delivering packages via drone for the first time in the UK and Italy as it attempts to get its ambitious airborne delivery program off the ground.The American technology giant said on Wednesday that it will introduce autonomous aircraft delivery in Britain and Italy in late 2024", a decade after first publicly setting its sights on the skies. It hopes to be delivering 500m packages via drone each year by the end of the decade. Continue reading...

Israel claimed it has evidence the explosion at al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza was caused by the group

Aleksanteri Kivimaki is accused of stealing tens of thousands of records from patients and seeking money for not leaking themProsecutors in Finland have charged a hacker, accused of the theft of tens of thousands of records from psychotherapy patients, with more than 21,000 counts of extortion.The suspect is held on remand and has denied being guilty of the offences," the national prosecution authority said in a statement on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Select committee hears some pet owners have been handing in dogs due to fears over upcoming banPeople are already handing in XL bully dogs, with some requesting that their pet to be put down, after the announcement of an impending ban on the breed, MPs have been told.At a parliamentary evidence session before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) select committee, witnesses said vets and animal rehoming centres could become inundated by people seeking to offload the dogs before a ban. Continue reading...

Congresswoman Debbie Lesko, from Arizona, says it is hard to get anything done'A Republican congresswoman has said she will not run for re-election next year, claiming DC is broken".Debbie Lesko, from Arizona, said in a statement that traveling to Washington each month had also proven difficult. Continue reading...

Sunak says British intelligence is working at pace to get to the bottom' of explosion at al-Ahli hospital

Keir Starmer's chief of staff, Sue Gray, and David Lammy respond after councillors quit partyThe Labour leadership is understood to have held a meeting with councillors after a number of resignations in protest at Keir Starmer's stance over the conflict with Hamas.Amna Abdullatif, the first Arab Muslim woman elected to Manchester city council, said on Monday she would quit Labour. Continue reading...

PM condemns any indiscriminate attacks' on civilians while Penny Wong says spread of conflict would compound risks to Israel's security'

US president to meet only Israeli figures after blast in Gaza City hospital causes mass casualties

UK housebuilder's sales also dented by absence of government's help-to-buy scheme

Broadcaster vows to bring the heat with reality show offering front-row seat' to glamorous private lives

Mike Burgess says Beijing engaging in the most sustained, scaled and sophisticated theft of intellectual property and expertise in human history'

Brexit trade deal gave UK and EU carmakers until 1 January 2024 to source batteries from within Europe or face 10% tariffsThe UK car industry has said incoming tariffs between the UK and the EU could raise the price of imported electric cars by as much as 3,400 unless a solution is found by the end of the year.The Brexit trade deal between the UK and EU gave carmakers until 1 January 2024 to source batteries from within Europe or face 10% tariffs when exporting to each other. However, the supply of European-made batteries has failed to meet demand, meaning carmakers face the new tariffs from next year under these rules of origin". Continue reading...

Police say extremist ADF rebels carried out cowardly terrorist attack' near border with DRCTwo tourists from the UK and South Africa and their Ugandan guide were killed when assailants attacked their vehicle near a national park in south-west Uganda.Bashir Hangi, spokesperson for the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), said the attackers set fire to the vehicle in which the group were travelling just outside Queen Elizabeth national park. Continue reading...

After week of mixed messages in Brussels, Charles Michel stresses need for clear unified course of action'EU prime ministers have vowed to step up their efforts to mitigate a looming humanitarian crisis in Gaza in a bid to present a united diplomatic front after a week of dysfunction and mixed messages from leaders in Brussels.After an emergency video conference to address the conflagration in the Middle East, the European Council leader, Charles Michel, stressed the need to present a clear unified course of action that reflects the complexity of the unfolding situation". Continue reading...

Health ministry run by Hamas says more than 500 were killed, while civil defence official puts figure at above 300

Long-range weapon executed very accurately' in strike on two airbases in Russian-held territory

Government fast running out of time' to pass bill reforming rental market, a cross-party open letter arguesMichael Gove has won a battle with No 10 to push ahead with a ban on no-fault evictions and other reforms, but renters will not get protection until next year.An overhaul of private renting, first promised in the 2019 Conservative election manifesto, was feared to be in jeopardy amid the threat of a mass rebellion by Tory landlord MPs. Continue reading...

Sweden and Italy called for tighter security at Europe's borders after shooting by man identified in reports as Abdesalem LassouedA Tunisian man who killed two Swedish citizens in a terrorist attack in Brussels was probably a lone wolf," the Belgian prime minister has said, as Sweden and Italy called for security at Europe's borders to be tightened.Sweden's prime minister said the country was suffering unfathomable sadness" after the fatal shooting of two Swedish football fans, one in his 60s and one in his 70s, and the wounding of a taxi driver. Continue reading...

Even before the war in Gaza, authorities have been warning of rise in Islamist terrorism on the continentFor months now, authorities charged with keeping Europe safe from Islamist extremist violence have been sounding the alarm. In May, Dutch security services warned that the terrorist threat from Islamic State to Europe had increased. The same month, the French interior minister said the risk of Islamist terrorism was rising again and that his own country was being targeted, as well as its neighbours.In recent days, these pessimistic forecasts appear to have been vindicated. France is deploying 7,000 extra troops on to its streets after a teacher was fatally stabbed on Friday in an attack that Emmanuel Macron condemned as barbaric Islamic terrorism". The suspected attacker swore an oath of allegiance to IS in an audio recording on his phone shortly before the killing, prosecutors have said. Continue reading...

New chilli far outstrips previous record holder with proud pepper breeder Ed Currie saying it left him with horrible cramps'A new pepper is coming in hot as the spiciest in the world, Guinness World Records has announced.For a decade, the Carolina Reaper chilli pepper was ruled to be the hottest chilli pepper in the world. But now Pepper X" has taken its crown. Continue reading...

Examining board AQA says parts of Italian and Polish courses will be assessed digitally in 2026It's a scene that can still have the power to terrify, even years after the event. Rows of hunched backs, bent over exam papers, with barely a sound other than the chewing of pens or frantic scribbling on scores of sheets of paper.The way many students sit exams could look very different in future, however, after an announcement from England's biggest exam board that it will begin testing GCSE students on laptops for some courses beginning next year. Continue reading...

UN agency warns residents exposed to cholera and dysentery as city's last seawater desalination plant closesFears are growing that people in Gaza are beginning to dehydrate to death as clean water runs out, with Israeli airstrikes continuing to pound the Palestinian territory of 2.3 million residents amid a total blockade on food, electricity, medicine and fuel.Unrwa, the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees, said on Tuesday that Gaza's last seawater desalination plant had shut down, bringing the risk of further deaths and waterborne diseases such as cholera and dysentery. Six water wells, three water pumping stations, and one water reservoir - which collectively served more than 1.1million people - are also out of action, it said. Continue reading...

Nadia El-Nakla, wife of Scotland's first minister, says her mother is trying to treat children but household has run out of clean water

Extracts from pop singer's new memoir reveal effect of controversial conservatorship arrangement she eventually escaped, and termination of pregnancyThe first extracts from Britney Spears' highly anticipated memoir The Woman in Me have been published, documenting the cruelty she allegedly experienced during the unusual conservatorship arrangement she was placed under between 2008 and 2021, and an abortion she reportedly had while dating Justin Timberlake.In the extracts published by People magazine in the US ahead of the book's publication on 24 October, Spears writes of the abortion: For me, [the pregnancy] wasn't a tragedy. I loved Justin so much. I always expected us to have a family together one day. This would just be much earlier than I'd anticipated. But Justin definitely wasn't happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren't ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young ... I don't know if that was the right decision. If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it. And yet Justin was so sure that he didn't want to be a father." The couple dated between 1999 and 2002, when they were in their late teens and early 20s. Timberlake has not commented on Spears' account. Continue reading...

Labour-led government needs to find 600m to balance books, blaming inflation, austerity, pay and mismanagement' by UK government

Congressional investigation into failed rightwing insurrection on 8 January calls for former president to be charged with four crimesBrazil's former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro was the mentor of a wilful and premeditated coup attempt" that sought to plunge Latin America's largest democracy into political mayhem and perhaps even civil war, a congressional inquiry investigating the 8 January insurrection has alleged.The dramatic assertion was made on Tuesday as the senator Eliziane Gama read the inquiry's final report into January's failed rightwing uprising in which thousands of radical Bolsonaro supporters rampaged through the capital, Brasilia, after their leader failed to win re-election. Continue reading...

Hamas launches an unprecedented sea, air and ground offensive against Israel. The group fires a barrage of rockets towards Israeli cities and thousands of militants breach the frontier fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel. Continue reading...