World news | The Guardian

Assemblies of God meeting at Sydney Qantas Club was organised at Hillsong church founder Brian Houston’s request, trial hears

Party leader David Littleproud says there is ‘no position where the Nats would change their minds’

Ukrainian community leader says the festival starting on Friday in Melbourne was an ‘insult’ and cultural propaganda

Activist’s jailing for a peaceful protest has shocked many, as less than 6% of people charged with environmental pollution and property damage offences are sent to prisonDeanna “Violet” Coco has been sentenced to 15 months in prison with a non-parole period of eight months for blocking a lane of traffic on Sydney Harbour Bridge during a climate change protest.Her sentence handed down last week troubled human rights advocates, who called it “incredibly alarming”, and appears harsh when compared to recent sentences for serious offences issued by courts in New South Wales and Victoria.

The state government also appoints a special manager after ‘major failings’ by casino operator

LAPD officer was set to be important witness in trial of Tory Lanez, who is accused of shooting the fellow rapper two years agoA Los Angeles police detective who investigated the alleged shooting of Megan Thee Stallion has been accused of domestic violence and “relieved of his duties” by the agency, according to the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office and court testimony.The revelation came during jury selection for the trial of Tory Lanez, a Canadian-born rapper accused of shooting the fellow rapper during an argument in the Hollywood Hills two years ago. Continue reading...

Senior lawyer assisting coroner will not cross-examine police witnesses after bereaved families objected to her law firm’s work with the policeThe coroner leading an inquiry into the 2019 terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques has ruled a senior lawyer assisting her investigation will not cross-examine police witnesses or give advice on officers’ conduct, after bereaved families called for her removal over her law firm’s close work with the police.But coroner Brigitte Windley said in a ruling published on Friday that there was no allegation of misconduct by the lawyer, Alysha McClintock, who is also a Crown prosecutor. Windley declined the families’ application to remove McClintock from the inquiry altogether, rejecting their arguments that she might face real or perceived conflicts of interest when questioning officers at an inquest. Continue reading...

Chancellor expected to target senior managers’ regime and ringfencing rules in 30-point packageJeremy Hunt is due to unveil a 30-point package of City policy changes on Friday that will involve rowing back on regulations in order to boost competition and growth.The chancellor’s announcement, referred to as the “Edinburgh reforms”, will outline how the government intends to “review, repeal and replace” a host of rules that were introduced to protect savers and the taxpayer after the 2008 financial crisis, but which ministers now believe risk hindering the success of London’s banks and insurers compared with their overseas peers. Continue reading...

Judge says Muhammad Khan caused distress to people in queue at Westminster Hall in SeptemberA man who grabbed at the flag draped over the Queen’s coffin, leaving mourners who had queued to file past “clearly anguished”, has been detained in a mental health facility.Muhammad Khan, 28, from Limehouse in east London, was charged with a public order offence after the incident on 16 September and will be treated at the facility. Continue reading...

Cabinet minister Gillian Keegan suggested extending ban on police and military from taking industrial action to other sectorsTrade unions have vowed to oppose any new anti-strike laws tabled by the government, as home secretary Suella Braverman urged the public to reconsider their Christmas travel plans amid “serious disruption” caused by planned industrial action by Border Force staff.The government is engaged in a bitter PR battle with the unions over who is to blame for the looming wave of public sector strikes. Continue reading...

This live blog has now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war hereBefore I hand you over to my colleague, Harry Taylor, here are some of the latest snaps to come out of Ukraine today.The number of oil tankers waiting in the Black Sea to cross Istanbul’s Bosphorus strait on the way to the Mediterranean rose by five to 16 on Thursday, a shipping agency said, according to a Reuters report. Continue reading...

People struggling with rising energy bills use dozens of sites across city while council braces for increase in those seeking helpIt was about zero degrees celsius in Birmingham as families piled into Gas Street St Luke’s church cafe, one of the city council’s designated “warm spaces”, to escape the December cold.Staff said the cafe, just outside the city centre, has been busier than ever over the past few weeks as the cold weather has set in and people try to keep the heating off at home because of rising costs. Continue reading...

Workers who have been taking industrial action since September return, having won a 6.5% plus bonuses dealA “permanent” strike at the factory that makes Jacob’s Cream Crackers and Twiglets has come to an end after biscuit bosses crumbled and upped a pay deal for workers.More than 750 of about 800 workers returned to work at the brand’s factory in Aintree on Thursday having won a 6.5% pay increase, backdated to January, with a £500 bonus payment on top and a further £250 bonus to follow in January next year. Continue reading...

Ministers taking advice on how to protect vulnerable amid weather alerts for large parts of countrySnow and ice warnings cover much of Scotland and northern and south-west England, as well as parts of Wales and Northern Ireland, as a cold snap prompts fears of a winter energy crisis.Ministers said on Thursday they were taking advice on how to protect vulnerable people from the cold after research suggested millions of households could not afford to heat their homes. Continue reading...

The Oscar-winner will reunite with Alexander Payne for a Paramount+ adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s Tracy Flick Can’t WinReese Witherspoon is set to reunite with director Alexander Payne for an Election sequel.The film will be an adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s Tracy Flick Can’t Win, his 2022 novel that follows the character of Tracy Flick as she battles to become the principal of a suburban high school. “She hasn’t fulfilled her dreams of a political career,” Perrotta said of Tracy in the book. “And she’s looking back and starting to realize that she wasn’t as extraordinary an individual as she believed. That she was a kind of representative woman rather than a unique superhero.” Continue reading...

Patsy Ferran will take over from Lydia Wilson when the London production opens a week late, alongside co-stars Paul Mescal and Anjana VasanLondon’s Almeida theatre has cancelled the first week of performances of A Streetcar Named Desire as one of its lead actors, Lydia Wilson, has withdrawn for health reasons.Patsy Ferran will take over the role of Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’ New Orleans drama, which will now have its first preview on 17 December. All performances from 12-16 December have been cancelled. Continue reading...

Keir Starmer called the legislation ‘wrong’, but would not commit to scrapping it if it becomes lawLabour is refusing to promise to repeal the Conservatives’ proposed anti-strike laws, despite calling them “unworkable” and “grandstanding”.Neither Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, nor Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, would commit on Thursday to reverse the proposals, which include strict curbs on when public sector workers can strike, if Labour wins the next election. Continue reading...

Users will be able to apply ‘end-to-end encryption’ to all their data stored in the cloudApple is on a collision course with the UK government over the online safety bill, after the company announced sweeping new privacy changes that will limit the ability of law enforcement organisations to access user data.The new privacy feature, called “advanced data protection for iCloud”, lets users apply “end-to-end encryption” to all their data stored in the cloud, including device backups, message histories and photos. It is already available for users in the US who are signed up to the company’s beta programme, and will be shipped worldwide in early 2023, Apple says. Continue reading...

Union to share information from independent reports into near-£100m construction with policeUnite has passed information to the police after two independent reports into the construction of a near-£100m hotel and conference centre in Birmingham uncovered what the union said were “very serious concerns about potential criminality”.The trade union’s plan to build the 170-room complex – which begun under the leadership of former general secretary Len McCluskey – was forecast in 2015 to cost about £35m, but is now expected to run to £98m. Continue reading...

Film-maker Zoe Greenberg says she raised concerns with Penguin Random House Canada over Leah McLaren’s bookA Canadian film-maker who was allegedly sexually assaulted as a teenager has accused the country’s largest book publisher of knowingly releasing a memoir by one of her alleged assailants that depicts the incident as consensual.In a 6 December post on Medium, Zoe Greenberg claimed she was subjected to a sexual assault in her youth. Continue reading...

Senior Tory MP confident ‘wise heads in No 10’ will lead PM to avoid protracted parliamentary battleDominic Raab’s controversial bill of rights may be axed again, as a senior Tory MP said they were confident “wise heads in No 10” would lead the government to perform yet another U-turn.After a series of climbdowns by Rishi Sunak this week over planning and long-promised pieces of legislation, the former justice secretary Robert Buckland urged him to avoid a protracted parliamentary battle that could take up hundreds of hours of time. Continue reading...

Companies hoping, but not expecting, Albanese government can implement price caps on gas and coal

‘We have had to rethink the ways we do things’, says farmer who dusted off his 1973 petrol-powered truck

RSV and norovirus also on rise, while charity says patient care at risk with 7.2m awaiting treatment in EnglandViruses including flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and the winter vomiting bug are putting extra pressure on the NHS in England in the first week of winter while waiting lists reached another record high in October.With 7.2 million patients awaiting treatment, the Health Foundation charity said the health and care systems were “gridlocked” and put the safety and quality of patient care at risk. Continue reading...

Telecom giant moves to increase collateral to limit risk amid mini-budget falloutBT may be forced to stump up more cash to support its £47bn pensions scheme after the government’s disastrous mini-budget, which prompted a market meltdown and forced pension fund managers to tighten hedging strategies.The fund’s managers, who run one of the largest corporate pensions schemes in the UK with about 269,000 members, told MPs that they had become “more cautious” and increased the amount of collateral they held, in order to avoid another fire sale of assets. Continue reading...

Education secretary Gillian Keegan suggests NHS staff could be put on same footing as police officers and military

Johnson was a bomb-aimer in squadron that destroyed German dams during second world warThe last survivor of the Dambuster bouncing bomb raids of 1943 has died at the age of 101.George Leonard “Johnny” Johnson was a bomb-aimer in the 617 squadron which destroyed vital dams in Germany’s industrial Ruhr valley during the second world war. Continue reading...

ACT prosecutor complained in a letter to police chief he was under pressure from officers not to prosecute the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins

As temperatures plunge, fears grow for households struggling to pay for heating, food and warm clothingMore than 3 million low-income UK households cannot afford to heat their homes, according to research, as a “dangerously cold” weather front arrived from the Arctic.The UK Health Security Agency has issued a cold weather alert recommending vulnerable people warm their homes to at least 18C, wear extra layers and eat hot food to protect themselves from plummeting temperatures. Continue reading...

Emma Vulin wins newly created seat in Melbourne’s south-east to equal party’s previous election result

The 17-year-old boy allegedly threw a concrete block through the open window of a car killing Diane Miller and her unborn child

Prime minister Fumio Kishida has seen approval ratings plummet since ties between LDP and the church were exposedJapan’s lower house of parliament has passed a law that will make it a crime for religious and other organisations to “maliciously” secure donations from members – a move seen as an attempt by the ruling party to defuse the controversy over its ties to the Unification church.The prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has seen his approval ratings plummet since widespread ties between his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the church were exposed in the wake of the assassination this summer of Japan’s former leader, Shinzo Abe. Continue reading...

George Aghajanian has told a court there ‘wasn’t a cover up’ and Brian Houston was ‘shocked’ when told of allegations

State’s energy minister, Matt Kean, says ‘It’s not about royalties, it’s all about consumers’, putting pressure on Queensland counterpart

Asylum seekers beaten and sexually assaulted before being illegally removed, says Border Violence Monitoring NetworkThousands of migrants and asylum seekers are facing “an unprecedented rise in violence” at the EU’s border, including beatings, forced undressing and sexual assaults, according to a report exposing thousands of alleged illegal expulsions in harrowing detail.Activists interviewed 733 individuals trying to reach Europe in 2021 and 2022, who provided grim testimony of group pushbacks that affected more than 16,000 others. The work updates the 2020 edition of The Black Book of Pushbacks, offering a total compilation of 1,633 individuals telling of illegal expulsions affecting nearly 25,000 people since 2017. Continue reading...

Justin Welby says too many people face ‘real hardship and pain’ as temperatures fall and bills riseA surge of Arctic air causing sub-zero temperatures across the UK is poised to send demand for warm spaces surging, and the archbishop of Canterbury has urged people not to despair in the face of “real hardship and pain”.The weather system moving quickly south from Norway, nicknamed the Troll of Trondheim, will result in colder weather for at least a week, the Met Office has forecast, as a network of “warm hubs” said it had seen 80,000 people use its facilities in the last week. Continue reading...

Adoptees sent to Europe and the US say they were wrongly removed from their families as government in Seoul actively promoted adoptionSouth Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission will investigate the cases of dozens of South Korean adoptees in Europe and the US who suspect their origins were falsified or obscured during a child export frenzy in the mid-to late 20th century.Thursday’s decision opens what could be South Korea’s most far-reaching inquiry into foreign adoptions, as frustration over broken family connections grows, and now grown up children demand government attention. Continue reading...

Exclusive: letter from Shane Drumgold to ACT police chief, obtained under FOI, calls for inquiry into ‘political and police conduct’ during investigation of Brittany Higgins claims

Despite repeated reviews of John Bradfield’s idea to use flood waters to irrigate central Australia, the scheme has not been shown to be feasible

Conservationists have already raised concerns about Thursday’s auction at Sotheby’s of development rights to coral atoll networkIndonesia’s plan to auction the development rights to an entire archipelago of more than 100 tropical islands has descended into chaos, with a fisheries ministry official joining conservationists in criticising the sale.Sotheby’s has described the uninhabited pristine Widi Reserve as “one of the most intact coral atoll ecosystems left on Earth”, and is due to open bidding on Thursday. No sale price has been stated, but prospective buyers will need to provide a US$100,000 deposit. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Experts will look into healthcare offered for menstruation, menopause and conditions such as heart disease, autism and cancer

Daylong action comes as union and management clash over wages and remote workThe New York Times is bracing for a 24-hour walkout on Thursday by hundreds of journalists and other employees, in what would be the first strike of its kind at the newspaper in more than 40 years.Newsroom employees and other members of the NewsGuild of New York say they are fed up with bargaining that has dragged on since their last contract expired in March 2021. The union announced last week that more than 1,100 employees would stage a 24-hour work stoppage starting at 12.01am on Thursday unless the two sides reached a contract deal. Continue reading...

Pedro Castillo arrested for ‘breaching constitutional order’, says prosecutor, as new president Dina Boluarte sworn inPeru’s president, Pedro Castillo, has been removed from office and detained on charges of “rebellion” after he announced he would shutter congress and install a “government of exception” – just hours before he was due to face an impeachment vote.The public prosecutor’s office confirmed late on Wednesday that Castillo had been arrested and charged with allegedly “breaching constitutional order”, after he was accused of an attempted coup and seen fleeing the presidential palace. Continue reading...

New Zealand parents say they will focus on supporting their son, now in the guardianship of his doctors, through life-saving operationThe family of a baby who has been placed in his doctors’ care because his parents refused to consent to a transfusion of “vaccinated blood” in a life-saving operation have said they will prioritise time with their son before the surgery.The parents’ lawyer, Sue Grey, said in a Facebook post on Thursday morning that the family would be prioritising “a peaceful time with their baby until the operation, and to support him through the operation”. Continue reading...

Pesutto will now seek to rebuild Coalition fortunes after three straight election losses to Daniel Andrews’ Labor government

Nearly 5m 50p coins will enter circulation across 9,452 Post Office branches throughout DecemberThe first coinage featuring King Charles III will appear on the 50p coin in circulation in post offices around the UK from Thursday.Created by sculptor Martin Jennings and personally approved by Charles, the king’s portrait faces to the left, in the opposite direction to the late Queen. Continue reading...

Treasurer says it is not a ‘performance review’ but will ‘feed into our thinking’ about RBA leadership

TUC and Unison say government is not negotiating in good faith, while PM accuses union leaders of being ‘unreasonable’Union leaders have told ministers to stop “hiding behind” pay review bodies in winter strike talks amid warnings that industrial action on the railways could continue for six months.As a rolling wave of industrial action looms, Frances O’Grady, secretary general of the Trades Union Congress, and Christina McAnea, the general secretary of healthcare union Unison, accused the government of refusing to negotiate in good faith and told the chancellor: “Now is not the time for smoke and mirrors. Now is the time for genuine negotiations.” Continue reading...

A safety risk in Port Macquarie, an inappropriately spiky star and a literal coat rack are among the nation’s least-accomplished examples of festive spirit

People with Covid who have mild or no symptoms can now quarantine at home, but PCR tests are still required to enter many placesIn the strongest sign so far that China is rolling back on its long-running zero-Covid policy, the national health commission said that people with Covid-19 who have mild or no symptoms can quarantine at home. The directive also instructed officials to halt temporary lockdowns and ended testing and health code requirements for people entering Beijing. Continue reading...