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‘Elaborate and complex’ operation allegedly included more than 100 members and involved people being signed up and given fake email addresses

Discounts and football fail to get shoppers spending in November as households cut budgetsRetail sales unexpectedly fell in November as Black Friday discount deals and football’s World Cup failed to boost spending, with the cost of living crisis forcing households to cut budgets.Sales in Great Britain dropped by 0.4% in November, against a forecast of a 0.3% rise by industry analysts, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Continue reading...

Animals returned unharmed after apparently walking out of a display at Bridgeman Downs church in the early morning

Australian couple behind Wieambilla attack were in regular contact with man with a similar fundamentalist theology

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As the country goes to the polls, reforms introduced by hardline president Kais Saied have led to the exclusion of female candidatesTunisians will vote on Saturday in an election that will lead to a weakened parliament “almost exclusively dominated by men”, as activists warn of a stark deterioration of women’s rights under an increasingly authoritarian president.The controversial elections, boycotted by all the main parties, mark the final piece of the constitutional jigsaw President Kais Saied began assembling in July 2021, when he suspended the legislature in what critics called a power grab. Continue reading...

Conservation groups warn not enough is being done to protect ecosystems as state government data shows more than 400,000ha of land was cleared in 2019-20

Michael McCormack paid a high price for downing, not sipping, the sakau during a Pacific tour, later stating: ‘I was trying to be respectful’Former Australian deputy prime minister Michael McCormack has learned the hard way that being polite can be hazardous to your health.The Nationals MP suffered the consequences of drinking an entire shell of sakau – a traditional Micronesian kava – in one hit, thinking it was similar to South Pacific kava. Continue reading...

Fifty-nine people people have been rescued after a landslide hit about 3am north of the capitalA landslide killed at least 12 people while they slept at a Malaysian campsite near Kuala Lumpur early on Friday, officials said, as search teams scoured thick mud and downed trees for more than 20 people still missing.A child and a woman were found among the dead, authorities said, while one of the eight people taken to hospital was pregnant. Others had injuries ranging from minor cuts to a suspected spinal injury. Continue reading...

HMRC moved 1,350 compliance staff due to Covid, National Audit Office says, and losses are expected to growTax dodging and non-compliance during the pandemic cost the government £9bn, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has found.The loss to the public purse came as HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) moved thousands of tax compliance staff to Covid support schemes, reducing its capacity to investigate people and businesses not paying the right amount, according to the National Audit Office. Continue reading...

Denis Mukwege has demanded sanctions be imposed on Rwanda to ease the crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of the CongoThe west must ditch its “double standards” and act decisively against the violence worsening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Dr Denis Mukwege, the Nobel prize-winning surgeon, has said.In a stinging criticism of the international community’s “negligence”, Mukwege urged Britain and its allies to impose sanctions on neighbouring Rwanda to help ease the growing crisis in the east of the country. Continue reading...

Qatar has written the playbook on how to further geopolitical aims by hosting a Fifa event. Riyadh is taking notesIf Lionel Messi lifts the World Cup trophy it will not only represent a victory for Argentina’s diminutive captain but his unlikely new benefactor: Saudi Arabia. The team may have inflicted a shock, humiliating defeat upon Argentina in their opening game of the tournament, but Messi, paid to be an ambassador for Saudi under a reported £25m contract, could deliver a long-term prize worth far more – a chance to emulate Qatar and host the 2030 World Cup.After the tiny gas-rich emirate won the right to host the World Cup in December 2010, in circumstances mired in controversy, Qatar wrote the playbook on using the soft power of the world’s biggest sporting event to further its aims – from the big spending western brands which come with the tournament to the attempts to improve its image on human rights. Continue reading...

Attorney general Mark Dreyfus says review body was stacked with Liberals in ‘disgraceful exhibition of cronyism’

Australian farmers blame a cold and wet winter for shortfall in potatoes, with shortages likely to persist until January

Annual review reveals that seven of the 20 execution attempts carried out this year were visibly problematicAs 2022 draws to a close, a new grim distinction can be attached to it: in America it was the year of the botched execution.In its annual review of US capital punishment, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reveals the astonishing statistic that 35% of the 20 execution attempts carried out this year were visibly problematic. Continue reading...

Politicians particularly in Germany taking responsibility for lobbying for the safety of individual prisonersPoliticians across Europe have begun sponsoring jailed Iranian protesters in the hope that by highlighting individual cases of injustice, the authorities will be forced to step back from handing down lengthy jail sentences or carrying out executions.The executions of two demonstrators and threats to kill others suggest Tehran is set on the use of repression and fear to quell the protests. Continue reading...

Second strike of week begins after TSSA union accepts pay deal with Network RailTrain services around Britain will be severely disrupted once more as national strikes resume on Friday, despite another union accepting Network Rail’s pay deal.Passengers have been advised to only attempt to travel by train if necessary as this week’s second 48-hour strike by members of the RMT union begins, with three more weeks of disruption to follow. Continue reading...

Energy minister, Chris Bowen, says government’s job is protecting Australians, not maximising LNG companies’ profits

Andrew Western wins with a majority of 9,906 with promise to fight for properly funded public servicesLabour has retained the Greater Manchester constituency of Stretford and Urmston in a byelection called after the sitting Labour MP quit to become Andy Burnham’s mayoral deputy.Andrew Western, Labour’s candidate, won by a majority of 9,906. The Conservatives trailed in distant second, winning 15.9% of votes to Labour’s 69.6%. Continue reading...

The annual event likely won’t be going ahead in 2023 amid growing concerns that radical fringe groups are transforming the country’s security environmentJacinda Ardern’s much-loved Waitangi Day ritual of hosting a barbecue breakfast for the public will likely be off the menu in 2023 due to security concerns, as New Zealand deals with increased threats and harassment of politicians.Since 2018, Ardern, her family and government ministers have donned aprons and wielded tongs to cook a free barbecue for all who brave the early wake-up for a dawn service on the country’s national founding holiday, at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds in Paihia. Continue reading...

Minister Andrew Giles announces government will also reinstate powers for Yarra and Darebin councils to conduct citizenship ceremonies

Couple at Wieambilla, shrouded in darkness, tell camera that they were defending themselves against ‘devils and demons’

Country’s human rights office calls for armed forces to cease the use of firearms and teargasA judge in Peru has ruled that former president Pedro Castillo be held in preventive detention for 18 months pending trial on charges of rebellion for his attempt to shutter congress and rule by decree, as the death toll from a week of violent protests sparked by his ousting rose to 12.Four people were killed and 39 injured on Thursday in Ayacucho, in Peru’s southern Andes, as protesters clashed with soldiers and police, the local health authority confirmed. Continue reading...

Antti Kaikkonen says ‘children are only little for a moment’ as party backs his moveFinland’s defence minister will take almost two months’ paternity leave early next year amid his country’s bid to join Nato, a move his Centre party praised.“We proudly support Antti Kaikkonen’s decision,” the party leader and finance minister, Annika Saarikko, said. Kaikkonen will be off work from 6 January until the end of February. Continue reading...

New Zealand PM was caught on hot mic earlier this week with a candid comment about Act party leader David SeymourAn official signed copy of the transcript of New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern calling a political opponent an “arrogant prick” will be auctioned off to raise money for a prostate cancer charity.Bidding on the copy of the parliamentary record, signed by both Ardern and David Seymour, leader of the libertarian right Act party, had reached $50,000 by Friday. The auction, titled “Ardern, Seymour join forces for pricks everywhere”, ends on 22 December. Continue reading...

Ann Cleeves, whose novels were turned into TV’s Shetland and Vera, said device had been run over but she had a copy of her workCrime writer Ann Cleeves has said her laptop has been recovered two days after she lost it during a blizzard in Shetland.Tweeting an image of a badly misshapen computer, she said it had been found by a “sharp-eyed” young woman as she got off a school bus near to where Cleeves had been staying. Continue reading...

Hamid Dbeibah, who governs only part of the divided country, says extradition of Mohammed Abouagela Masud was with his supportOne of Libya’s rival prime ministers has admitted that his government was involved in the extradition to the US of a former Libyan intelligence officer accused of making the bomb that downed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing all onboard.US authorities announced on Sunday they had arrested former intelligence officer Mohammed Abouagela Masud . The next day, Mas’ud appeared at federal court in Washington and was charged with an act of international terrorism. US officials did not explain how he was taken into their custody. Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak announces £1.6bn contract led by shipyard Harland and Wolff that will create 900 jobs in Belfast

Eight unaccompanied children among 39 people rescued after small vessel capsized in icy waters

Officers polled about experiences of bullying, discrimination and micro-aggressions in past yearMore than half of Britain’s black police officers and staff suffered racial incidents from colleagues in the past year, a survey has found.Those affected were much more likely to feel like outsiders and to want to leave, and many believed their bosses failed to punish wrongdoers, in effect creating a culture of impunity. Continue reading...

Multiple Labour MPs join picket lines after Tory MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich urges government to improve offerOn the picket line outside St Thomas’ hospital in Westminster, Linda Tovey, a critical care nurse, said: “It’s increasingly difficult to come to work and go home and think: ‘Actually I don’t think I can turn the heating on.’“My wages aren’t bad for a nurse but I still have to think about what I’m doing with my money every month and that is not the position I imagined myself being in.

After first day of strike, NHS leaders and former pay review boss implore PM and Steve Barclay to review offerRishi Sunak is under growing pressure to negotiate with striking nurses after four former Conservative ministers joined health service leaders to call for a way out of the escalating dispute.On a day in which England’s chief nurse joined the picket line, the prime minister and the health secretary, Steve Barclay, were implored to make a U-turn and ask the NHS pay review body (PRB) to look again at the rise it recommended earlier this year. Continue reading...

‘I made a comment that was offensive and insensitive,’ Thomas Keon says after backlashThe chancellor of Purdue University Northwest has apologized amid intense backlash, after he mocked Asian languages during a commencement speech last week.Thomas L Keon spoke at the school’s winter commencement ceremony in Hammond, Indiana, last Saturday. Before Keon spoke, graduates were addressed by James Dedelow, a radio host, who said he sometimes used a “made-up” language on air and with his family. Continue reading...

Unilever sold business in June to local licensee but Ben & Jerry’s tried to block sale, saying it did not want to sell products in occupied West BankUnilever said on Thursday that its litigation with the independent board of Ben & Jerry’s over the sale of its Israeli ice cream business has “been resolved”.The company did not provide details of how the litigation had been resolved. Continue reading...

Valeriy Zaluzhny warns Putin’s forces regrouping before renewed attack in 2023; Russia looking to overcome impact of sanctions. This live blog is closed

Power blackouts are crippling Ukrainian economy; head of Ukraine’s armed forces expects renewed Russian attempt to capture Kyiv Continue reading...

Scottish government promises to tackle health and social care crisis to protect weakest and poorest

Data suggests private tenants almost three times as likely to be exposed to damp as social housing tenantsAlmost a quarter of private rentals in England fail to meet the decent home standards, government figures have revealed, meaning they pose a risk to health, are in disrepair, have poor facilities, or are poorly insulated.Data from the English Housing Survey, released on Thursday, highlights the poor state of the country’s private rental sector, with 23% of private rentals failing to meet the decent homes standard in 2021-22. That compares with just 13% of owner-occupied homes, and 10% of social housing. Continue reading...

Analysis: polls show support for industrial action by nurses has fallen, with many concerned about the risks to patients from walkoutsWhatever the merits of a trade union’s claim for better pay or conditions, industrial disputes are political events. And as nurses staging an historic walkout on Thursday discovered, public opinion matters.The Royal College of Nursing went into the strike with strong backing, but the momentum of public opinion may now be heading in the wrong direction as they head towards a second strike day next Tuesday. Continue reading...

Fay Johnson admits causing actual bodily harm during incident in March but insists attack not racially motivatedA woman who struck a 12-year-old black boy on the forehead with a paddle at a riverside park so forcefully that he has been left scarred has admitted assault causing actual bodily harm but insisted the attack was not racially motivated.The police were strongly criticised after the attack by Fay Johnson, 32, on the boy, because she was initially not prosecuted after claiming she acted in self-defence and felt “threatened” by the youngster. Continue reading...

Ben Wallace and Suella Braverman ‘turned their back’ on former BBC journalists who are in danger, high court toldMinisters have unlawfully “turned their back” on former BBC journalists whose lives are at risk from the Taliban by refusing to relocate them from Afghanistan to the UK, the high court has heard.Eight Afghan journalists, who worked in high-profile roles for the BBC and other media agencies in the country from which British troops withdrew last year, are challenging the decision to deny them UK visas. Continue reading...

The Duke of Sussex also says palace’s willingness to lie to press led to his and Meghan’s exit

Brothers Finlay and Samuel Butler, their cousin Thomas Stewart, and Jack Johnson died after incident on SundayThe four children who died after falling through ice into a lake in Solihull have been named as brothers Finlay and Samuel Butler, their cousin Thomas Stewart, and Jack Johnson.The four boys were pulled from the freezing Babbs Mill lake in cardiac arrest on Sunday and taken to hospital, where eight-year-old Finlay, 11-year-old Thomas and 10-year-old Jack died a short time later. Continue reading...

Cotswold home, currently housing ‘superfans’ who are paying rent of £5 a week, sold to online buyerThe Grade II*-listed Cotswold mansion where Evelyn Waugh wrote Brideshead Revisited has sold at auction for £3.16m despite buyers being warned that sitting tenants – who are paying a weekly rent of £5 a week – are refusing to leave the property.Piers Court, at Stinchcombe, a village about halfway between Bristol and Cheltenham, was sold to an unnamed bidder in an online auction on Thursday after the owner defaulted on a loan secured against the eight-bedroom, six-bathroom property. Continue reading...

Three-time Wimbledon champion released after eight months of two-and-a-half-year sentenceThe three-time Wimbledon champion Boris Becker has been deported from the UK after being freed from jail.The 55-year-old German, who has lived in the UK since 2012, was released on Thursday after serving eight months of a two-and-a-half-year sentence. Continue reading...

Warsaw seeking explanation from Kyiv after Jaroslaw Szymczyk taken to hospital with minor injuriesPoland’s police chief, Jaroslaw Szymczyk, has been taken to hospital with minor injuries after a gift he received from a senior Ukrainian official exploded, the interior ministry said on Thursday.“Yesterday at 7:50 am there was an explosion in a room next to the office of the police chief,” a statement said. “One of the presents the police chief received during his working visit to Ukraine on December 11 and 12 exploded.” Continue reading...

Possession of mobile phones and smartwatches the biggest single cause for sanctionsThis year’s A-level and GCSE exams had a surge in the number of students penalised for potential cheating or disruptive behaviour, with possession of mobile phones and smartwatches the biggest single cause for sanctions.Ofqual, the exam regulator for England, said more than 4,300 candidates were penalised for “malpractice” during the exams taken this spring. Although the total represents just 0.03% of all A-level and GCSE exams taken, it was a more-than-40% increase compared with 2019, when 3,040 students were penalised. Continue reading...

Defence minister suggests attack could happen by February, but other officials indicate it could come in January

NHS Employers boss says strikes next month likely to be for longer and to affect more trusts if dispute continues

Harry and Meghan speak about losing baby during final episode; Duke says palace ‘were happy to lie to protect my brother’We are not far away now from the second instalment of episodes becoming available. Here is a reminder of the trailer for what we are getting today, in which Harry says there was “institutional gaslighting” and in which Meghan says “I wasn’t being thrown to the wolves. I was being fed to the wolves.”You can see similar deflection this morning. In the trailer this week, one of the interviewees describes a barrage of negative stories over a montage of newspaper headlines. One of the headlines featured ex-Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, and so elements of the press have gone to her this morning, got a great quote that Meghan is “peddling conspiracy theories” because Widdecombe said she wasn’t briefed by the palace to give those quotes and BOSH! case closed as far as the Mail and the Sun are concerned. Continue reading...