World news | The Guardian

Sergei Surovikin says Ukraine forces ‘continually’ trying to take positions of Russian troops, particularly in Kupiansk, Lyman and Mykolaiv

Charity Breast Cancer Now warns of a ‘postcode lottery’ of NHS care for women after mastectomyWomen waiting for breast reconstruction surgery on the NHS in England face a “postcode lottery” of care, with some forced to wait more than three years, a damning report warns.Two in five women (40%) waiting for breast reconstruction during the pandemic after having their breasts removed due to cancer faced a delay of 24 months or longer, according to research involving 1,246 women who either underwent reconstruction surgery or were waiting for it. Continue reading...

‘As far as we’re aware, this is the first detection of a new drug by a drug-checking service anywhere in the world,’ says professor

New rightwing government said label could be ‘counter-productive’; policy contributed to new legislation in some 20 countriesSweden’s new rightwing government has announced it is ditching the country’s pioneering “feminist foreign policy”, launched by the leftwing administration in 2014, saying the label could be counter-productive.The foreign minister Tobias Billström announced the move just moments after prime minister Ulf Kristersson presented his new government, backed by the far-right Sweden Democrats for the first time. Continue reading...

Streaming service adds 2.4m subscribers in past three months to comfortably beat forecasts after ‘challenging’ first half of yearNetflix added 2.4m new subscribers in the last three months, more than twice what had been expected and reversing back-to-back quarters of decline, the company announced on Tuesday.The streaming company had been expected to add 1m new subscribers over the latest quarter, which included the release of hit shows including the latest series of Stranger Things, Sandman and Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Continue reading...

Action is planned for 3, 5 and 7 November; London Overground and tube staff will strike on 3 NovemberNetwork Rail workers are to stage fresh strikes in the bitter row over pay, jobs and conditions, threatening fresh disruption to services.Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) will strike on 3, 5 and 7 November. Continue reading...

Latest updates: No 10 signals 2019 manifesto pledge is up for negotiation as PM says she is prioritising economic stabilityLiam Fox, the Tory former international trade secretary, told Sky News this morning that Liz Truss’s future would partly depend on whether the financial markets settle down following the latest mini-budget U-turns. He said:We can all read the polls and I don’t need to tell you what the atmosphere is like at Westminster. People will be weighing up what the prime minister said last night - that she had made mistakes, that she learned from those, and that the measures that Jeremy Hunt had put in place seemed to be providing the necessary economic stability in the markets.If the markets don’t believe that a Conservative government is able to manage public finances sensibly then that government has had it. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Scripts set out how corporation will reassure public in event of major power lossThe BBC has prepared secret scripts which could be broadcast if energy shortages cause blackouts or the loss of gas supplies this winter.The scripts, seen by the Guardian, set out how the corporation would reassure the public in the event that a “major loss of power” causes mobile telephone networks, the internet, banking systems, or traffic lights to fail across England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland would be unaffected because its electricity grid is shared with the Republic of Ireland. Continue reading...

Amendment to public order bill would make harassment of women by protesters a criminal offenceProposals to enforce buffer zones around abortion clinics in England and Wales have been backed by MPs.Under the proposed law, harassing, obstructing or interfering with any woman attending an abortion clinic will become a criminal offence. Continue reading...

Even with no formal mechanism to force out Truss there are situations that could prove fatal for her premiership• UK politics live – latest news updatesPlots to oust Liz Truss as prime minister are intensifying at break-neck speed, but there remains neither a mechanism to force her from office nor, so far, an acceptable unity candidate that would bring the Conservative party back together.There are, however, still a number of possible scenarios that could prove fatally destabilising for her premiership. Continue reading...

Up to 100 letters sent to 1922 Committee as Michael Gove says PM’s departure is ‘a matter of when not if’Dismayed Tory MPs are continuing their plotting to oust Liz Truss, amid anger over plummeting poll ratings and the threat of the axe falling on public spending, despite Jeremy Hunt urging them to unite behind her for the sake of the economy.Briefings continued in earnest on Tuesday saying that Graham Brady, chair of the powerful backbench 1922 Committee, had received up to 100 letters calling on Truss to go, increasing the pressure on him to rewrite party rules to allow another confidence vote. Continue reading...

Senior Tory ministers, Labour party and the public all expected to resist cuts, especially to frontline services• UK politics live – latest news updatesLiz Truss is facing cabinet unrest over her plans for brutal public spending cuts across all departments after the disastrous mini-budget put major pledges at risk, including the pensions triple lock.The prime minister held a 90-minute cabinet meeting on Tuesday in which she warned ministers that “difficult decisions” lay ahead. Continue reading...

Nato secretary general says new counter-drone defences to be delivered to Ukraine within days

Friends of Elnaz Rekabi have been unable to contact athlete since Sunday, while embassy says she returned home with rest of teamA female Iranian climber who competed in an international tournament without a hijab did so because her headscarf had dropped by mistake, a post on her Instagram account has claimed.Footage of Elnaz Rekabi, 33, scaling a wall without her head covered during an international tournament went viral, coming amid big female-led demonstrations against Iran’s clerical rulers sparked by strict Islamic rules on women’s clothing. Continue reading...

Police say baby found not breathing and two women found injured at address in SparkhillA man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a three-week-old boy died in Birmingham.West Midlands police said they were called to Dovey Road in Sparkhill, in the south of the city, at 3.40am and found a baby who was not breathing and two women with injuries. Continue reading...

Removal of fascist dictator’s image leads to revelation that more hang in other government buildingsA photo of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini hanging on a wall in the Italian ministry for economic development will be removed to “avoid controversy”, the outgoing minister has said.The newly elected senate speaker, Ignazio La Russa, a Brothers of Italy co-founder who collects fascist memorabilia, criticised the move as an example of “cancel culture”. Continue reading...

Mark Brown, 41, from East Sussex, accused of murdering Alexandra Morgan and Leah Ware in 2021A man accused of murdering two women described himself as a “psychopath with a conscience” and held one of his victims captive for months in a shipping container, a court has heard.Mark Brown, 41, a groundworks labourer from St Leonards, East Sussex, was accused of murdering Alexandra Morgan, 34, and Leah Ware, 33, at the opening of his trial at Hove crown court. Brown has pleaded not guilty to both charges. Continue reading...

Footage shows figure believed to be Zheng Xiyuan kicking down poster and pulling pro-democracy protester’s hairOne of China’s most senior diplomats in the UK was involved in the violence against pro-democracy protesters at the Manchester consulate, a British MP has said.Alicia Kearns, a Conservative MP, told the House of Commons that Beijing’s consul general in Manchester, Zheng Xiyuan, was seen “ripping down posters” before a Hong Kong campaigner was attacked on Sunday. Continue reading...

Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog also says ‘exceptional circumstances’ test for public hearings an ‘unnecessary hurdle’The ABC has warned it could face corruption complaints for its journalists’ work under the national anti-corruption commission and has called for editorial work to be excluded from the commission’s purview.The ABC made the request in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry on the Nacc, saying that the definition of corruption – which includes the “misuse of information or documents” – could capture confidential government information or documents being sent to an ABC journalist in “the normal course of the journalist’s work”. Continue reading...

Iranian opposition sign open letter calling for tougher measures over regime’s actions against protestersA prominent group of Iranians in exile, human rights activists and families of dual-national political prisoners has called on the west to do more to help Iranians’ demands for freedom.The EU, US and UK have imposed largely symbolic travel bans and asset freezes on a dozen security officials linked to a crackdown on people protesting in Iran after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in mid-September. The west has not broken off talks with the Iranian regime over the 2015 nuclear deal or downgraded diplomatic relations. Continue reading...

Mason and Eddie Izzard vying for nomination in safe seat but two local councillors seen as favourites

Exclusive: more than half of legal professionals in survey said they saw a judge acting in a racially biased wayThe judiciary in England and Wales is “institutionally racist”, with more than half of legal professionals surveyed claiming to have witnessed a judge acting in a racially biased way, according to a report.The study by the University of Manchester and barrister Keir Monteith KC found judicial discrimination to be directed particularly towards Black court users – from lawyers to witnesses to defendants. Continue reading...

MP and doctor Dan Poulter says health secretary’s ideas over ‘nanny statism’ are stopping action on obesity and smoking

UK government lawyers tell asylum seekers they can return to Sri Lanka or be removed to undisclosed countryTamil refugees seeking asylum from the British-claimed Chagos Islands face being forcibly removed to a third country under Rwanda-style plans drawn up by the UK government.Government lawyers have told the asylum seekers that if they cannot be returned to Sri Lanka they will instead be removed to another undisclosed country. Continue reading...

Defence secretary would hold Truss to pledges, says source, as he flies off for security talks in Washington

Chinese recruitment ‘to understand the capabilities of our air force’ of concern, says James Heappey

Rio’s heavily armed paramilitary groups have exploded in influence in recent years to wield power over dozens of communitiesThe theme from Mel Gibson’s Braveheart filled the air as the man accused of helping spawn Rio’s paramilitary mafia movement was lowered into the soils of a graveyard called the Garden of Longing. Fireworks exploded overhead.“My brother was a noble man with a magnificent heart,” said the dead man’s sibling, Natalino Guimarães, as he and hundreds of mourners prepared to say their last goodbye. Continue reading...

Publisher who founded Virago Press began as a campaigning outsider who introduced UK readers to authors including Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood

As number of prepoll votes rise, rule has become redundant and may also encourage misinformation, TV broadcasters and social media groups say

In interview from capital, Saleh Kebzabo says he wants powerful rebels to join transitional governmentChad’s new prime minister has said that uniting the population “is the only way forward” for the chronically unstable African country after its president, Mahamat Idriss Déby, appointed him to head an interim national unity administration.Saleh Kebzabo, 75, a former opposition figure and journalist, has been tasked with leading the country towards the first free and fair elections in its political history. Continue reading...

Evacuation orders are current for Echuca and Barmah on the Murray River, Kerang on the Loddon, and Rochester on the Campaspe

Rolfe, who was acquitted over death of Kumanjayi Walker, was banned from applying to Queensland police over ‘integrity breach’

Judge says there ‘was absolutely no excuse’ for Benjamin Jansen to attack Rex Kable Keen in 1976

Agents in former chancellor’s constituency are glad to see him go after his effect on property marketIt was one of the more startling claims made over the weekend, in the wake of the sacking of Kwasi Kwarteng. Someone in an estate agent in the then chancellor’s constituency reportedly made an “obscene gesture” at him through the window, in apparent disgust at the way his mini-budget had tanked the economy.None of three estate agents on Shepperton High Street in Surrey will admit that someone in their office was responsible for the alleged gesture towards their local MP when he toured local businesses shortly before he was sacked last week. Continue reading...

Worker mistakenly accelerated while the car was in reverse, crashing into the building’s roughly 500-year old wooden doorJapan’s oldest existing toilet, dating back hundreds of years, has been damaged after it was accidentally rammed by a car driven by an employee of an organisation that preserves cultural relics.The 30-year-old man, who works for the Kyoto Heritage Preservation Association, damaged the communal toilet, located inside Tofukuji temple in Kyoto, after he mistakenly accelerated while the vehicle was in reverse, crashing into the building’s wooden door, according to media reports. Continue reading...

Comments by US secretary of state come after Xi told Communist party Congress Taiwan is core to plans for China’s ‘rejuvenation’

From key workers to bar staff, parts of county increasingly off limits as landlords and investors cash in

In their closing arguments to the jury, the prosecution says there were ‘strong political forces’ at play when Higgins initially decided not to report to police

Shadow immigration minister also raises concerns about Labor ‘allowing New Zealand criminals to stay’ in wide-ranging speech before press club

In Kyoto, local shop owners are ready to welcome back tourists but there is a way to go before a return to pre-Covid daysAfter more than two years of near-total isolation, Japan has reopened its borders to overseas visitors – but the road back to the pre-Covid tourism boom could be long and bumpy.Last week, the country lifted some of the strictest pandemic border controls in the world when it removed a 50,000 daily cap on arrivals, reinstated waivers for short-term visas and dropped a rule requiring tourists to visit as part of group tours. Continue reading...

Bureau of Meteorology says its ‘insights, wisdom and data’ are more important than ever as it asks media to use its full name

The court appearance relates to a string of arrests and erratic behavior by the actorEzra Miller has pleaded not guilty to stealing bottles of liquor from a neighbor’s home, after one of a string of arrests and reports of erratic behavior by the Flash actor that stretch from Hawaii to Vermont.Miller, 30, appeared on Monday with their lawyer remotely from Burlington, Vermont, for the arraignment in Bennington on accusations of felony burglary and petit larceny, a misdemeanor. They accepted the conditions that they not have any contact with the homeowner or go to the residence. Continue reading...

Residential building in Yeysk, near the Ukraine border, hit by Su-34 fighter-bomber, says defence ministryA Russian military jet has crashed into a residential building shortly after taking off near the border with Ukraine, sparking a major fire that has reportedly left at least six people dead and six missing.Video and photographs uploaded to social media on Monday showed a residential building engulfed in flames in Yeysk, a port and resort town in Russia located just south of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol across the Sea of Azov. Continue reading...

Scheduled session brought forward in view of dire conditions – rampant gang violence, a cholera outbreak and escalating famineThe US and Mexico have proposed the deployment of a multinational force in Haiti to help break the stranglehold of gangs over the distribution of fuel, water and other basic goods.Presenting a resolution at a special session of the UN security council on Monday, the US envoy to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield called for “a limited carefully-scoped non-UN mission led by a partner country with the deep, necessary experience”. Continue reading...

New chancellor tells Commons there will be tax rises and spending cuts, as PM dodges urgent questionJeremy Hunt has shredded Liz Truss’s economic plans in one of the most astonishing U-turns in modern political history, including slashing the energy price freeze which the prime minister had repeatedly championed.The new chancellor dismantled almost all of the platform that Truss’s leadership victory had been built on, including the majority of her tax cuts, and hinted a new windfall tax was in his sights – a move the PM had previously said she would not countenance. Continue reading...

Judges described the Sri Lankan author’s second novel as a ‘rollercoaster journey through life and death’ and praised its audacity and ambitionThe Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka has won the Booker prize for fiction. The judges praised the “ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques”.Karunatilaka’s second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida comes more than a decade after his debut, Chinaman, which was published in 2011. The Booker-winning novel tells the story of the photographer of its title, who in 1990 wakes up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. With no idea who killed him, Maali has seven moons to contact the people he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos of civil war atrocities that will rock Sri Lanka. Continue reading...

Savills says move is ‘best feasible outcome’, but some experts say risk remains of ‘significant’ house price fallsJeremy Hunt’s move to rip up most of last month’s mini-budget should help strengthen a housing market that was beginning to wobble and could relieve some of the downward pressure on prices, analysts have suggested.However, other experts warned the new chancellor’s intervention might not be enough to stave off the risk of “significant” house price falls, and that even if new mortgages did become temporarily cheaper, the sizeable interest rate rise expected in November meant many borrowers would still face hikes in home loan payments. Continue reading...

It’s unclear why the PM would stay in office now; Hunt has become the face of change and Mordaunt made smart moves in her place

Movies may go straight to streaming service Disney+ unless government changes distribution regulationsDisney is to release Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in French cinemas next month but has warned that future blockbusters may go straight to its streaming service, Disney+, unless France relaxes film distribution rules.There had been speculation that the Hollywood studio might bypass cinemas with one of the most eagerly anticipated releases since before the coronavirus pandemic to put pressure on the French government to reform its highly restrictive rules. Continue reading...

Strict biosecurity measures introduced from midday after largest outbreak yet in UKAn avian flu “prevention zone” has been declared across Great Britain in the face of rising case numbers as the country battles its largest ever outbreak of the disease.At midday on Monday, it became a legal requirement for all bird keepers in Great Britain to follow strict measures to protect flocks from bird flu, including keeping free-range birds in fenced areas and stringent biosecurity for staff on farms. Continue reading...