World news | The Guardian

Baltic state has held out against cap set at level it believes would have no impact on Putin’s war machine

UK high street banks are accused of not passing on benefits of money market movements to savers and borrowersBig high street banks stand accused of failing to pass on to customers the recent movements in the money markets that should have improved mortgage and savings rates.Some lenders are offering fixed-rate mortgage deals that are 50%-60% more expensive than those they were selling three months ago – despite the fact the money market “swap rates” that largely determine the pricing of new fixed deals have fallen sharply since the highs which followed Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous mini-budget. Continue reading...

Status lost after BBC film and open letter from workers alleging ‘culture of fear’ at self-styled ‘punk brewery’The controversial beer brand BrewDog has lost its status as a B Corp less than two years after joining the scheme, which offers certification of a company’s ethical commitment to the environment, community and staff.The company, which was recently called hypocritical for running a World Cup ad campaign highlighting Qatar’s poor human rights record despite being criticised by the Unite Hospitality union for the treatment of its own workers, achieved B Corp status last February. Continue reading...

Fashion retailer joins Joules founder in last-minute £41m deal, but 24 stores will closeNext has teamed up with the founder of the collapsed fashion chain Joules to rescue it from administration in a £41m deal that will save about 100 shops and 1,450 jobs.Sources said Next placed a last-minute bid in the early hours of Thursday morning, trumping one placed by South Africa’s Foschini Group, the owner of Hobbs and Whistles. Marks & Spencer and Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group are also thought to have taken an interest in Joules, which is best known for its jackets and patterned wellington boots.CarmarthenCheltenhamChichesterEdinburghExeterGatesheadLyme RegisNewburyNorthcote Road, south LondonOxfordPeak Village, DerbyshirePeterboroughReigateSalcombe Fore StreetSherborneSouthwold Little JouleSt DavidsWaterloo station, LondonWatford Continue reading...

Charity founder Ngozi Fulani felt violated after Lady Susan Hussey’s ‘deeply regrettable comments’. Here’s whyThe royal family has been embroiled in another racism scandal following the resignation of Lady Susan Hussey after making “unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments” to a black charity boss during a Buckingham Palace reception.Ngozi Fulani, the founder of the charity Sistah Space, said Hussey left her feeling violated after she allegedly took her lock and moved it away from her badge, then repeatedly questioned her about where she “really came from”. Continue reading...

Calls from across communications, health, education and rail sectors come as dispute at Royal Mail escalatesUnion leaders across the communications, rail, health and education sectors have said only fair pay and job security can end the UK’s waves of strike action amid a fresh war of words in the bitter dispute at Royal Mail.Dave Ward, the secretary general of the Communication Workers Union, which is midway through a series of strikes running up to Christmas, accused bosses of “goading” members and creating “a psychological attack” on postal workers. Continue reading...

The moderate Pesutto and conservative Brad Battin will vie to lead the opposition after state election loss

Farha, debut film of Jordanian film-maker, depicts Zionist atrocities against Palestinians during Nakba conflictA Netflix film depicting Zionist forces murdering a Palestinian family during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation has been condemned by Israeli officials as “creating a false narrative”.Farha, the debut of the Jordanian film-maker Darin Sallam, has been shown at several film festivals around the world since its release last year, and is Jordan’s Oscars entry for 2023. It is due to begin streaming to a global audience on the online entertainment service on Thursday. Continue reading...

The grocery is pressuring part-time employees to add work hours, a constraint on some with parenting or school commitmentsTrader Joe’s, a specialty grocery chain with about 500 locations in the US and 50,000 employees, is rolling out new, unofficial policies at stores across the US starting in January 2023, according to workers, that will mandate part-time workers work a minimum of three days a week to maintain their employment with the company.A Trader Joe’s worker in the north-east US who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation criticized the changes. The employee learned of the policy in August because they had planned to reduce their work days to one or two days a week to have time to start their own business and had already seen a co-worker affected by it for trying to return from a maternity leave to a reduced schedule. Continue reading...

Head of Royal College of Emergency Medicine says lengthy waits forcing ambulances to be ‘wards on wheels’More than 200 people who died last week in England are estimated to have been affected by problems with urgent and emergency care, according to the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.Dr Adrian Boyle, who is also a consultant in emergency medicine, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that a failure to address problems discharging patients to social care was a “massive own goal”. Continue reading...

Climate change minister tells parliament official projection of 40% cut does not factor in all Labor’s policy commitments

The ruangrupa collective’s last show was removed from key German exhibition for caricatures of JewsAn Indonesian collective that became embroiled in an antisemitism row earlier this year has taken the No 1 spot in the annual ranking of the contemporary art world’s most influential people and organisations.The ruangrupa group, founded in Jakarta in 2000, are the first artists from Asia to top the ArtReview Power 100. Their position “reflects the growing influence of the global south and the move towards greater diversity in the art world,” ArtReview said. Continue reading...

Fans gathered in Melbourne’s Federation Square for Australia’s first three games but there has not been a major live site in Sydney

Cost of food imported from EU rose because of extra red tape, with poorest most affectedBrexit added almost £6bn to UK food bills in the two years to the end of 2021, affecting poorest households the most, research has found.The cost of food imported from the EU shot up because of extra red tape, adding £210 to the average household food bills over 2020 and 2021, London School of Economics (LSE) researchers discovered. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Musical and children’s play are among vast archive explored in upcoming film about comedic geniusA musical and a children’s play written by Spike Milligan are among unmade scripts within a vast archive to which film-makers have been given unprecedented access for a forthcoming documentary on the comic genius.Seb Barfield, the producer-director of Spike Milligan: The Unseen Archive, was astonished to find entire shows, sketches and poems among hundreds of papers and reels of footage. Continue reading...

Federal court hears no member of the Murdoch family has publicly repudiated the news channel’s claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 US election

Zoo says investigation into ‘lion incident’ continues with specialist forensic engineer examining failure of ‘complex mesh fencing system’

‘Gay has led The Age through two incredibly challenging and exhilarating years covering the story of a lifetime,’ masthead owner Nine Entertainment saysThe editor of the Age, Gay Alcorn, has resigned from her position after two years to take care of her husband, who is battling a serious health problem.On Thursday, the Age and Sydney Morning Herald executive editor, Tory Maguire, announced Alcorn would be stepping down from the editorship of the 186-year-old Melbourne masthead now owned by Nine Entertainment.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

Medical experts had criticised video-sharing app for its popular #sunburnchallenge hashtagSocial media giant TikTok has announced it will actively ban videos that encourage tanning and add educational content to its platform after alarm from Australian medical experts over the platform’s sharing of pro-tanning material.In September, Melanoma Institute Australia co-medical directors Prof Georgina Long and Prof Richard Scolyer, speaking at the National Press Club, took issue with the video-sharing app for its popular #sunburnchallenge hashtag. Continue reading...

Medibank confirms it may be the full trove of hundreds of thousands of customers’ private records that were stolen from the health insurer

NSW ordered to pay damages after police maliciously pursued Spedding while investigating Tyrrell’s disappearance in September 2014

Deceased man was attacking his mother with a stick when constable Emmanuel Andrew first opened fire

Blast at Kyiv’s embassy in Madrid injures staff member; nine people killed in fires to heat homes in Ukraine

Albanese government chooses not to provide any public funding for yes or no campaigns on the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum

Neil Finn, Haim, Questlove, the Doors and Fleetwood Mac bandmates Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood among those to remember a ‘beautiful presence’

A new report calls for targeted help for those who will no longer qualify from changes next springMore than 7 million people who no longer qualify for energy support from next spring face years in fuel poverty if average heat and light bills remain at £3,000, according to a report calling for more targeted help.In his November budget the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced that the government’s energy price guarantee (EPG) would rise from April to £3,000 a year for the typical home, and the £400 help paid to all households this winter – regardless of income – would not be repeated. Continue reading...

Partner of man whose complaint led to abatement notice against Manchester music venue testifies to being driven out of their homeThe partner of the man whose noise complaint against Manchester’s famous Night & Day music venue could see it close has told a court he has become a “recluse” and lost 30kg due to stress.Speaking at Manchester magistrates court on Wednesday, he said the couple had moved out in May as living near to the venue was not sustainable, due to the noise and fears for their safety after the complaint. Continue reading...

Announcements ordered the removal of ‘control orders’ and to designate areas as low riskAuthorities have abruptly lifted Covid restrictions in the Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Chongqing, where protesters scuffled with police on Tuesday night, as police searched for demonstrators in other cities and the country’s top security body called for a crackdown on “hostile forces”.After days of extraordinary protests in the country that also prompted international demonstrations in solidarity, the US and Canada urged China not to harm or intimidate protesters opposing Covid-19 lockdowns. Continue reading...

Vote was triggered by Labour MP’s resignation and is first byelection under current prime ministerThe first Westminster byelection since the resignation of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss and the financial fallout from the mini-budget takes place on Thursday.Polls are set to close at 10pm in the City of Chester in the first electoral test for Rishi Sunak. Continue reading...

Former lady-in-waiting stepped down from palace role after incident in which she asked guest where she ‘really came from’

Foreign Office targets 22 officials, including Denis Manturov, deputy prime minister responsible for troop supplies

Documents show Thurrock failed to act despite being cautioned about scale and risky nature of investmentsThe Tory-led Thurrock council, which is on the brink of bankruptcy after losing hundreds of millions of pounds on failed commercial investments, repeatedly ignored warnings from financial experts over the “unprecedented risks” it was taking with public money, it has emerged.According to documents obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), Thurrock’s top finance official failed to act despite being cautioned about the scale, speed and risky nature of the council’s investments. Continue reading...

Penelope Schofield expresses ‘deep regret’ that families of 11 men killed in 2015 disaster have had to wait so longA coroner has apologised to the families of 11 men who were killed in the Shoreham airshow tragedy for having to wait so long for an inquest into their deaths to resume.The West Sussex senior coroner, Penelope Schofield, expressed her “deepest regret” that delays to the inquest had added to the ordeal endured by relatives of those who died. Continue reading...

Leaked evidence shows trail of missed opportunities to improve test-and-trace regime in early days of pandemicPublic health leaders were slow to act on repeated warnings over Christmas 2020 that contact tracing and isolation should be triggered immediately after a positive lateral flow test result, leaked evidence to the Covid inquiry shows.A scathing “lessons learned” document written by Dr Achim Wolf, a senior test and trace official, and submitted to the inquiry, gives his account of a trail of missed opportunities to improve the NHS test-and-trace regime in the first winter and spring of the pandemic – before vaccines were available. Continue reading...

PM Anthony Albanese leads the applause for the Socceroos, who were also cheered on by huge crowds in Melbourne and SydneyAustralia’s historic World Cup win over Denmark sparked wild celebrations across the country in the early hours of the morning as the team progressed to the knockout stages of the finals for only the second time.Thousands of fans had gathered in Melbourne’s Federation Square to watch the match in the middle of the night and erupted in ecstasy when Mathew Leckie scored to put them into the lead after an hour. Continue reading...

GMB union, announcing vote in favour of strikes across nine trusts, says action as much about patient safety as pay

State attempts to push through plans to shut hundreds of factory farms to cut nitrogen oxide emissionsThe Dutch government is offering to buy out up to 3,000 “peak polluter” farms and major industrial polluters in an attempt to reduce ammonia and nitrogen oxide emissions that are illegal under EU law.The nitrogen minister, Christianne van der Wal, said farmers would be offered more than 100% of the value of their farms to quit. For the first time, the government has said that forced buyouts will follow next year if the voluntary measures fail. Continue reading...

State media say Jiang died from leukaemia and multiple organ failure in ShanghaiChina’s former leader Jiang Zemin, who was elevated to the head of the Communist Party as a loyalist during the Tiananmen protests and then presided over years of economic expansion, has died aged 96.The cause of death was leukaemia and multiple organ failure, state media said. His life ended in a hospital in Shanghai, the city that was his power base, and has beenthe scene of recent protests against the government and its Covid controls. Continue reading...

Draft regulations would ban mini-shampoo bottles and throwaway cups, with push towards reuse over recyclingThe EU executive wants to ban mini-shampoo bottles in hotels and the use of throwaway cups in cafes and restaurants, as part of sweeping legal proposals to curb Europe’s mountains of waste.A draft EU regulation published on Wednesday also proposes mandatory deposit and return schemes for single-use plastic drinks bottles and metal cans, as well as an end to e-commerce firms wrapping small items in huge boxes. Continue reading...

HSBC is to shut a further 114 branches – more than a quarter of its network. Here is the list of sites to close

It is notable that no other country has adopted a fully privatised model of water delivery

Redfern Legal Centre calls for compensation after withdrawal of 33,000 pandemic-era fines

Exclusive: Mother of former year 12 student discovered messages between teacher and her son after he died last year

Labour leader asks PM why he handed his old school Winchester £6m in taxpayers’ money

Footage shows fireworks and cheering across Iran and at Qatar stadium after team representing Islamic Republic lost 1-0Some Iranians have celebrated their team’s loss to the US and subsequent exit from the World Cup, as demonstrations against the government’s treatment of protesters took place inside and outside the stadium in Qatar and across Iran.The contest between the Iranian and American sides, whose countries severed diplomatic ties more than 40 years ago, took place under increased security to prevent a flare-up over the anti-government protests that have taken place across Iran since the death in custody of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini on 16 September. Continue reading...

EU to set up court to investigate war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine; Russian strikes in Zaporizhzhia region hit gas distribution point

North of Tyne mayor says he cannot be sure trains would get him to Manchester for meeting with minister

Largest banks would still be ringfenced, while smaller lenders might not need to follow rulesMinisters are considering relaxing rules brought in to stabilise the banking system after the credit crunch, as part of government plans to deregulate the City of London and spark a second big bang for financial services after Brexit.The ringfencing regulations, introduced in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, require lenders to separate their high street operations from other activities such as investment banking or international operations. Continue reading...

Court rules same-sex marriage ban is constitutional but says lack of legal protection is human rights violationA Tokyo court has ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage is constitutional but said the lack of legal protection for same-sex couples violated their human rights, which plaintiffs welcomed as a step toward aligning Japan with other G7 nations.Japan is the only G7 nation that does not allow same-sex marriage and its constitution defines marriage as based on “the mutual consent of both sexes”. The ruling party of the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has disclosed no plans yet to review the matter or propose legislation, though several senior members support same-sex marriage. Continue reading...

PM tells business leaders his government is ‘working around the clock to deliver a solution’ and flags collaboration with states