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China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025, island’s defence minister says
Fossil fuel industry gets subsidies of $11m a minute, IMF finds
Facebook whistleblower’s testimony could finally spark action in Congress
Pygmy pipehorse discovered in New Zealand given Māori name in ‘world first’
Top Trump aides set to defy subpoenas in Capitol attack investigation
Boris Johnson to brush off petrol queues as ‘change of direction’
Huawei hopes US decision on Meng Wanzhou heralds new era in relations
Football Australia to investigate after Matildas great Lisa De Vanna makes allegations of abuse
Google Maps to show the lowest carbon route for car journeys
‘Dystopian world’: Singapore patrol robots stoke fears of surveillance state
Tina Turner sells rights to her music catalogue spanning 60 years
Coronavirus live news: ‘Great vaccination divide’ hinders global recovery, IMF warns
‘Perfect storm’: how Covid is compounding New Zealand’s existing social crises
'Long Covid is real': former athlete warns about debilitating battle after coronavirus – video
Taliban patrols return to the streets of Kabul – in pictures
‘I sculpt the air’ – does scent artist Anicka Yi plan to make Tate’s Turbine Hall smell like vaginas?
‘We want dignity’: the vanishing craft of Kashmir’s papier-mache artists
‘It was much bigger than me’: Terence Blanchard on being the Met Opera’s first Black composer
Tulsi Vagjiani: the woman who lost her family in a plane crash – and found the beauty in her burns
Najla Bouden: what next for Tunisia’s first female PM?
Heathrow passengers delayed for hours after biometric passport gates fail
Facebook outage highlights global over-reliance on its services
Al Capone at auction – in pictures
Australia must increase 2030 emissions target to help avoid ‘catastrophic’ heating, Samoan PM says
Stuart MacGill’s account attacked in court as his alleged kidnapper seeks bail
‘They wanted to kill me’: the lawyer taking on police brutality in Kenya
How New Zealand snookered itself by calling time on its Covid elimination strategy | Lew Stoddart
Taiwan must be on alert against 'over-the-top' China, says premier – video

China could mount full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025, island’s defence minister says

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 08:31 PM PDT

Comments come as Biden and Xi agree to stick to Taiwan agreements amid rising tension in the Indo-Pacific

China will be capable of mounting a full scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025, the island's defence minister Chiu Kuo-cheng has said, describing current tensions as the worst in 40 years.

Speaking to the China Times on Wednesday, Chiu said China was capable now, but would be completely prepared to launch an invasion in three years.

Fossil fuel industry gets subsidies of $11m a minute, IMF finds

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 11:00 PM PDT

Trillions of dollars a year are 'adding fuel to the fire' of the climate crisis, experts say

The fossil fuel industry benefits from subsidies of $11m every minute, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by $5.9tn in 2020, with not a single country pricing all its fuels sufficiently to reflect their full supply and environmental costs. Experts said the subsidies were "adding fuel to the fire" of the climate crisis, at a time when rapid reductions in carbon emissions were urgently needed.

Facebook whistleblower’s testimony could finally spark action in Congress

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 10:00 PM PDT

Despite years of hearings, the company has long seemed untouchable. But Frances Haugen appears to have inspired rare bipartisanship

The testimony of Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, is likely to increase pressure on US lawmakers to undertake concrete legislative actions against the formerly untouchable tech company, following years of hearings and circular discussions about big tech's growing power.

In a hearing on Tuesday, the whistleblower shared internal Facebook reports with Congress and argued the company puts "astronomical profits before people", harms children and is destabilizing democracies.

Pygmy pipehorse discovered in New Zealand given Māori name in ‘world first’

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 06:04 PM PDT

Ngātiwai tribal leaders formally listed as official naming authorities for the tiny creature

A tiny candy-stick coloured pygmy pipehorse, discovered in a small area off New Zealand's north coast has been given a Māori name by the local iwi (tribe) – in what is believed to be the first time an indigenous group has formally named a new species of animal.

The 6cm long fish is closely related to the seahorse, and inhabits the rocky reefs off the north-east coast. It is the first pygmy pipehorse discovered in the country.

Top Trump aides set to defy subpoenas in Capitol attack investigation

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 10:30 PM PDT

Source says Meadows, Bannon and others will move to undercut House select committee inquiry – under instructions from Trump

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and other top aides subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack are expected to defy orders for documents and testimony related to 6 January, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The move to defy the subpoenas would mark the first major investigative hurdle faced by the select committee and threatens to touch off an extended legal battle as the former president pushes some of his most senior aides to undercut the inquiry.

Boris Johnson to brush off petrol queues as ‘change of direction’

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 02:30 PM PDT

Prime minister will tell Tory conference that despite the supply chain crisis a bright future lies ahead

Boris Johnson will brush off petrol queues and empty shelves as evidence of a "change of direction" towards a high-wage economy on Wednesday, as he closes a Conservative conference at which supply shortages have barely been acknowledged.

The prime minister channelled Margaret Thatcher on Tuesday to insist "there is no alternative" but to press ahead with the post-Brexit transition to a labour market less reliant on immigration.

Huawei hopes US decision on Meng Wanzhou heralds new era in relations

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 06:00 PM PDT

US justice department suspended fraud charges against chief financial officer of Chinese telecoms giant

The Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei hopes that the US justice department's decision to abandon its efforts to extradite Meng Wanzhou may mark the starting point in a new era in relations between the company, China and the US government.

Meng, the firm's chief financial officer and daughter of its founder, was freed last month after three years of house arrest in Canada following an agreement with the justice department to suspend fraud charges against her.

Football Australia to investigate after Matildas great Lisa De Vanna makes allegations of abuse

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 04:20 PM PDT

Matildas great alleges she suffered sexual harassment as a player
FA says it has met with player but is yet to receive formal complaint

Football Australia has urged players to come forward and make formal complaints after historical allegations of abuse were made by Matildas great Lisa De Vanna.

De Vanna, Australia's second most prolific goalscorer, alleges she was subjected to sexual harassment, indecent assault, grooming and bullying from senior players throughout her career.

Google Maps to show the lowest carbon route for car journeys

Posted: 06 Oct 2021 12:00 AM PDT

Google's CEO Sundar Pichai said the initiative could save 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year

Google Maps is to offer drivers the lowest carbon route for their chosen journey as part of the search company's new environmentally friendly policies.

Motorists will be able to select the route with the lowest carbon emissions once factors such as traffic and road inclines are taken into account. The new product launches in the US on Wednesday and in Europe next year. Where the comparable journey times are broadly the same, Google Maps will default to the lowest carbon option.

‘Dystopian world’: Singapore patrol robots stoke fears of surveillance state

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 10:05 PM PDT

Trial of robots to police 'undesirable' behaviour such as smoking or breaching social-distancing rules

Singapore has trialled patrol robots that blast warnings at people engaging in "undesirable social behaviour", adding to an arsenal of surveillance technology in the tightly controlled city-state that is fuelling privacy concerns.

From vast numbers of CCTV cameras to trials of lampposts kitted out with facial recognition tech, Singapore is seeing an explosion of tools to track its inhabitants.

Tina Turner sells rights to her music catalogue spanning 60 years

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 10:01 PM PDT

Publisher BMG takes on shares of recordings and image management of 'queen of rock'n'roll' in its biggest single artist deal

Tina Turner has sold the rights to her music catalogue spanning six decades, including hits such as What's Love Got to Do With It, and Private Dancer, to the music publishing company BMG.

The "queen of rock'n'roll" sold her artist's and writer's shares of her recordings, as well as the management of her name, image and likeness, in the largest deal struck with a single artist in BMG's history. The sums involved were not disclosed.

Coronavirus live news: ‘Great vaccination divide’ hinders global recovery, IMF warns

Posted: 06 Oct 2021 01:44 AM PDT

The world economy will not make a full recovery until the vaccine gap between rich and poor nations is reduced, IMF says

England urged to step up vaccinations to avoid winter Covid surge
Americans will need to provide a negative test if travelling to Hawaii
New Zealand ends Covid elimination strategy in favour of suppression

Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford has been speaking about last night's knife edge vote that approved the introduction of Covid passes in Wales.

Drakeford said the purpose of the Covid pass was "not to penalise any business, it's to give that business an extra defence to allow it to continue to operate".

‘Perfect storm’: how Covid is compounding New Zealand’s existing social crises

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 11:00 AM PDT

Experts say the pandemic is multiplying longstanding problems linked to housing and racial inequality

Like clay pressed into a mould, Covid outbreaks tend to conform to the contours of a country's existing inequalities and cracks, replicating them over again.

Social scientists have called the pandemic a "threat multiplier", taking existing social problems, and compounding their force. In New Zealand, the country's growing Delta outbreak is now interweaving with longstanding housing affordability crisis and racial inequalities. As the government continues to loosen restrictions, experts say a growing outbreak will make those divides more and more pronounced.

'Long Covid is real': former athlete warns about debilitating battle after coronavirus – video

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 07:48 PM PDT

Will Smith, now 24 years old, caught Covid-19 in March 2020 after returning to Melbourne from Boston. The young Victorian had spent four years on the Northeastern University's rowing team, training more than 12 times a week. Although being diagnosed with a 'mild condition' and not requiring hospitalisation, he has been battling long Covid ever since. 'I still couldn't walk around the block without getting light-headed and needing to lie down, struggling to breathe,' he told media at Victoria's daily Covid press conference

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Taliban patrols return to the streets of Kabul – in pictures

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 11:00 PM PDT

The Taliban fighters who were once embedded in Afghanistan's rugged mountains are now a feared urban police force. Felipe Dana joins them on patrol

‘I sculpt the air’ – does scent artist Anicka Yi plan to make Tate’s Turbine Hall smell like vaginas?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 10:00 PM PDT

She has made art out of smells, ants, bacteria, spit and vaginal swabs. So what is the US artist about to unveil for her Turbine Hall commission? Yi, who was once a vagabond in London, takes us on an olfactory odyssey

Anicka Yi offers me some beetroot crisps. These, along with carrot crisps, are her breakfast, both free of oil and salt. "I can't eat greens, dairy, sugar, legumes, beans, nuts, seeds, nightshades, spice, alcohol – nothing," the Korean American conceptual artist explains. "I can only eat grass-fed meat, wild fish, unseasoned all of it, vegetables and a little fruit."

Why? "I have some auto-immune issues and my doctor put me on a protocol to find out if something in my diet is inflaming them." Poor you, I say, thinking I should wave away any approaching cheese trolley, as we sit chatting in Tate Modern's members' room. The diet has made Yi's three-week trip from New York to London, to install her latest work in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, logistically tricky.

‘We want dignity’: the vanishing craft of Kashmir’s papier-mache artists

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 10:00 PM PDT

Award-winning artist Maqbool Jan is one of a handful still practising the ancient artform, but without government help he fears it could be lost

Kashmir's ancient papier-mache artworks are famous throughout the world. The art form is a staple of the luxury ornamental market, and has a rich and long cultural lineage. It is closely associated with the advent of Islam in Kashmir, and depicts scenes from the Mughal court, Arabic verses from the Qu'ran, Persian poetry, as well as Kashmir's iconic tourist attractions.

However, this ancient art form is vanishing, with only a handful of artisans left practising.

‘It was much bigger than me’: Terence Blanchard on being the Met Opera’s first Black composer

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 11:25 PM PDT

The renowned musician makes history with his staging of Fire Shut Up in My Bones starting a new era for a historically white and staid New York institution

Taking his bow during a nine-minute curtain call, Terence Blanchard could see this was no ordinary night at the opera. The 4,000-strong audience at the Metropolitan Opera in New York was striking in its racial diversity.

"There were so many faces of pride," the composer recalls of last week's premiere. "Obviously it was directed towards me but it was much bigger than me. Seeing themselves on the stage, seeing people that they knew, seeing the culture on the stage at the Met had people in tears."

Tulsi Vagjiani: the woman who lost her family in a plane crash – and found the beauty in her burns

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 10:00 PM PDT

After a tragedy that killed her father, mother and brother, and left her severely scarred, she endured years of taunts and rejection. Now she is fighting for all those with facial disfigurements

Tulsi Vagjiani was 10 years old and had been in hospital for several weeks when her bandages finally came off and she asked the nurses to show her what she looked like. She had been warned that she had extensive burns, but they seemed reluctant to let her look – they asked her if she was sure. "The nurses and doctors were like: I don't think she realises the severity of what she looks like," says Vagjiani.

Vagjiani felt as if she had not changed, even if she was confused about what exactly had happened. "I was just Tulsi – boisterous, loud, confident." She thought: how bad could it be? "Then I saw myself in the mirror and I was like: oh." She says it in a quiet voice. "I actually thought somebody drew that face on, because I thought: that's not me. And then, looking at the person in the mirror, their eyes and mouth moving, I realised: that is me."

Najla Bouden: what next for Tunisia’s first female PM?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 11:00 PM PDT

Academic's appointment marks historic moment for Arab world but comes amid political and economic crisis, with some fearing she will be Kais Saied's pawn

Sara Medini, political analyst at the Tunisian feminist organisation Aswat Nissa, was in a meeting at work last week when she happened to glance at a news alert on her phone. What she saw left her at first flabbergasted, then delighted.

"I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought I had misread it," she said. "I told my colleagues: 'He's appointed a woman! He's appointed a woman!'

Heathrow passengers delayed for hours after biometric passport gates fail

Posted: 06 Oct 2021 01:40 AM PDT

Some travellers held on planes while others face long queues, less than two weeks after similar failures

Passengers arriving at Heathrow are being delayed for several hours due to a problem with self-service passport gates.

Some travellers at Terminal 5 posted pictures of long queues on social media on Wednesday morning, while others were being held on planes due to the congestion.

Facebook outage highlights global over-reliance on its services

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 11:36 AM PDT

Shutdown heavily impacts ability to communicate and do business for many of platform's 2.8 billion users

From bereft Brazilians to relaxed Russians and internet-savvy Indians, Facebook's outage highlighted the dependence much of the world has developed on its social media products, and put the spotlight on its global power.

The fallout of Facebook's unprecedented almost six-hour outage has mostly focused on the financial impact to the $1tn social media empire: $50bn (£37bn) was wiped off the company's market value by jittery investors, founder Mark Zuckerberg's paper fortune shrunk by $7bn and more than $13m of the advertising dollars that are its lifeblood disappeared each hour the platform was offline.

Al Capone at auction – in pictures

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 11:00 PM PDT

Guns once owned by Al Capone, one of the most notorious gangsters in United States history, are among 174 lots to go under the hammer this week at a California auction, A Century of Notoriety: the Estate of Al Capone. Auctioneers are billing the sale as 'one of the most important celebrity auctions in history'.

Australia must increase 2030 emissions target to help avoid ‘catastrophic’ heating, Samoan PM says

Posted: 06 Oct 2021 01:27 AM PDT

Fiame Naomi Mata'afa says Australia needs to come 'come back to climate financing table' at Cop26

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Australia needs to increase the ambition of its 2030 emissions reduction target and "come back to the climate financing table" at the looming Cop26 talks in Glasgow, according to the prime minister of Samoa.

As Scott Morrison persists with efforts to persuade the Nationals to accept a mid-century net zero emissions reduction target, the Samoan prime minister, Fiame Naomi Mata'afa, issued a stark public warning on Wednesday.

Stuart MacGill’s account attacked in court as his alleged kidnapper seeks bail

Posted: 06 Oct 2021 01:44 AM PDT

A lawyer for ex-cricketer's de facto brother-in-law Marino Sotiropoulos tells Sydney court MacGill's account seems to include exaggerations and inconsistencies

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Stuart MacGill's account has been attacked as the former Test cricketer's de facto brother-in-law and alleged kidnapper made a bid to be released on bail.

Four men are facing charges after the 50-year-old retired spin bowler was allegedly forced into a car, taken to a remote location, beaten and then dumped in Sydney's west in April.

‘They wanted to kill me’: the lawyer taking on police brutality in Kenya

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 03:01 AM PDT

Almost 20 years ago, a police shooting left David Makara without an arm and facing jail. Inspired by the blind lawyer who saved him, he now defends others facing injustice

When the police started shooting at David Makara in his home town of Nyahururu, in Kenya, he ran before quickly collapsing. Two bullets had hit him – one in his right arm, one in his hip – but he only realised when he looked down and saw his hand dangling from his wrist and blood pouring out.

"I thought I was going to die," he says.

How New Zealand snookered itself by calling time on its Covid elimination strategy | Lew Stoddart

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 08:27 PM PDT

By granting freedom as case numbers rise, Jacinda Ardern has diverged from the nation's understood strategy of aligning policy with expert consensus

The New Zealand government called time on its world-leading Covid-19 elimination strategy on Monday, announcing a suite of measures that grant Aucklanders greater freedom after seven weeks of community transmission, despite experts urging tighter restrictions. In doing so, the government has snookered itself in three mutually-reinforcing ways: on social license, on enforcement, and on the economy.

New Zealand's strategy depends on social license, and people feeling like they understand and are part of the system, and can contribute to its success, knowing others will be prevented from undermining their efforts.

Taiwan must be on alert against 'over-the-top' China, says premier – video

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 04:07 AM PDT

Taiwan needs to be on alert for China's 'over-the-top' military activities which are violating regional peace, Premier Su Tseng-chang has said after incursions by Chinese warplanes into Taiwan's air defence zone. China has sent nearly 150 planes into the zone in the first four days of October, in what mainland figures and media have labelled a demonstration of strength but which world governments have condemned as an act of intimidation