World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

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World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk


Brexit: in crisis, without fanfare, UK finally ends the EU era

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 03:00 PM PST

Boris Johnson largely ignores Brexit in new year message to focus on toll of Covid and 'the grimness of 2020'

Four years, 27 weeks and two days after a referendum that split the country almost down the middle, the UK left the EU's orbit on Thursday night in a departure that was notably low key, and marked by warnings of likely disruption to come.

In a sometimes sombre new year message, Boris Johnson largely ignored Brexit, an outcome he arguably shaped more than any other politician, to focus instead on the toll of Covid-19 and what he called "the grimness of 2020".

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New coronavirus variant may have been in US since October

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 11:00 PM PST

Re-analysis of 2m Covid tests raises fresh questions about origin of B117 'UK strain' and suggests it may already be widespread

A coronavirus variant carrying some of the same mutations as the highly contagious British variant may have been in the US since October and already be widespread, a re-analysis of more than 2m tests suggests.

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From fireworks to empty streets: 2021 New Year's Eve celebrations across the globe – video

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 08:20 PM PST

The new year has been welcomed in parts of the world with mostly muted celebrations as coronavirus lockdowns and curfews quashed large gatherings. Sydney's famed fireworks display played out to a largely empty harbour, while Vietnam's success tackling Covid-19 saw large crowds meet in Hanoi. In Europe, Paris's famed streets were empty as the clock struck midnight, while Berlin's ban on fireworks was ignored by some. In London, Big Ben chimed at the start of 2021, just one hour after the same bells marked the UK's exit from the EU

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MF Doom, iconic masked hip-hop MC, dies aged 49

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 02:42 PM PST

Rapper and producer known for multiple projects including Madvillain died in October, according to announcement by wife

MF Doom, one of US hip-hop's most distinctive and respected MCs and producers, has died aged 49.

His wife Jasmine posted on his Instagram account:

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Iran says Trump is trying to fabricate pretext for war

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 03:13 PM PST

Tehran says it will defend itself forcefully as tensions rise ahead of anniversary of Suleimani killing

The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Thursday accused Donald Trump of attempting to fabricate a pretext to attack Iran, and said Tehran would defend itself forcefully.

Separately, a military adviser to Iran's supreme leader warned Trump "not to turn the New Year into mourning for Americans".

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Joe Biden to have new Secret Service team amid concern about Trump loyalty

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 08:48 AM PST

  • Agents familiar from time as vice-president to return
  • Some members of detail reportedly discouraged mask-wearing

Joe Biden is expected to receive Secret Service protection with a new team that is more familiar to him and replacing some agents amid concerns that they may be politically allied with Donald Trump.

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UN to bring in monitors to observe Libya's widely flouted ceasefire

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 09:00 PM PST

Move part of diplomatic reboot of efforts to cajole opposing sides into forming national unity government

The United Nations will try to reboot its push towards national unity in Libya by bringing in monitors to oversee a widely flouted ceasefire and by forcing the country's riven political leadership to find a mechanism for electing a prime minister.

UN officials said Libya was locked in a race against time to make tangible progress towards forming a national unity government and avoid the possible collapse of a three-month ceasefire.

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Trump returns to Washington early as allies plot challenge to Biden victory

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 10:55 AM PST

President cuts short Mar-a-Lago trip as Republican senator says he will formally object to electoral college result next Wednesday

Donald Trump returned to Washington on Thursday, abruptly cutting short a holiday retreat to his private south Florida resort as the president's allies on Capitol Hill prepare to mount a last-ditch challenge to Joe Biden's election victory.

Related: Joe Biden to have new Secret Service team amid concern about Trump loyalty

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‘Small, important step’: change to Australia’s national anthem wins cautious support

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 09:41 PM PST

Move has been well-received across political spectrum, while triggering calls to improve treatment of Indigenous Australians

Scott Morrison's decision to tweak Australia's national anthem so it no longer ignores tens of thousands of years of Indigenous history has won support from across the political spectrum.

But the prime minister's surprise move to change the line "young and free" to "one and free" also triggered calls for the government to take more ambitious steps to improve the treatment of First Nations peoples.

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Minneapolis police release body-cam video of first killing since George Floyd

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 04:43 PM PST

Shooting, which took place less than a mile from where Floyd died, has stirred anxiety about renewed protests in the city

Police in Minneapolis have released body-camera footage from a traffic stop that ended with a man shot and killed, the city's first such death since George Floyd's killing in May.

The quick move was aimed at stemming public anger over the killing, which has stirred anxiety about renewed protests seven months after the widespread unrest that followed Floyd's death at the hands of police.

Related: Minneapolis switches $8m from police budget to violence prevention

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Ontario minister who flouted Covid advice to take Caribbean holiday resigns

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 11:23 AM PST

Rod Phillips steps down as finance minister of Canada's most populous province, adding to pressure on the premier, Doug Ford

The finance minister for Canada's most populous province has resigned after going on a Caribbean vacation during the pandemic and apparently trying to hide the fact by sending social media posts showing him in a sweater before a fireplace.

Ontario's premier, Doug Ford, said on Thursday he had accepted Rod Phillips's resignation as minister hours after Phillips returned home from a more than two-week stay on the island of St Barts despite government guidelines urging people to avoid non-essential travel.

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Inside the outbreak: photographing England during Covid pandemic

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 11:00 PM PST

Guardian photographer Chris Thomond lives in Manchester and spent most of the year under strict lockdown measures while travelling on assignment around the north of England's coronavirus hotspots photographing life during the pandemic. He looks back on his year

Early on during the pandemic I'd seen a short film from the Philippines and read an extended blog from northern Italy, both featuring photographers dressed in hazmat suits, toting cameras housed beneath protective covers. Embedded with paramedics as they dealt with seriously ill patients, my fellow photojournalists sensitively showed doctors in sweltering emergency hospital pop-up units or portrayed intimate moments as spouses and other terrified family members bid farewell to their loved ones as they were stretchered from their homes, some for the last time.

Over the following weeks I was drawn to the frequent updates of the legendary photographer Peter Turnley's remarkable black-and-white street portraits from New York (and later Paris, his adopted home). They showed exhausted medical staff outside trauma centres, lonely subway travellers, homeless wanderers and an assortment of essential workers and normal residents who were just about holding things together. The biggest city in the US rapidly became one of the centres of the outbreak and suffered a correspondingly large death toll. Turnley showed immense bravery to walk the streets each day and his empathic approach towards subjects rewarded him as he witnessed tender moments which he skilfully captured for history.

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Key London hospital preparing for Covid-only care as cases surge

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 11:09 AM PST

University College hospital scrambling to convert theatres, recovery areas and stroke wards into ICUs

One of London's biggest hospitals has warned it is on track to become virtually Covid-only amid a surge in cases in the capital that has left it scrambling to convert operating theatres, surgical recovery areas and stroke wards into intensive care units for the very sick.

As the daily coronavirus case numbers in the UK continued an apparently inexorable rise, hitting a record 55,892, with 23,813 people in hospital and 964 reported deaths, the chief executive of University College London hospitals trust (UCLH), Prof Marcel Levi, said admissions were already spiralling beyond the first wave in the spring.

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Fresh fears for Tokyo Olympics as host city sees surge in Covid-19 infections

Posted: 01 Jan 2021 12:00 AM PST

  • Tokyo reported 1,300 new coronavirus infections on Thursday
  • Health experts concerned over stretched medical infrastructure

When Japanese and International Olympic Committee officials finally accepted defeat in March and postponed the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, there was general agreement that a one-year wait would give the world ample time to overcome the coronavirus pandemic.

The delayed Olympics, the then prime minister Shinzo Abe said, would be an opportunity to pay tribute to the human spirit in overcoming the world's biggest public health crisis for a century.

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Australia coronavirus news live: low-key new year celebrations as border closures cause chaos

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 11:03 PM PST

Sydney Covid clusters found to be linked, Victoria prepares to close border with NSW at midnight, and Sydney festival cancels events. This blog is now closed

We're going to leave it there for now. I hope you've had a relaxing first day of 2021. Of course, we all hope it's the start of a better year.

Here are today's headlines:

We have some further detail around the two positive cases linked to the Thai restaurant in Black Rock.

The "index case" linked to the pair tested positive about 5pm on 30 December.

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'I'm not wearing tracksuits, I'm sexy!' Ivorian Doll, drill's first female star

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 10:00 PM PST

Having trained in the gossip-rich world of YouTube, the London rapper is breaking up the boys club with hilarious and brazen lyrics

"I didn't think I would get anywhere, I can't lie to you," Ivorian Doll tells me, somewhat unexpectedly. "I mean, I wouldn't have taken me seriously if I was on the other end."

In reflecting on the success she's recently found, the rapper isn't as assured as you would expect from an artist of her standing. This has been a whirlwind year: after a string of million-streaming releases, plus features with fellow UK stars Headie One, Ray BLK, S1mba and more, the "queen of drill" – self-titled, but deserving of it – will release her much-anticipated debut EP Renaissance this month.

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2021 – the story of a year in 12 leaders

Posted: 01 Jan 2021 12:00 AM PST

In 2021, the world will slowly begin to fight back against Covid. But what else will change as the vaccines are administered? Here are the figures who will shape a vital year

Joe Biden United States

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Fear, mistrust – and hope: Britain's long walk away from the EU

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 11:00 PM PST

For many, Friday marks a departure as mind-boggling as it is heartbreaking. But the path to Brexit was laid years before the referendum

As a previous Tory prime minister trying to find his way through difficult times once said: this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Brexit is hardly complete. The last-minute nature of the UK's trade deal with the EU and the fact that it barely covers whole swaths of the economy – financial services are a good example – means some negotiations will have to grind on. The new bodies set up to arbitrate between the two sides will soon have work to do. Northern Ireland remains part of the single market for goods and will be enforcing EU customs rules, the most vivid example of the deal's contorted provisions, which may have no end of political consequences. Certainly, given that public opinion in Scotland now suggests unprecedented levels of support for independence and that elections to the Scottish parliament will take place in May, what Brexit means for the increasingly fragile union between the UK's four countries will now start to become clearer.

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Pakistan's #MeToo movement hangs in the balance over celebrity case

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 11:45 PM PST

A popular actor was accused of harassment – now those who spoke against him are being charged under law meant to protect women

It takes a lot to rattle Leena Ghani. As an artist turned activist helping to raise the voices of Pakistan's women, she has often fielded abuse, threats and harassment.

But when she learned, on a morning in late September, that police had charged her for criminal defamation, linked to Pakistan's most high-profile #MeToo case, Ghani says she was shaken. "In terms of silencing and demonising people speaking out against sexual assault, it was a new low even for Pakistan," she says.

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No one can read 50 books a week. So why was I buying or borrowing that many?

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 11:00 PM PST

I have always been a voracious reader. But one day I realised my passion for books had turned into a mania

The need for last year's resolution started in my childhood. (Don't they all?) By the age of six, I was reading braille at an unheard-of speed, to the point where the teacher at my blind school accused me of lying when I said I had finished the three books she had given me that morning. It was the start of a lifelong problem: braille books were scarce, but I could not get enough of them.

The school had devised a particularly cruel and subtle form of torture for someone like me: they kept just one title of a child's favourite author in the school library; for example, just one Famous Five book, one Billy Bunter, one Just William. As I grew older and my tastes changed, the problem remained the same: one Raymond Chandler, one PG Wodehouse, just one even mildly dirty book when puberty hit.

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From covfefe to the Mooch: 10 funny moments from the Trump presidency

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 11:00 PM PST

Amid four years of corruption, caging children and trashing democracy there were some light-hearted moments – no really

Donald Trump's presidency will soon come to an end, and his time in the White House will almost certainly be best remembered for the chaos and controversy caused by his oft-criticized choices on everything from immigration to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson withdraws from elections

Posted: 01 Jan 2021 02:00 AM PST

Anderson says he will not seek re-election after police extend his bail over corruption investigation

The mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, has said he will not be seeking re-election after police extended his bail as part of a corruption inquiry.

Anderson, who was praised by the government for his handling of the city's Covid crisis, said he had decided to step back from his role leading Liverpool city council and would not stand in May's delayed mayoral election.

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Tributes paid to Ethiopian refugee farmer who championed integration in Italy

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 11:15 PM PST

Agitu Ideo Gudeta, who was killed on Wednesday, used abandoned land to start a goat farming project employing migrants and refugees

Tributes have been paid to a 42-year-old Ethiopian refugee and farmer who became a symbol of integration in Italy, her adopted home.

Agitu Ideo Gudeta was attacked and killed, allegedly by a former employee, on her farm in Trentino on Wednesday.

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Could Asian Americans be crucial to swinging Georgia's Senate races?

Posted: 01 Jan 2021 02:00 AM PST

The demographics of the south are changing and both Democrats and Republicans are taking note of a growing, diverse constituency

Stephanie Cho remembers a time when she could walk the halls of the Georgia state capitol and see just two Asian Americans: the Republican state representative Byung J Pak and a member of his staff.

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Essex lorry tragedy must spur greater effort to stop trafficking from Vietnam

Posted: 01 Jan 2021 12:30 AM PST

Criminal networks are depending on the chaos of Covid and Brexit. Now more than ever we need focus and international cooperation to prevent further tragedies

Trials in the UK of the drivers and haulage organisers involved in the Essex lorry tragedy in which 39 Vietnamese migrants perished ended in guilty pleas and convictions. Vietnam also convicted the agents who brokered the victims' journeys to the UK and sentenced them to terms of imprisonment.

While these are positive developments in achieving some measure of justice for the victims, they won't do anything to stem the smuggling and trafficking of Vietnamese migrants to the UK. No justice system has reached the actual masterminds and profiteers behind this horrific crime: the organised crime groups.

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Covid hotspots NSW: list of Sydney and regional coronavirus case locations

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 11:13 PM PST

Here are the current coronavirus hotspots in New South Wales and what to do if you've visited them

New South Wales health authorities have updated a list of hotspots Covid-positive people have visited while infectious.

Those who attended some locations must isolate immediately for 14 days after you were last there, others must monitor for symptoms.

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Calls for release of man arrested photographing transfer of Rohingyas

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 10:30 PM PST

Bangladesh authorities under pressure from rights activists including Bianca Jagger over detention of Abul Karam

Bangladesh authorities are facing calls to release a Rohingya man arrested while photographing the transfer of refugees to a controversial island camp this week.

Abul Kalam, 35, has been held since Monday morning when he was reportedly beaten before being taken to police barracks near the Kutupalong refugee camp, where he has lived since leaving Myanmar as a child refugee in the early 1990s.

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From the editor of Guardian US: the stories we'll tell in 2021 | John Mulholland

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 04:59 AM PST

From the racial wealth gap to the 'forever chemicals' poisoning our bodies, there is no shortage of stories that need to be told

  • The need for fact-based journalism that highlights injustice and offers solutions is as great as ever. Support the Guardian with a year-end gift

It would be comforting to think that 2021 will offer a break from some of the challenges of 2020. There is an understandable yearning for some relief, some light, or at least a brief pause so that we can find a new equilibrium, whatever that may look like.

Related: Congressman-elect Kai Kahele represents an 'awakened generation' of Native Hawaiians

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'A day for hope': UK and Spain agree draft deal on post-Brexit status of Gibraltar – video

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 06:53 AM PST

British and Spanish negotiators have reached a draft agreement on the future of Gibraltar after Brexit. Spain's foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, welcomed the deal which she said meant the British Overseas Territory on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula would be able to join EU programmes and policies such as Schengen

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The healthy nurse who died at 40 on the Covid frontline: 'She was the best mom I ever had' – video

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 06:25 AM PST

Yolanda Coar was 40 when she died of Covid-19 in August this year in Augusta, Georgia. She was also a nurse manager, and one of nearly 3,000 frontline workers who have died in the US fighting this virus, according to an exclusive investigation by the Guardian and Kaiser Health News.

The Guardian has profiled hundreds of healthcare workers in a year-long project. Read their stories here

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Minneapolis police to release bodycam footage after fatal shooting – video

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 06:00 AM PST

Police in Minneapolis shot and killed a man in an exchange of gunfire during a traffic stop on the city's south side on Wednesday night, authorities have said.

The police chief has said officers bodycameras where active and the footage would be released to the public on Thursday.

A crowd of people rallied at the scene of the fatal shooting which happened about 6.15pm during a traffic stop with a man suspected of a felony

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Wuhan a year after Covid struck: 'Everyone wants to reset 2020'

Posted: 31 Dec 2020 05:35 AM PST

Wang Fan is a young craft beer brewer in Wuhan. When his city became the first in the world to enter lockdown, he volunteered to help support other residents, and documented the sudden and strict pandemic rules over that harsh winter. One year later, Wuhan is getting back to normality, and Wang Fan is even releasing a special beer to mark the recovery. He and other young people reflect on trying to get their lives back on track while much of the rest of the world struggles with the virus

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