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

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


Myanmar junta warns of lethal force as crowds gather for 'five twos revolution'

Posted: 22 Feb 2021 01:13 AM PST

Protesters compare date – 22.2.2021 – to 8 August 1988, when military cracked down on pro-democracy rallies

Protesters have taken to the streets of towns and cities across Myanmar in one of the largest nationwide shows of opposition to the military since it seized power three weeks ago.

Crowds assembled in Yangon, Naypyidaw, Mandalay and elsewhere, despite an apparent threat from the junta that it would again use deadly violence against demonstrators.

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Coronavirus live news: US death toll nears 500,000; German pupils start returning to kindergartens

Posted: 22 Feb 2021 02:40 AM PST

Fauci says Americans may still be wearing masks in 2022; Berlin among 10 regions to start return to schooling; Vaccine giant says told to prioritise India

Hundreds of thousands of German pupils returned to schools and kindergartens for the first time in two months on Monday, despite fears of a third coronavirus wave fuelled by the British variant.

Schools and daycare centres reopened in 10 German regions, including the capital, Berlin, and the most populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia.

Prime minister Boris Johnson will announce plans to start unwinding England's third and potentially final coronavirus lockdown on Monday, as a quickening UK-wide inoculation drive relieves pressure on overstretched hospitals.

In a statement to parliament, Johnson will confirm the reopening of all English schools on 8 March in the first big step towards restoring normal life.

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Dutch authorities investigate Boeing 747 after engine parts drop after takeoff

Posted: 22 Feb 2021 02:15 AM PST

Longtail Aviation cargo plane scatters small metal parts over Meerssen, injuring woman

Dutch authorities are investigating after a Boeing 747-400 cargo plane dropped engine parts shortly after takeoff from Maastricht airport.

The Longtail Aviation Flight 5504 cargo plane scattered mostly small metal parts over the southern Dutch town of Meerssen on Saturday, causing damage to cars and lightly injuring one woman, local media said.

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'A pandemic of abuses': human rights under attack during Covid, says UN head

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 11:00 PM PST

Exclusive: Freedoms have been crushed and free speech impeded by governments around the world, says António Guterres

The world is facing a "pandemic of human rights abuses", the UN secretary general António Guterres has said.

Authoritarian regimes had imposed drastic curbs on rights and freedoms and had used the virus as a pretext to restrict free speech and stifle dissent.

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The Muppet Show: Disney+ adds content warning of 'negative depictions of cultures'

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 08:18 PM PST

Studio says it is acknowledging and contextualising culturally offensive material rather than cutting it

Disney+ has added a new disclaimer to old episodes of The Muppet Show, warning of "negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures" throughout the series.

The platform began streaming Jim Henson's family variety show on 19 February but prefaced 18 of its episodes with a content advisory that adds: "These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together."

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Jacinda Ardern pays tribute as Christchurch commemorates earthquake victims

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 06:28 PM PST

A minute's silence was observed at 12.51pm, exactly 10 years after the quake struck the New Zealand city

The victims of the Christchurch earthquake have been remembered at an emotional ceremony marking ten years since the tragedy.

The memorial service was held on Monday afternoon at the Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial in the heart of the city, with tributes from Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and The Queen.

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British arms sales prolonging Saudi war in Yemen, says Oxfam

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 10:00 PM PST

UK exports including air-to-air refuelling equipment will prolong conflict, say campaigners

Oxfam has accused the British government of prolonging the war in Yemen by allowing the export of air-to-air refuelling equipment that it fears could be used to help the Saudi air force conduct indiscriminate bombing in the country.

The technology was licensed to Riyadh last summer when arms restrictions were lifted, alongside £1.4bn of other sales, and can be used to help war planes fly longer missions at a time when the conflict is intensifying.

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NHS sets up mental health hubs for staff traumatised by Covid

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 11:00 PM PST

Forty hubs in England will field calls from frontline staff and contact those at higher risk directly

The NHS is setting up dozens of mental health hubs to help staff who have been left traumatised by treating Covid patients during the pandemic.

There is mounting concern that large numbers of frontline workers have experienced mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder over the last year.

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People with extremist views less able to do complex mental tasks, research suggests

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 04:01 PM PST

Cambridge University team say their findings could be used to spot people at risk from radicalisation

Our brains hold clues for the ideologies we choose to live by, according to research, which has suggested that people who espouse extremist attitudes tend to perform poorly on complex mental tasks.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge sought to evaluate whether cognitive disposition – differences in how information is perceived and processed – sculpt ideological world-views such as political, nationalistic and dogmatic beliefs, beyond the impact of traditional demographic factors like age, race and gender.

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'Painted by a madman': The Scream graffiti reveals Munch's state of mind

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 04:01 PM PST

Inscription on painting that has been subject of debate has been reattributed to the artist himself

It is an image that has intrigued the art world for more than a century and become synonymous with existential angst, and recently inspired its own emoji, but now some graffiti has added a new layer to the story of Edvard Munch's most iconic painting, The Scream.

A tiny pencil inscription in the top left corner of one of the four versions of the painting, which reads, "Can only have been painted by a madman", has been the subject of debate over who wrote it – it was originally thought to be by Munch, but was later attributed to a vandal – but new analysis by experts at the National Museum of Norway suggests it is indeed in the hand of the artist.

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Johnson unveils Covid lockdown exit plan: schools and social contact first

Posted: 22 Feb 2021 12:40 AM PST

PM to unveil proposals for England on Monday, with shops and restaurants facing longer wait

Social contact with loved ones will take precedence over the reopening of shops and hospitality when Boris Johnson sets out his roadmap for lifting restrictions in England on Monday, with school sports and family picnics offered as a trade-off for a longer closure of retail and restaurants.

Johnson will order the reopening of all schools on 8 March and pledge that two families or a group of six friends will be allowed to meet outdoors three weeks later, the Guardian understands.

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The world faces a pandemic of human rights abuses in the wake of Covid-19 | António Guterres

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 10:00 PM PST

The virus has been used as a pretext in many countries to crush dissent, criminalise freedoms and silence reporting

  • António Guterres is secretary general of the United Nations

From the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic almost one year ago, it was clear that our world faced far more than a public health emergency. The biggest international crisis in generations quickly morphed into an economic and social crisis. One year on, another stark fact is tragically evident: our world is facing a pandemic of human rights abuses.

Covid-19 has deepened preexisting divides, vulnerabilities and inequalities, and opened up new fractures, including faultlines in human rights. The pandemic has revealed the interconnectedness of our human family – and of the full spectrum of human rights: civil, cultural, economic, political and social. When any one of these rights is under attack, others are at risk.

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Scotland Covid vaccination drive linked to big drop in hospital admissions

Posted: 22 Feb 2021 01:55 AM PST

Pfizer jab cuts risk of admission by up to 85% four weeks after first dose, while AstraZeneca jab cuts risk by 94%, study finds

The Covid-19 vaccination programme has been linked to a substantial reduction in hospital admissions in Scotland, experts have said.

Researchers examined coronavirus hospital admissions among people who have had their first jab and compared them with those who had not yet received a dose of the vaccine.

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Hope for normality as Pfizer’s Covid vaccine rolled out to priority groups across Australia

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 07:09 PM PST

Quarantine, frontline health and airport workers among first to receive vaccine, which experts say will reduce virus escapes from hotels and protect vulnerable populations if it does

• Follow the Australia liveblog

Coronavirus vaccines are being rolled out across Australia in what experts says marks the start of the "final phase of the pandemic".

Those at the highest risk of infection, including quarantine and health hotel workers, frontline health staff and airport and port workers, were the first to receive it on Monday.

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God bless the style: how Billie Holiday made glamour revolutionary

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 09:58 PM PST

With Lee Daniels' film The United States Vs Billie Holiday out this week, the jazz star's signatures – gowns, gloves and gardenias – are being reassessed. Could they be seen as a radical act?

For her comeback concert at Carnegie Hall in March 1948, after 10 months in jail, Billie Holiday wore a long gown, gloves and that trademark gardenia. She was, as always, every inch the star. From those gowns on stage, to fur coats, ponytails and diamanté sunglasses offstage, Holiday oozed mid-century glamour.

Lee Daniels' The United States Vs Billie Holiday is released this month. The film, starring Andra Day, focuses on Holiday at the height of her fame in the late 40s and early 50s when she was targeted by the FBI, after she started singing Strange Fruit, a protest song about lynching in the south. Seen by the agency as a troublemaker when she refused to stop singing what was seen as a controversial song, the FBI recruited Jimmy Fletcher, a rare Black agent, to bust Holiday – a known heroin user – for drug offences. Daniels' film, using Johann Hari's 2015 book Chasing the Scream as its basis, tells the story of that time. And style is part of that story.

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Before and after: how the 2011 earthquake changed Christchurch

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 06:33 PM PST

Many parts of central Christchurch are unrecognisable now

Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel was born and raised in the city she now represents. But she finds it hard to describe how it has changed since the earthquake.

"I don't know whether it's a post-disaster thing," Dalziel says. "But for me, it's sometimes hard to remember what was there before."

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Jess Phillips: 'Motherhood made me feel like I mattered. I wish that wasn't the case'

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 10:00 PM PST

The Birmingham MP Jess Phillips has written a new book called Mother. She reflects on losing her own mum, having children – and fighting for women's rights

It is fitting that before Jess Phillips can sit down to talk about her new book on motherhood, she has to spend a few seconds encouraging her son to go back to his school work, with all the plain-speaking ("go back to school!") we've come to expect from the Labour MP for Birmingham, Yardley. She straightens herself on her sofa, and smiles through my laptop screen.

For Phillips, as for many working parents, this lockdown has been hard. She wasn't impressed with the prime minister's open letter of praise to parents last month. "I don't want his patronising, thanks," she says. "I want the government to pull their finger out and to have noticed that mothers across the country existed a year ago, and to have done something about that."

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As a Black Lord of the Rings fan, I felt left out of fantasy worlds. So I created my own | Namina Forna

Posted: 22 Feb 2021 02:33 AM PST

Author Namina Forna loved JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis' books as a child, but saw little that resembled the magic and rich mythology she saw in Africa

When I was a child, I was what you would call a JRR Tolkien fangirl. I read The Lord of the Rings over and over. I traipsed around the countryside, imagining it was Middle-earth. With just a flight of imagination, I could be snug in the Shire, exploring the mines of Moria, or even flitting through the woods of Lothlórien.

When the first Lord of the Rings movie was finally released, I was 14 and so excited to see it. But immediately, I noticed something distressing: no one on screen looked like me. The darkest characters on screen, the orcs, were all male. Even as a monster, it seemed, there was no place for people who looked like me in Tolkien's world.

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'I ate 40kg of chocolate': Yorkshire teacher, 21, on rowing solo across the Atlantic

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 10:30 AM PST

Jasmine Harrison, the youngest woman to make the 3,000-mile journey alone, relished the freedom of doing it all by herself

It was always during the night when things went wrong for Jasmine Harrison, the youngest woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Like the time her boat hurtled into a huge wave at 19.2 knots and capsized, leaving her with a badly injured elbow.

"I was basically thrown at a wall at 20-odd miles an hour. That's going to hurt, especially in the middle of your sleep," she said. "Everything happened when I was asleep."

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‘Right now I’m into Libyan reggae’: the music label delving into the Arab world's back catalogue

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 11:00 PM PST

Jannis Stürtz has trawled Casablanca and rooted around a factory in Sousse for music. The Habibi Funk founder talks about his passion for Tunisian disco, Sudanese jazz and Lebanese soft rock

Not long ago, Jannis Stürtz was at home in Berlin, checking the Instagram and Twitter pages for his record label, Habibi Funk. The former has 75,000 followers, testament to the treasure trove of information about "eclectic sounds from the Arab world" the feed contains: DJ mixes, old photos, posters, potted artist biographies, material that frequently goes beyond the stated remit and takes in visual art, film and sports – the story of Sudan's first female football referee alongside stuff about 1950s architecture in Casablanca and clips of the latest fruits of Stürtz's record-shopping expeditions in the area. But one new name among the followers stood out: "Drake started following the Habibi Funk Twitter feed," says Stürtz, in delighted tones. "Cool! I mean, that doesn't make sense in my head, but cool!"

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Police should carry drugs overdose antidote, says senior officer

Posted: 22 Feb 2021 02:28 AM PST

Exclusive: NPCC's drugs lead backs wider supply of naloxone after successful trials

The overdose antidote naloxone should be made available to all police officers in areas where there is a clear need, the police chiefs' drug lead has urged after successful pilot schemes.

North Wales police and Police Scotland are trialling having beat officers carry naloxone nasal sprays that can be used to treat opiate overdoses, and West Midlands police have extended their pilot scheme, with a rollout due to be announced.

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'He treated me as a slave': Women face rising violence amid war in Yemen

Posted: 22 Feb 2021 02:30 AM PST

Civil war has drastically cut support services for women already at high risk of violence while displacing others who are now vulnerable to armed groups

Rima* was married the year civil war erupted in Yemen. She was 15 and for much of the time over the next five years, her husband kept her chained to a wall in their home in central Yemen. "He didn't treat me as a wife, he treated me as a slave," says the 21-year-old.

An aunt eventually took pity on Rima, taking her to a psychosocial support centre in the town of Turba, 90 miles (145km) north-west of Aden. According to a doctor there, Rima now suffers from a neurological disorder brought on by the constant beatings.

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Biden to mark Covid death milestone with candle ceremony at White House – live updates

Posted: 22 Feb 2021 02:25 AM PST

President will address nation this evening on the American lives lost to the pandemic

In announcing tonight's ceremony to mark the grim milestone of the US approaching 500,000 Covid deaths, a White House statement said:

In the evening, the President will deliver remarks on the lives lost to Covid-19 in the Cross Hall. The first lady, the vice president, and the second gentleman will be in attendance. Then, the president, the first lady, the vice president, and the second gentleman will hold a moment of silence and candle lighting ceremony at sundown in the South Portico.

There were 56,495 new cases of coronavirus recorded in the US yesterday, taking the total caseload to 28,109,053.

1,249 more deaths were added to the total toll, which stands, according to the Johns Hopkins University figures, at 498,540.

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How Cuba's artists took to the kitchen to earn their crust in lockdown

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 05:00 AM PST

As Covid pushed the island's economy to the brink of collapse, musicians and film-makers found another way to be creative – cooking, baking and selling

Not far from Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion, where Che Guevara stares out nine storeys high from the side of Cuba's Ministry of the Interior, Julio Cesar Imperatori perches on the edge of a table in the kitchen of a shuttered restaurant.

"We started to run out of money," he says of himself and two friends, Osmany and Wilson. "Everyone was closing down. No one was buying pictures. So we decided to do something. We thought, everyone's gotta eat and my grandmother, Eldia, she has a recipe for pie. And so … the American Pie company."

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‘Nobody wants this job now’: the gentle leaders of China's Uighur exiles – in pictures

Posted: 22 Feb 2021 12:30 AM PST

Fleeing to Kyrgyzstan in the 1960s, communities established mosques and villages but the local leaders, or dzhigit-beshchis, are a dying breed

Dzhigit-beshchi is the name Uighur people in Kyrgyzstan give to the leader they elect for their mahallah – or community. Usually it's a respected person, mostly an elderly man.

Pushed out of China during the repressions of the 1960s, tens of thousands of Uighurs went to the former Soviet Union when these ageing leaders were just young men. Sticking closely to relatives and acquaintances who had come to Soviet cities and villages in previous waves, they built mosques and mahallahs, each with its own dzhigit-beshchi.

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Government asks sex discrimination commissioner for help as fourth allegation made against man accused of raping Brittany Higgins

Posted: 22 Feb 2021 12:20 AM PST

The ABC reports another woman made a formal report at a police station in Canberra on the weekend

The federal finance minister, Simon Birmingham, says he has spoken to the sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins, about an independent inquiry into parliamentary culture as a fourth complaint emerged against the former staffer who is alleged to have raped Brittany Higgins.

Over the past few days, the Australian newspaper has reported two new allegations against the staffer, after Higgins last week went public with the allegation she was sexually assaulted on a couch in parliament house by a former colleague in March 2019.

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Rights and freedom – a Guardian series

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 07:26 AM PST

About our new coverage, which aims to focus attention on human rights around the world

The journalism in this series gives a voice to those whose rights or freedoms have been removed, undermined or put at risk. It focuses on human rights abuses and gains, and potential for change. It is supported, in part, through a grant to theguardian.org by Humanity United, a US-based foundation dedicated to cultivating the conditions for enduring freedom and peace.

All of the journalism is editorially independent, commissioned and produced by Guardian journalists, and follows the Guardian's published editorial code. You can read more about content funding on the Guardian here.

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Republicans failing to toe the Trumpist line feel wrath of their state parties

Posted: 22 Feb 2021 12:00 AM PST

Analysis: Members of Senate and House are targets but some doubt wisdom of enforcing fealty to the one-term president

Republican state parties have been lashing out at elected officials of their own party in a sign of ongoing fealty to Donald Trump.

The moves by state party officials are highly unusual and an indication of the heated internal battles the Republican party is facing in the months and years to come as it struggles with the legacy of its capture by Trump, his allies and his loyal supporters.

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Cautious Johnson faces battle with own MPs over lockdown exit

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 02:31 PM PST

Analysis: many on the Tory backbenches want Covid restrictions over by end of April

When Boris Johnson stands at the dispatch box on Monday to deliver his roadmap for easing Covid restrictions for what he hopes will be the final time, there is likely to be a sigh of relief from his scientific advisers who will have won the most recent battle.

Johnson is now gearing up for the next tussle, which will be with his MPs. There is a truce with the cabinet.

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Spain protests: violence and looting on fifth night of unrest over rapper's jail sentence – video

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 10:35 AM PST

Police and demonstrators in Barcelona clashed for a fifth night on Saturday, with thousands taking to the streets across Spain to protest against the jailing of a controversial rapper for glorifying terrorism and insulting royalty in his music and on Twitter.

Angry demonstrations first erupted on Tuesday after police detained Pablo Hasél, 32, and took him to jail to start serving a nine-month sentence in a highly contentious free speech case

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Drone footage shows years of damage to earthquake-struck Christchurch cathedral – video

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 08:30 AM PST

Ten years after an earthquake hit Christchurch in New Zealand and left 185 people dead, a major rebuild of the city's cathedral is under way. As part of the project, a drone survey from 2019 has revealed extensive damage to the historic structure, with rubble littered around the building and chairs still strewn across the floor. When the cathedral's tower fell it opened up the building to the elements, with thousands of pigeons since taking over the space, while water ingress has caused further damage. The cathedral's rebuild is expected to be completed in 2028

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Jo Whiley says vaccine offer for her sister 'too late' as she fights Covid – video

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 06:27 AM PST

The BBC Radio 2 DJ says 'it couldn't be crueller' after her sister, Frances, has finally been offered a Covid vaccine, but it may have come too late.

Whiley said it had been the worst week of her family's lives and 24 hours ago medical staff were discussing palliative care for her sister, although on Saturday she rallied round and her oxygen levels were beginning to rise.

Whiley said she hoped speaking out about her sister's experience would highlight the need to get people with learning disabilities vaccinated as soon as possible

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Airplane debris narrowly misses Broomfield home after midair engine fire – video

Posted: 21 Feb 2021 06:18 AM PST

United Airlines plan rained debris on Denver suburbs, narrowly missing a home, after suffering catastrophic engine failure shortly after takeoff on Saturday. The Boeing 777-200 returned to the airport in an emergency landing.

United said there were no reported injuries on Flight 328 from Denver International airport to Honolulu, which had 231 passengers and 10 crew on board

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