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

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


Japan marks 10 years since triple disaster killed 18,500 people

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 10:24 PM PST

Huge waves swept across swathes of the north-east coast after one of the strongest quakes ever recorded, triggering a nuclear meltdown

Japan has observed a moment's silence to mark the 10th anniversary of an earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and triggered a nuclear meltdown in Fukushima.

At 2:46 pm, the moment Japan's north-east coast was struck by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on 11 March 2011, people attending private and public service across the affected region bowed and fell silent, some clasping their hands in prayer.

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Myanmar: UN calls for 'utmost restraint' from military as more deaths reported

Posted: 11 Mar 2021 12:01 AM PST

British-drafted UN statement watered down by China, Russia, India and Vietnam, as Amnesty says military using battlefield weapons on protesters

The United Nations has condemned the Myanmar military's violent crackdown against anti-coup demonstrators as seven more people were reported shot dead in protests on Thursday.

Local media, witnesses and medics said six people were shot dead in the central town of Myaing when security forces opened fire on anti-junta protests and domestic media said one man was killed in the North Dagon district of Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city.

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GMB staff complained about Piers Morgan's Meghan comments

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 10:00 PM PST

The Guardian learned dozens of staff made complaints to show's management about presenter's outburst

Multiple staff on Good Morning Britain made complaints to senior managers about Piers Morgan's comments on the Duchess of Sussex before he quit the show, the Guardian understands.

Morgan's departure from the programme followed the announcement of 41,000 complaints to the regulator Ofcom over remarks on Monday which cast doubt on Meghan's statement that she had been denied help with mental health issues.

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Hong Kong activists urge EU not to ratify new deal with China

Posted: 11 Mar 2021 02:33 AM PST

Activists say EU should refuse to sign treaty until national security laws and election restrictions are lifted

Hong Kong democracy activists have warned the EU it must not ratify its planned new investment deal with China at a time when Beijing is tearing up international obligations to the people of Hong Kong.

The 24 activists – including 13 in exile – have written to the EU commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, to call for the EU to refuse to sign the treaty until China's national security laws are repealed and restrictions on who can stand for election are lifted.

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'Not suitable': Catalan translator for Amanda Gorman poem removed

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 01:57 PM PST

Victor Obiols told he had wrong 'profile', the second case after Dutch writer resigned from same role

The Catalan translator for the poem that American writer Amanda Gorman read at US president Joe Biden's inauguration has said he has been removed from the job because he had the wrong "profile".

It was the second such case in Europe after Dutch writer Marieke Lucas Rijneveld resigned from the job of translating Gorman's work following criticism that a black writer was not chosen.

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Brexit: trade survey finds 74% of British firms hit by delays with EU markets

Posted: 11 Mar 2021 01:16 AM PST

Brexit red tape and disruption to global trade from pandemic leaves businesses 'severely strained'

Three-quarters of British manufacturers are struggling to cope with delays in moving goods in and out of the EU amid continuing disruption caused by Brexit and the Covid pandemic, industry figures said.

Two months after the UK left the EU on trade terms agreed by Boris Johnson's government, research from the manufacturing trade group Make UK has shown that 74% of firms in a survey of more than 200 leading industrial companies are facing delays with EU imports and exports.

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Satellite and drone images show scale of destruction from Equatorial Guinea blast – video

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 06:16 PM PST

The scale of destruction from a series of explosions in Equatorial Guinea's port city Bata has been revealed in new satellite and drone images. Blasts tore through a military base of 7 March, killing over 100 people and injuring more than 600. The images show rows of flattened buildings and areas populated with trees destroyed by the explosions. 

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Cuomo faces most serious allegation yet as aide says governor groped her

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 05:37 PM PST

New York Democrat has been accused of harassment by five other women and is under investigation by state attorney general

An aide to Andrew Cuomo says the New York governor groped her in the governor's residence, marking the most serious allegation among those made by a series of women against the embattled Democrat, according to a report published in a newspaper Wednesday.

The Times Union of Albany reported that the woman, who was not identified, was alone with Cuomo when he closed the door, reached under her shirt and fondled her. The newspaper's reporting is based on an unidentified source with direct knowledge of the woman's accusation. The governor had summoned her to the Executive Mansion in Albany, saying he needed help with his cellphone, the newspaper reported.

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Rare albino turtle hatchling spotted in Australia faces battle to survive

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 09:18 PM PST

Monitors on Queensland's Lady Elliot Island have only seen a handful of albino hatchlings but never an adult

Jessica Buckman is used to finding stragglers when she heads out to check recently hatched green turtle nests on Queensland's Lady Elliot Island.

But the tiny pink creature she found in the neck of one nest on Monday was far from a usual find – a rare albino hatchling that was having a little trouble digging itself out.

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Bronze age burial site in Spain suggests women were among rulers

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 09:00 PM PST

Researchers in Murcia find exquisite objects at women's graves later used as sites for elite warrior burials

A burial site found in Spain – described by archaeologists as one of the most lavish bronze age graves discovered to date in Europe – has sparked speculation that women may have been among the rulers of a highly stratified society that flourished on the Iberian peninsula until 1550BC.

Since 2013, a team of more than a dozen researchers have been investigating the site of La Almoloya in the southern Spanish region of Murcia.

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Coronavirus live news: Brazil daily death toll passes 2,000 for first time; Cambodia records first Covid fatality

Posted: 11 Mar 2021 02:33 AM PST

World Health Organisation gives briefing on Covid in Africa; 3,000 nurses dead, Covid exodus looming warns global federation; Brazil again suffers record deaths

France will try out a Covid-free status digital pass for air travellers with flag carrier Air France starting a month-long trial for some flights, according to the transport minister, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari.

Airlines battered by travel restrictions are pushing hard for a global standard that would reassure passengers over contagion risks onboard and accelerate an eventual recovery for the sector.

You can follow the World Health Organization's media briefing on Covid in Africa live here and at the top of this blog:

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Labor questions why majority of destinations for cheap flights are marginal seats

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 07:55 PM PST

The $1.2bn package to provide cheap flights has already been dismissed as 'second-rate' by tourism sector, as opposition questions scope

Labor has questioned why 13 regions to benefit from half-price flights to boost tourism include marginal seats in Tasmania and Queensland while neighbouring areas miss out.

The Morrison government on Thursday unveiled its $1.2bn tourism and aviation rescue package combining discount flights with business loans – but the scheme has already been labelled "second-rate" by the two sectors that warn it is an incomplete replacement for jobkeeper wage subsidies.

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Majority think Covid has increased UK social inequality, survey shows

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 04:01 PM PST

Social Mobility Commission says results show need for urgent action to stop gap growing even wider

Over half of the public believes the coronavirus outbreak has driven greater social inequality in the UK over the past few months, according to a study by the government's independent advisers.

The Social Mobility Commission said its annual survey of public attitudes revealed 56% of adults believed social inequality had increased during the pandemic. A quarter said Covid had made no difference to inequality and 16% were unsure.

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Rolls-Royce reports £4bn loss as Covid crisis shakes jet-engine maker

Posted: 11 Mar 2021 12:41 AM PST

Air travel restrictions forced firm to burn through £4.2bn in cash to keep afloat as revenues collapsed

Rolls-Royce has reported a loss of £4bn for 2020 as the jet-engine manufacturer's business was shaken by the coronavirus pandemic.

The FTSE 100 manufacturer revealed it burned through £4.2bn in cash during the year as revenues from servicing passenger aircraft collapsed. It expects to burn through a further £2bn this year.

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Eve Arnold images released as posters – in pictures

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 10:00 PM PST

A set of 15 images are being released by the Eve Arnold estate as posters to help fulfil Arnold's wishes for her work to be affordable, accessible folk art. Prints would normally cost more than £1,000. The images include two unseen images of Marilyn Monroe on the set of the Misfits

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Why we need to take bad sex more seriously

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 10:00 PM PST

Consent has been portrayed as the cure for all the ills of our sexual culture. But what if the injunction to 'know what you want' is another form of coercion?

Sometime in the early 2010s, the porn actor James Deen made a film with a fan whom he called Girl X. He would do this now and then; fans would write to him, wanting to have sex with him, or he would put out a call to "Do a Scene with James Deen", and the results would go up on his website.

In an interview in May 2017, only a few months before the media would be overwhelmed with discussions of assault and harassment by Harvey Weinstein and others – and only two years after Deen himself was accused of (but not charged with) multiple assaults (which he denied) – he said: "I have a 'Do a scene with James Deen' contest, where women can submit an application, and then, after a very long talk and months of me saying, you know, 'Everyone's going to find out, it's going to affect your future', and trying to talk them out of it kind of, then we shoot a scene."

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'Wolf in watchdog's clothing': India's new digital media laws spark fears for freedoms

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 09:07 PM PST

Everything from online news to social media and streaming platforms are captured by the regulations, branded 'palpably illegal' by opponents

Not long before he was elected as India's prime minister in 2014, Narendra Modi spoke of his dreams of a "digital India", where "access to information knows no barriers".

But this week, unprecedented barriers on every form of digital content, from online news to social media and films and television on streaming platforms, came into force, making India's digital realm one of the most heavily regulated of any major democracy.

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'I learned about storytelling from Final Fantasy': novelist Raven Leilani on Luster and video games

Posted: 11 Mar 2021 12:00 AM PST

Drawing on her own cathartic relationship with role-playing games, Leilani uses gaming as a narrative device and an inspiration in her acclaimed debut

There is an extraordinary and telling moment in Raven Leilani's acclaimed novel Luster, about a young black woman who has an affair with a middle-aged white man and ends up living with his family. The woman, Edie, is heading back to her lover's house with his adopted black daughter, Akila, when the pair are stopped and questioned by two police officers. Although Edie is compliant, Akila – younger and much less worldly – challenges the cops and gets thrust to the ground and restrained. The confrontation is rife with fear and tension, and when it's over (diffused when Akila's white mother intervenes), the first thing Edie and Akila do is go inside, sit down and play a video game.

Much of the fervid discussion around Luster has focused on Leilani's astute and witty analysis of sexual politics and racial power structures in the 21st-century US. But a key part of her acutely realised portrayal of a millennial protagonist coping with crappy jobs and crappier love affairs is Edie's natural relationship with digital culture and technology. At a time in which video game references are still mostly consigned to YA and sci-fi books, Leilani has made them a central component of a literary novel.

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‘For women, it’s behind enemy lines!’ Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe on their parenting podcast

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 10:00 PM PST

It began as a way to moan about the pandemic – or avoid childcare. Now Lockdown Parenting Hell is downloaded 2m times a month. The comedians chat fatherhood, burnout – and dreaming of the pub

Like many comedians, Josh Widdicombe and Rob Beckett found themselves without an outlet when the pandemic struck. And so, like many comedians, they decided to make a podcast. Theirs – Lockdown Parenting Hell – has become one of the most popular in the country, mining the stresses of everything from twins, tantrums and building a trampoline to the tune of more than 15m downloads.

Beckett has two young children with his wife, Louise Watts, while Widdicome and his wife, Rose Hanson, have one, with another on the way. Each week, the pair interview a celebrity (past guests have included Michael Sheen, Philippa Perry and Paddy McGuinness) while sharing stories about their upended domestic lives. It is fast, fun and, at times, genuinely touching. Here, they share their thoughts on their pandemic pastime.

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Andrea Jenkins: the first Black openly transgender woman to hold US public office

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 10:00 PM PST

As the George Floyd murder trial opens in Minneapolis, the city councillor talks about coming out as trans, the prejudices she has had to overcome – and how policing must change

Andrea Jenkins lives just a few blocks away from 38th and Chicago, the crossroads in Minneapolis where George Floyd was killed on 25 May last year. She spent two decades of her life working to revitalise the community there, and kicked off her 2017 campaign for the city council's Eighth ward in an arts centre a few yards away.

After Floyd's death, when the crossroads became a space for collective mourning, Jenkins visited every day. But in the midst of a bitter Minneapolis winter and with the neighbourhood reeling from the long-term effects of Floyd's death, Jenkins hasn't been in months.

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Violence against women an 'epidemic' that needs more resources, says Labour

Posted: 11 Mar 2021 02:35 AM PST

Shadow minister Jess Phillips spoke out following suspected abduction of Sarah Everard

Violence against women is an epidemic which requires far more attention and resources, Labour's shadow minister for domestic violence, Jess Phillips, has said, in the wake of the disappearance of Sarah Everard, who police believe may have been abducted as she walked home in south London.

Phillips, who will speak at parliament's International Women's Day debate on Thursday when she will read out the names of all the women murdered by men in the past year, said it was untrue to say that the killing of women was rare.

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Moroccan court approves Australian citizen's extradition to Saudi Arabia

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 05:57 PM PST

Lawyers for Osama al-Hasani have 'credible concerns' he was targeted for his political views but his wife says she is 'still hoping for a miracle'

The wife of an Australian citizen who is to be extradited to Saudi Arabia says she "hopes a miracle will happen" after a Moroccan court approved his transfer.

International lawyers acting for Osama al-Hasani, 42, have asked United Nations special rapporteurs to raise his case with Moroccan authorities, citing "credible concerns" that he was being targeted by the Saudi Arabian government for his political opinions.

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'Ecological island': as Maasai herding lands shrink, so does space for Kenya's elephants

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 11:30 PM PST

The collapse of ecotourism during the pandemic and moves to lease land to big farms threaten vital conservation corridors

Kenyan elephants risk a slow extinction in a bleak, ever-shrinking "ecological island" in one of the country's most picturesque and photographed landscapes, according to a government report.

The animals face a grim future as habitat loss is exacerbated by the pandemic's impact on tourism, which is pushing landowners to sell off areas for development, and a growing trend towards a sedentary lifestyle among the pastoralist Maasai people, says the new 10-year management plan.

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Democrats try to sell newly-passed Covid relief plan to the US – live updates

Posted: 11 Mar 2021 02:45 AM PST

Biden to address nation on first anniversary of Covid shutdowns as Schumer says 'Help is on the way'

Yesterday President Joe Biden pledged that surplus vaccines will be shared with the rest of the world, after he announced the purchase of an additional 100m Johnson & Johnson doses.

"If we have a surplus, we're going to share it with the rest of the world," he said. "This is not something that can be stopped by a fence no matter how high you build a fence or a wall. So we're not going to be safe until the world is safe. And so, we're going to start off making sure Americans are taken care of first, but we're then going to try and help the rest of the world."

Here's a reminder from our Lauren Gambino on what the Covid stimulus bill contains:

$1,400 stimulus checks: A majority of Americans – as many as 85% of US households, according to Democrats – will receive direct payments of $1,400 per person. Individuals making less than $75,000 and married couples making less than $150,000 collectively would receive the checks. The payments would gradually decrease for those earning more.

Related: $1,400 stimulus checks and vaccine funds: what the Covid relief bill contains

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Come True review – blow-out imagery in visionary sleep disorder thriller

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 11:00 PM PST

An insomniac student is haunted by a demonic figure in this flamboyant and stylised waking dream of a film

There is something visionary about this near-nonsensical, kitsch but atmospheric techno-thriller from Canadian director Anthony Scott Burns. Drawn along on dark somnambulic rhythms, it incorporates elements of fantasy, horror and 80s synthwave aesthetics without giving itself over completely to any of them.

A wordless first 10 minutes introduces us to Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone), a runaway student apparently unwelcome or unwilling to return home, waking in spectrally lit parks and falling asleep in coffee shops. Dropping suddenly into surrealistic CGI dreams that track inexorably towards a demonic figure who, if approached too closely, wakes her with a start. Sarah decides to try and climb out of this insomniac bath by enrolling in a university sleep study. It is overseen by Dr Meyer, a Cronenbergian academic in big glasses, but run by a trio of researchers who, like the memory technicians in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, have a loose relationship with scientific protocol. Becoming close to Jeremy (Landon Liboiron), she learns that they are using pioneering technology to observe the subjects' dreams – and that the same shadowy presence manifests in all of them.

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China adopts new laws to ensure only 'patriots' can govern Hong Kong

Posted: 11 Mar 2021 01:29 AM PST

UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab accuses Beijing of hollowing out the space for democratic debate

China's rubber stamping parliamentary body has unanimously – bar one abstention and to sustained and loud applause – approved new laws ensuring that only people it deems "patriots" can govern Hong Kong, in a move critics say signals the end of the city's remaining autonomy.

The final meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC) at the annual "two sessions" political gathering also approved new domestic amendments and budgets, and the 14th five-year-plan, intended to strengthen and expand China's domestic technology industry and market, and reach new GDP and population targets amid economic uncertainty and declining birth rates.

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How to access one of the 800,000 cheap flights in Australia's tourism bailout package

Posted: 11 Mar 2021 02:08 AM PST

An initial list of 13 destinations for the half-price flights has been released, but the government says more locations could be added

Australians will be able to access half-priced flights to a handful of regional tourist destinations after the government announced it would subsidise certain routes as part of a $1.2bn support package for the tourism sector ravaged by state and international border closures.

While the prime minister, Scott Morrison, labelled the airfare initiative – which includes subsidising 800,000 domestic airfares – a "ticket to recovery", tourism and hospitality leaders have criticised the package for only targeting aviation businesses. They have warned it won't do enough to save jobs after the jobseeker wage subsidy is cut off at the end of March.

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To protect women from violence today, we must secure justice for victims in the past | FW de Klerk

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 03:14 AM PST

South Africa's former president calls for the pandemic to be a turning point in strengthening the rule of law and empowering survivors

Violence and sexual assault have surged across the globe since the onset of Covid-19, in what the UN has called a "shadow pandemic". Even before the pandemic, one in three women experienced physical or sexual assault globally, the World Health Organization reported this week.

In Africa, the impact has been particularly acute. In the first half of 2020, a rise in reported cases prompted Liberia's President Weah to declare rape and all forms of gender-based violence a national emergency.

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$1,400 stimulus checks and vaccine funds: what the Covid relief bill contains

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 04:24 PM PST

The bill passed by the House includes sweeping measures to try to tackle deep-rooted racial, gender and class inequalities in the US

The US House on Wednesday passed the huge $1.9tn coronavirus relief and economic stimulus package that represents Joe Biden's first major legislative victory.

Related: Biden poised for first major legislative victory with House vote on $1.9tn Covid relief – live

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Biden's $1.9tn Covid relief bill marks an end to four decades of Reaganism | Analysis

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 11:20 AM PST

Analysis: Reagan's presidency undermined faith in government. The stimulus package helps restore FDR's legacy

Joe Biden reflected recently on the last time a Democratic administration had to rescue an economy left in tatters by a Republican president.

"The economists told us we literally saved America from a depression," Biden told the House Democratic Caucus last week. "But we didn't adequately explain what we had done. Barack was so modest; he didn't want to take, as he said, a 'victory lap'. I kept saying, 'Tell people what we did.' He said, 'We don't have time. I'm not going to take a victory lap.' And we paid a price for it, ironically, for that humility."

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Meghan and Harry racism row ‘may deepen schisms in Commonwealth’

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 04:53 AM PST

Analysis: revelations may be used in member state debates about becoming republics, say experts

In the 1980s, it was the question of apartheid-era South Africa that threatened to drive a wedge through the Commonwealth.

But while some credit the Queen then with a heroic role behind the scenes – dramatised with more than a dollop of artistic licence in season four of The Crown – in 2021 the threat comes from a row over alleged racism within the royal family itself.

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Biden pledges surplus vaccines will be shared with the rest of the world – video

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 10:22 PM PST

The US president has pledged surplus vaccines will be shared with the rest of the world, after he announced the purchase of an additional 100m Johnson & Johnson doses. 'If we have a surplus, we're going to share it with the rest of the world,' he said. 'This is not something that can be stopped by a fence no matter how high you build a fence or a wall. So we're not going to be safe until the world is safe. And so, we're going to start off making sure Americans are taken care of first, but we're then going to try and help the rest of the world.' The president reiterated plans to have all American adults vaccinated by the end of May and revealed the country hit a record of 2.9m vaccinations in one day on Saturday

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'Help is on the way': Democrats cheer as US House passes $1.9tn Covid relief plan – video

Posted: 10 Mar 2021 02:34 PM PST

The House of Representatives gave final approval on Wednesday to one of the largest economic stimulus measures in US history, a sweeping $1.9tn Covid-19 relief bill that gives Joe Biden his first major victory in office. The measure provides $400bn for $1,400 direct payments to most Americans, $350bn in aid to state and local governments, an expansion of the child tax credit, and increased funding for vaccine distribution. 'This is the most consequential legislation that many of us will ever be a party to,' the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said at a ceremony to sign the bill before it goes to the White House

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