Paris furious at scrapping of Australian submarine contract and new three-way technology pact
A Franco-British defence ministers?€? summit due to take place this week has been cancelled as Paris steps up its protests over the loss of a £48bn submarine contract with Australia and its secret replacement with nuclear technology from the UK and US.
Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, and his opposite number, Florence Parly, had been due to hold a bilateral meeting in London and address the two-day Franco-British Council, now the latest casualties of the diplomatic row.
Only those who cannot be replaced by men may remain, in further sign of Taliban?€?s hardline rule over Afghans
Female employees in the Kabul city government have been told to stay home, with work only allowed for those who cannot be replaced by men, the interim mayor of Afghanistan?€?s capital said on Sunday, detailing the latest restrictions on women by the new Taliban rulers.
The decision to prevent most female city workers from returning to their jobs is another sign that the Taliban, who overran Kabul last month, are enforcing their harsh interpretation of Islam despite initial promises by some that they would be tolerant and inclusive. Under their previous rule in the 1990s, the Taliban barred girls and women from schools, jobs and public life.
About 40 people were evacuated from near the volcano on La Palma Island before the eruption
A volcano erupted on the Spanish Canary Island of La Palma on Sunday after a week of building seismic activity.
A huge column of smoke rose up after the eruption at 3.15pm local time in the Cumbre Vieja national park in the south of the island, according to the Canary Islands government.
?€?It was beautiful,?€? says Nathan Paulin after traversing slackline over Paris river to mark country?€?s Heritage Day
A French highline walker has crossed the River Seine in Paris at a height of 70 metres, in a breathtaking feat watched by cheering crowds on the Eiffel Tower and along the banks.
Attached by a strap to a safety lanyard, 27-year-old Nathan Paulin slowly progressed barefoot on a line stretched across the river between the Eiffel Tower and the Chaillot theatre. He stopped for a few breaks, sitting or lying on the rope.
The former Democratic congressman Beto O?€?Rourke is set to mount a third campaign for major political office with a run for governor in Texas, Axios reported on Sunday.
Prince reportedly ?€?met at least nine times?€? with William Bortrick, the alleged fixer at heart of the claims
Clarence House is facing fresh questions over further revelations in the royal ?€?cash-for-honours?€? scandal involving middlemen who reportedly took cuts for setting up meetings between wealthy donors and the Prince of Wales.
Prince Charles ?€?met at least nine times?€? with William Bortrick, the alleged fixer at the heart of the claims, who is said to have received thousands of pounds to secure an honour for a Saudi billionaire and brokered a personal thank you letter from Charles to a Russian donor, the Sunday Times reported.
New drug combination shrunk tumours significantly in 46% of patients with treatment-resistant form of disease
Thousands of women with ovarian cancer could benefit from a revolutionary drug combination after it was shown to shrink tumours in half of patients with an advanced form of the disease.
The pair of drugs - which work together to block the signals cancer cells need to grow - could offer a new treatment option for women with a type of ovarian cancer that rarely responds to chemotherapy or hormone therapy.
Cheers and jeers greet political rivals trying to succeed Merkel, as they chase green votes in the former DDR
As Annalena Baerbock steps on to the stage, the downpour that minutes before had soaked those gathered on Chemnitz?€?s Theater Platz ceases. The Green party candidate is quick to use the opportunity to stress that everything is still possible. ?€?Minutes ago it was raining, now the sun has come out - it can happen,?€? she says with a huge grin, hinting that the change in the weather is a good omen for her party?€?s fortunes.
There are both chuckles and jeers from those gathered. With a week to go before one of the most open and tension-filled German elections in years, Baerbock is in the last stages of a campaign that weeks ago saw her heading for the top job, as successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel, but in which she is now fighting for second or third place.
Site ridicules far-right suggestion that people should be made to have ?€?more French?€? names
When a far-right political journalist and possible presidential contender began talking about people having ?€?un-French?€? names, there really was only one response: satire.
The humorous website Vite Mon Prénom (My Name, Quick) was set up to offer a one-click test to find out if your name is French enough, based on a repealed 1803 law, and suggest alternatives if it is considered unacceptably foreign.
Four-person crew asked for the public?€?s help in reaching fundraising target of $200m for the children?€?s charity St Jude
Elon Musk surprised his first all-private crew of space tourists with a welcome home gift after their trailblazing trip to orbit ended on Saturday night: a $50m donation to the children?€?s charity St Jude.
More than 100m doses could be discarded by December if global leaders do not share jabs with poorest countries, warns former PM
More than 100m Covid vaccine doses are due to expire and be ?€?thrown away?€? unless global leaders urgently share surplus supplies with the world?€?s poorest countries, Gordon Brown has warned.
The ?€?staggering?€? number of stockpiled ?€?use now?€? jabs will be of no use to anyone by December, according to a new report from the research group Airfinity.
Ireland?€?s chief medical officer has praised the country?€?s ?€?exceptionally?€? high level of vaccine uptake, describing it as the envy of the world.
The vaccine programme hit a milestone at the weekend, with more than 90% of people over the age of 16 now fully vaccinated, the PA reports.
While vaccination remains our best means of protection against COVID-19, there are additional things that you can do to prevent transmission of the disease. pic.twitter.com/MVyC9xCsEp
The UK government said a further 56 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of today, bringing the UK total to 135,203.
Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have been 159,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, the PA reports.
Ursula von der Leyen says the union?€?s vaccination programme is now a success after its stumbling start
We did it,?€? said Ursula von der Leyen in her annual state of the union address last week. With more than 70% of its adult population now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, Europe is, ?€?against all critics, among the world leaders?€?.
Moreover, the Commission president said, the EU had exported half its vaccines: ?€?We delivered more than 700 million doses to the European people, and we delivered more than 700 million doses to the rest of the world. We are the only region to achieve that.?€?
The food writer discusses her new book, Med, while Yotam Ottolenghi, José Pizarro and Sam Clark pick their favourite dishes
Claudia Roden wasn?€?t sure that anyone would be interested in her writing another cookbook. ?€?I kept telling my agent, ?€?Nobody will want a book from an octogenarian!?€??€? she says on a video call. Roden has just turned 85 to be exact, and she knew she wouldn?€?t have the energy for her usual process: travelling across countries and regions, painstakingly collecting recipes and stories from food lovers and chefs. But she is still a formidable home cook and relentless entertainer - for friends, for her children, now in their 50s and 60s, and their children - and, with a nudge from her agent, Roden wondered if there might be something in that.
?€?I was thinking, ?€?What do I want from my life now??€??€? she says. ?€?And I found that having people for dinner was what I enjoyed more than going to the theatre or to a concert. To have them just around my kitchen table was my idea and it will be what we cook. So I cooked hundreds of dishes and when we thought, ?€?This is marvellous,?€? it went in the book. I didn?€?t plan it to be Mediterranean. But it just was Mediterranean. Because that?€?s where I went.?€?
In order for true diversity to flourish, we need to first become unswervingly anti-racist. That means doing more than watching a few documentaries or reading some books, says Nova Reid. Consciously ?€?unlearning?€? racism is the crucial first step
I felt overwhelmed: 40,000 hits to my website - 50 times more than the average month - plus 2,000 emails, people tagging me in social media posts to let their followers know they had signed up to my online anti-racism course - but not always actually signing up. The murder of George Floyd had thrown up a very apparent collective sense of white guilt around the world.
I had been doing anti-racism work long before the summer of 2020, so I didn?€?t understand why - increased volume aside - some of these interactions felt so different to the usual business inquiries I receive. I felt there was such a sense of ownership over me, my time, my words, what I should talk about and when. The more boundaries I put up, the more they would trample over them.
The ?38m asylum seeker centre on Samos - the first of five - has restaurants and air-conditioning but it?€?s like a prison, say critics
It has eight restaurants, seven basketball courts, three playgrounds, a football pitch, special rooms for vulnerable people, and is purportedly eco-friendly.
But Greece?€?s new ?€?closed?€? migrant camp for 3,000 asylum seekers on Samos is also surrounded by military-grade fencing, watched over by police and located in a remote valley, and has been likened by critics to a jail or a dystopian nightmare. Its message is clear: if Europe-bound asylum seekers reach the country, they are going to be strictly controlled.
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers?€? questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts
I understand that tears flush away foreign objects from the eye. But what advantage does crying have when one is feeling sad (or happy)? Perhaps it is to signal an extreme of emotion, but then why would a solitary sad person cry when there was no one around? David Dobbs
My parents are Bangladeshi Muslims. My husband is an Ashkenazi Jew. And our baby son? He?€?ll eat chicken soup and chicken curry?€?
Even before my son was born, I used to imagine all the things I would feed my future children. They would come home from school, backpacks hanging off their shoulders and tummies rumbling, and ask what was for dinner. I pictured them round-faced and cheerful, tucking into the same meals that I grew up with. I would heap their plates with hot white rice, garlicky dal garnished with coriander, and spicy fried fish. They would eat with their hands of course, like any well brought-up child of Bangladeshi origin, deftly picking out the tiny bones, and squeezing wedges of lime over the crispy fish skin, which they would save until last as a treat, licking the tangy juice off their fingers.
I already knew the satisfaction I would get from watching them eat; and knew too, the importance of warding off chok - the Evil Eye - by saying ?€?Masha?€?Allah?€?, thanking God for their hearty appetites and chubby legs. I would teach them to say ?€?Bismillah?€? before every meal and ?€?Shukr alhamdulillah?€? when they finished, making sure they were aware of the gift of nourishment they had received.
Pre-emptively branding as rigged an election you are likely to lose risks turning off GOP voters and undermining democracy
It was a pre-emptive strike against truth by some of the biggest names on the American right wing.
Former president Donald Trump warned that the ballot would be ?€?rigged?€?. The Republican candidate Larry Elder predicted ?€?shenanigans?€?. The conservative media star Tomi Lahren suggested that ?€?voter fraud?€? was inevitable.
More than a dozen women staged a protest in Kabul on Sunday, holding up signs calling for the participation of women in public life. The protest came as female government employees in Kabul were told to stay home, with work only allowed for those who cannot be replaced by men. The order was given by the interim mayor of Kabul, detailing the latest restrictions on women by the new Taliban rulers.
York Theatre Royal Tonderai Munyevu?€?s semi-autographical show addresses Zimbabwe?€?s traumatic history with honesty and humour
Clothes hang in broken rows above the bare stage (Nicolai Hart-Hansen?€?s design). Dresses, suits, uniforms - they are presences that suggest absences, the ?€?ghosts?€? of the people in the stories that Tonderai Munyevu and Millie Chapanda are bringing to life through words and music.
The text of Mugabe, My Dad & Me, written by Munyevu, is an assemblage of the events that have shaped his complicated identity as a ?€?gay, black Zimbabwean man?€?. The narrative is set in motion by a white man?€?s question: ?€?Where are you from??€? Never shrinking from confronting the (overwhelmingly white) audience with the lazy tropes of the colonial mindset, Munyevu sets before us intersecting histories, both personal and political, ?€?bouncing, non-linear?€? between Zimbabwe and the UK, past and present.
Hot and dry weather extends threat of rapid spread
Base of General Sherman Tree wrapped in protective foil
Hot and dry weather on Sunday added to the challenges facing California firefighters battling to keep flames from driving further into a grove of ancient sequoias, where the base of the world?€?s tallest tree has been wrapped in protective foil.
Thousands seeking to escape poverty and hunger in their own country remain encamped under and near a bridge in Del Rio
Haitian migrants seeking to escape poverty, hunger and hopelessness in their home country said they would not be deterred by US plans to swiftly send them back, as thousands remained encamped in the remote Texas city of Del Rio.
Around 80% of global trade is transported across oceans on cargo vessels powered by fossil fuels, Pacific nations are calling for decisive global action
Casten Ned Nemra is minister of foreign affairs of the Marshall Islands
Many communities around the world have recently been confronted with the dangerous impacts of climate change and as world leaders prepare to meet in Glasgow for the COP26 summit, are examining what action needs to be taken.
But one of the world?€?s major global greenhouse gas emitters has long escaped global attention.
When the ?€?subscription social network?€? OnlyFans announced it would be banning the sexually explicit content that made it a billion-dollar business, sex workers were up in arms - and many observers wondered how the move could make financial sense. Then it had second thoughts. So what does this tech saga tell us about where pornography fits into the future of the internet - and is it just another example of the sex industry treating women as disposable?
OnlyFans bills itself as a wide-ranging ?€?subscription social network?€? where content creators of any kind can charge their followers to view their output - but in reality its hugely successful business is largely based around sex. That emphasis only grew during the pandemic, with more and more users spending their free time online - and more people wondering about a new source of income. With the company valued at about $1bn (£720m), and celebrities like Cardi B and Bella Thorne signing up, it was hard to see it doing anything other than more of the same.
Gang violence, bloody protests, food and fuel shortages plus natural disasters have spurred many to leave the west?€?s poorest nation
Every night Guy would fall asleep to the sound of gunfire: warring gangs in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, were fighting pitched battles in the city centre.
By day, the country was roiled by bloody protests against food and fuel shortages. Roadblocks with burning tyres were commonplace, and the police responded with tear gas and billy clubs.
Campaigners fear ban emboldens anti-choice governments as more aggressive opposition, better organised and funded, spreads from US
The new anti-abortion law in Texas is a ?€?terrifying?€? reminder of the fragility of hard-won rights, pro-choice activists have said, as they warn of a ?€?more aggressive, much better organised [and] better funded?€? global opposition movement.
Pro-choice campaigners have seen several victories in recent years, including in Ireland, Argentina and, most recently, Mexico, where the supreme court ruled last week that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional. Another is hoped for later this month when the tiny enclave of San Marino, landlocked within Italy, holds a highly charged referendum.
In August, Apple announced plans to use a tool called neuralMatch to scan photos being uploaded to iCloud online storage and compare them to a database of known images of child abuse.
With rural areas of the country left to suffer, aid workers fear funds are drying up as global compassion fatigue sets in
David Nazaire, a 45-year-old coffee farmer from Beaumont, a small village in rural southern Haiti, was getting ready to harvest when an earthquake struck his home and livelihood. Much of the farming infrastructure - as well as nearby homes, schools and churches - was damaged or completely destroyed. A month later, he and thousands of rural Haitians - those most severely affected by the tremor - are still waiting for relief, and are not expecting it to arrive soon.
?€?The earthquake didn?€?t destroy our crops, but it did take everything else,?€? Nazaire says, outside a neighbour?€?s house, now a pile of rubble beneath plastic roof tiles supported by the remnants of concrete walls. ?€?We were just getting ready to harvest, but that?€?s lost now.?€?
Photographer Tommy Trenchard documents students whose stories of transformation at the Hogwarts of South Africa are more than just fairytales
To fans of JK Rowling?€?s books, the story may sound somewhat familiar: a young boy living in difficult circumstances is enrolled in a mysterious school far from home, where his life is changed for ever by the transformative power of magic.
Anele Dyasi?€?s story is no fairytale, though, and the school in question is not Hogwarts, but the College of Magic in Cape Town, a unique institution that has been training some of the continent?€?s most skilled illusionists since the 1980s.
The career of the Observer?€?s former China correspondent who died last week, was marked by a willingness to review his convictions
Jonathan Mirsky, the Observer?€?s former China correspondent who has died aged 88, was acutely aware of the mounting danger from the bullets criss-crossing Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989 as units of the People?€?s Liberation Army were sent in to break up the protests. He was aware too that he desperately needed to get his copy to London.
Writing about the experience 30 years later, Mirsky admitted that few at first had any sense of the scale of the violence that was being unleashed either on the students in the square. All that, however, was to change quickly.
As country?€?s traditional allies take a more confrontational approach to China, it could offset Anglosphere divide with new partnerships
During the announcement that America, the United Kingdom and Australia had formed a new Aukus defence pact - inaugurated with the sale of American nuclear-powered submarines to Australia - Australian prime minister Scott Morrison lauded it as a ?€?forever partnership for a new time between the oldest and most trusted of friends?€?.
That phrasing was notable given that the deal excluded New Zealand, which has historically been so close with Australia that the Australian constitution contemplates complete integration of the two countries. Remarkably, New Zealand?€?s government apparently only learned about the Aukus deal when it began to be reported in the media on Wednesday.
Rifts over the Iraq war or Nato pale into insignificance. True, the French recalled their ambassador to Rome a couple of years ago, irked by the insults sent their way by the upstart Five Star leader Luigi di Maio, but that was a little warning to populists to stop encouraging the disruption of the yellow vest protests.
An overhaul of England?€?s Covid-19 rules governing international travel has been announced by the Department for Transport, scrapping the traffic light system and signalling changes to requirements to undergo PCR testing on arrival.
The aim, according to the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, is to simplify rules and decrease the burden on people travelling by replacing the system with a single red list and one for the rest of the world.
On Saturday the US government worked on plans to send many of the thousands of Haitian immigrants who have gathered in a Texas border city back to their Caribbean homeland. Aerial video from local media showed Haitians crossing the Rio Grande freely and in a steady stream on Friday, going back and forth between the US and Mexico through knee-deep water, with some parents carrying small children on their shoulders. People pitched tents and built shelters from giant reeds. Many bathed and washed clothing in the river
Jean-Pierre Thebault, the French ambassador to Australia, said France was kept in the dark over the surprise cancellation of a submarine contract in favour of a US deal. France recalled its ambassadors to Australia and the US on Friday in an unprecedented show of anger over a deal between the US, Australia and the UK to provide Australia with a fleet of at least eight nuclear-powered submarines
A US drone strike in Kabul last month killed as many as 10 civilians, including up to seven children, Gen Frank McKenzie, the head of Central Command, told reporters on Friday. Senior officers had said the 29 August strike which took place as foreign forces completed the last stages of their withdrawal from Afghanistan targeted an Islamic States suicide bomber who posed an imminent threat. 'At the time of the strike, I was confident that the strike had averted an imminent threat to our forces at the airport,' McKenzie said. 'Our investigation now concludes that the strike was a tragic mistake.'
Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker of the US Congress, has likened the 6 January attack to 9/11, saying one had been an assault on US democracy from within and the other from the outside. Speaking at a Chatham House seminar in London on Friday, she also claimed the Republicans had been hijacked by a cult that believed neither in science nor government, making it hard for the US to be governed
Firefighters have wrapped the base of the world?€?s largest tree in a fire-resistant blanket as they tried to save a famous grove of gigantic old-growth sequoias from wildfires burning in California. The colossal General Sherman tree in Sequoia national park?€?s giant forest is among the trees to be wrapped in aluminium as wildfires close in on the Giant Forest
The Republican senator Jim Risch pressed the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, over rumours someone in the White House has the ability to cut off the president's microphone when he speaks. While Blinken chuckled throughout the questioning, Risch continued to press his claims after an earlier video from the White House featuring Biden cut off during a briefing. 'It?€?s been widely reported that somebody has the ability to push the button and cut off his sound and stop him from speaking,' Risch said.
Blinken replied: 'Anyone who knows the president, including members of this committee, knows that he speaks very clearly and very deliberately for himself'
France has expressed fury over Australia?€?s surprise decision to scrap a huge submarine deal in favour of nuclear-powered subs from the US, describing it as a 'stab in the back' from Canberra and a strain on its friendly relationship with Washington. 'We had established a relationship of trust with Australia, this trust has been betrayed,' said the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian
Large number of US citizens demonstrated against the war in Iraq (and the possible war in Iran) during this October weekend. Massive turnout in Boston and San Fransisco, and also in Chicago, LA and DC people took to the streets. The message was: NO more war in Iraq! NO to a war with Iran!
