Gay references removed from Fantastic Beasts 3 for Chinese release

Big-budget fantasy sequel has had six seconds cut, as Warner Bros releases statement to say ‘the spirit of the film remains intact’

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore has been edited for release in China to ensure any gay references have been removed.

The fantasy sequel, which has an estimated budget of $200m, contains allusions to a romantic history between the characters of Dumbledore and Grindelwald, played by Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen respectively. Six seconds of dialogue, including the lines “Because I was in love with you” and “The summer Gellert and I fell in love”, were taken out for the Chinese release on 8 April.

Continue reading...

US tells some consulate staff to leave Shanghai as Covid outbreak worsens

State department cites risk of children and parents being separated as EU warns zero-Covid strategy eroding investor confidence

The US has said it has asked all its non-essential staff and their family members at the Shanghai consulate to leave, in Washington’s latest response to the financial hub’s handling of the worsening Covid outbreak.

The state department ordered the departure “due to the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak” there, according to a spokesperson from its Beijing embassy. “It is best for our employees and their families to be reduced in number and our operations to be scaled down as we deal with the changing circumstances on the ground,” the person said on Tuesday.

Continue reading...

China requested heavily armed security team be sent to Solomon Islands, leaked documents reveal

The 10-person detail was to be armed with pistols, rifles, two machine guns and a sniper rifle to protect Chinese embassy

China requested that a plainclothes 10-person security detail armed with pistols, rifles, two machine guns and a sniper rifle be dispatched to Solomon Islands late last year, leaked documents reveal.

The Guardian has received a copy of the documents, dated 3 December 2021, in which China requested security personnel be allowed to enter the country to secure the Chinese embassy in Honiara, in the wake of the riots there in November.

Continue reading...

Black Ferns report favouritism, body-shaming and cultural insensitivity in scathing review

Review involved interviews with 50 current and former players, managers and coaches of New Zealand women’s rugby team

New Zealand’s governing rugby body has failed to properly support women’s high performance rugby, with some players reporting favouritism, ghosting, body-shaming and culturally insensitive comments, a scathing review of one of the world’s top women’s rugby teams has found.

The more than 30-page review, which came with 26 recommendations, was instigated after a senior Black Ferns player – Te Kura Ngata-Aerengamate – posted on social media that she had suffered a mental health breakdown following the Black Ferns’ 2021 end-of-year tour to England and France.

Continue reading...

Backlash in Osaka as ‘Dream Island’ leads race to open Japan’s first casino

Concerns raised over development costs for ‘integrated resort’, as well as crime and gambling addiction

The focus of Japan’s quest to open its first casino is a human-made island in Osaka that, if the city’s government gets its way, will end decades of wrangling over the country’s fraught relationship with poker tables and slot machines.

On a recent weekday morning there was little to suggest that Yumeshima – “Dream Island” – could, by the end of the decade, be the site of an unprecedented experiment with gambling in the world’s third biggest economy.

Continue reading...

Dozens killed in Philippines landslides and floods as tropical storm Megi hits

More than 17,000 people flee their homes as landslides engulf villages, cutting off roads and power

Rescuers hampered by mud and rain have used their bare hands and shovels to search for survivors of landslides that smashed into villages in the central Philippines, as the death toll from tropical storm Megi rose to 42.

More than 17,000 people fled their homes as the storm pummelled the disaster-prone region in recent days, flooding houses, severing roads and knocking out power.

Continue reading...

Morning mail: Putin confronted by Austria’s leader, flood-related scams, Sydney’s last video shop

Tuesday: Austrian chancellor becomes first western leader to hold face-to-face talks with Russian president since invasion of Ukraine. Plus: Australia’s top travel experiences

  • Want to get the morning mail to your email inbox every weekday? Sign up here

Good morning. Putin meets Austria’s chancellor in his first face-to-face visit with a western leader since the invasion of Ukraine. Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese will be out campaigning in marginal seats, with jobs and healthcare on the election agenda. And Lonely Planet selects Australia’s top travel experiences.

The last Ukrainian soldiers defending Mariupol said they were “running out of ammunition” on Monday and expected to be killed or taken prisoner very soon by Russian forces surrounding the city. Writing on Facebook, the 36th brigade said its 47-day defence of Mariupol was coming to a tragic conclusion. “We were bombed from airplanes and shot at by artillery and tanks. We have been doing everything possible and impossible,” it said. Meanwhile, Austria’s chancellor, Karl Nehammer, said he told Vladimir Putin that “all those responsible” for war crimes must be brought to justice and warned that western sanctions would intensify as long as people kept dying in Ukraine. After becoming the first western leader to hold face-to-face talks with the Russian president since the invasion, Nehammer said his trip to Moscow was not “a visit of friendship” and that the two had had a “direct, open and hard” conversation.

Continue reading...

Six new wētā species found in New Zealand, as their habitat slowly disappears

Global heating speeding up their decline as terrain of newly discovered alpine species disappears

Six new alpine species of New Zealand’s most unusual and beloved insect – the wētā – have been discovered, but it is a bittersweet victory, with another piece of research describing the threat global heating poses for their snowy mountain habitat.

Wētā belong to the same group of insects as crickets and grasshoppers, and there are between 70 and 100 species of wētā endemic to New Zealand. They are wingless and nocturnal, and some, including the wētāpunga, are among the heaviest insects in the world – comparable to the weight of a sparrow.

Continue reading...

Prominent Hong Kong journalist Allan Au reportedly held on sedition charge

Reporter and lecturer’s arrest in dawn raid another blow to city’s press amid Beijing crackdown

A veteran Hong Kong journalist has been arrested by national security police for allegedly conspiring to publish “seditious materials”, a police source and local media said, in the latest blow against press freedom.

Allan Au, a 54-year-old reporter and journalism lecturer, was arrested in a dawn raid on Monday by Hong Kong’s national security police unit, multiple local media outlets reported.

Continue reading...

New Caledonia leader calls for France to grant independence vote to counter China’s ‘omnipresence’ in Pacific

Pro-independence parties boycotted last year’s referendum on a split from France, arguing Covid made campaigning too difficult

A prominent New Caledonian indigenous party has said that if France wants to have an economic and political stake in the Pacific – as China’s influence in the region rises to “omnipresence” – it needs to grant New Caledonia a fourth referendum on independence and treat the Pacific island as a partner, rather than a colony.

The calls come after a contentious referendum on independence last year which was boycotted by pro-independence parties, after they said holding a referendum during a severe Covid outbreak that disproportionately hit indigenous Kanak and Pasifika populations would not return a fair result.

Continue reading...

Shanghai discharges over 11,000 Covid patients as lockdown nears third week

Chinese city’s authorities say they have secured food and other essentials for residents after complaints about deliveries

More than 11,000 recovered Covid-19 patients were discharged in Shanghai on Sunday, and health authorities emphasised that they must be allowed to return home despite the lockdown that has severely restricted movement in China’s largest city.

“We hope their family and community will not worry about them or discriminate against them,” said Wu Jinglei, the director of the Shanghai municipal health commission.

Continue reading...

Boy, 14, missing in Malaysia diving trip believed to have died

Adrian Chesters, a Briton who was rescued on Saturday, says his son Nathen died while they were adrift

The 14-year-old son of a British man is believed to have died following reports that he went missing on a diving trip in Malaysia.

Adrian Chesters, 46, reportedly told the Malaysian coastguard his son Nathen, who has Dutch nationality, had died while they were adrift. Following a dive off the coast of Mersing, in the southern state of Johor, on Wednesday, the group surfaced but were unable to find their boat.

Continue reading...

Two divers from UK and France found adrift off Malaysia but boy, 14, still missing

Three divers and their instructor had been unable to find their boat after surfacing

A British man and a French woman were rescued in Malaysia on Saturday three days after going missing while diving, but the Briton’s son was still missing, police said.

The trio and their instructor got into trouble on Wednesday after they surfaced from a dive near a southern island but could not find their boat.

Continue reading...

Ex-Goldman banker Roger Ng found guilty in billion-dollar 1MDB scandal

Ng, 49, found guilty of helping to embezzle money earmarked for development in one of biggest frauds in financial history

The former Goldman Sachs executive Roger Ng has been found guilty of helping to steal billions of dollars from Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund after a lengthy trial brought by US prosecutors, who described the fraud as one the largest financial scandals in history and who hoped to show that individuals are always at the center of corporate wrongdoing.

A New York jury found Ng, 49, once Goldman’s top investment banker in Malaysia, guilty of helping his former boss Tim Leissner embezzle money intended for development to benefit Malaysia’s poor from a fund connected to Malaysia’s then prime minister, Najib Razak, and then to launder the proceeds while bribing officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi.

Continue reading...

Desperation amid food shortages in Shanghai as Covid lockdown bites

Lockdown had been due to end on Tuesday, leaving residents unprepared to be indefinitely housebound

Stories of desperation are emerging in Shanghai as the city enters its third day of strict lockdown, with increasingly widespread reports of residents being unable to access food, medicine and other essentials.

The city’s Covid lockdown was extended indefinitely earlier this week after staggered restrictions failed to contain infections. City officials had promised the staggered lockdown would end on 5 April, leaving many residents of the Chinese megacity unprepared to be indefinitely housebound.

Continue reading...

US arrests Japanese yakuza leader over alleged missiles-for-heroin plot

Takeshi Ebisawa accused of planning to purchase surface-to-air missiles for rebel groups in Myanmar and distribute drugs in US

US authorities have arrested a leader of a Japanese crime syndicate on charges of plotting to distribute drugs in the United States and purchase weapons including US-made surface-to-air missiles.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Takeshi Ebisawa, who they described as a leader in a network of Japanese crime families known as yakuza, and a co-conspirator agreed to buy the missiles for rebel groups in Myanmar during conversations with an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

Continue reading...

Caroline Kennedy praises Australia’s bipartisan foreign policy despite PM’s claims on Labor and China

Nominee as US ambassador says there’s a lot more to the Aukus deal than just submarines as she faces US Senate foreign relations committee hearing

Caroline Kennedy, the nominee for US ambassador to Australia, has said the Aukus security deal will provide “a lot of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific even before the nuclear-powered submarines are ready.

With Australia set to enter a federal election campaign within days, Kennedy praised the country for standing firm with “a bipartisan foreign policy” in the face of “Chinese economic coercion”.

Continue reading...

Two Britons are among four tourists missing after diving trip in Malaysia

The group, which also includes a French woman and a Norwegian woman, disappeared during diving training off the southern town of Mersing

Malaysian authorities were searching on Thursday for four Europeans, including two Britons, who disappeared during diving training off a southern island.

The divers are a 46-year-old British man, a 14-year-old British boy, an 18-year-old French woman and a 35-year-old woman from Norway.

Continue reading...

North Korea could hold nuclear test next week, US envoy warns

US says Pyongyang may escalate recent provocations with a weapons test on 110th anniversary of founder Kim Il-sung’s birth

North Korea could be planning its first nuclear weapon test in nearly five years, according to a senior US official who urged the regime to step back from further provocations following its recent long-range missile test.

Sung Kim, the special representative for North Korea policy at the US state department, said Washington believes Pyongyang could demonstrate its growing nuclear weapons capacity on 15 April, an annual holiday held to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung.

Continue reading...

Shanghai lockdown: some parents allowed to stay with Covid-positive children after backlash

Reports that parents were being separated from their infected children has sparked a flood of online protest

Shanghai is allowing at least some parents to stay with children infected with Covid-19, making an exception to a policy of isolating anyone who tests positive after a public outcry.

The announcement came as China’s largest city remained in lockdown and conducted more mass testing on Wednesday following another jump in new cases.

Continue reading...