Heather Cairns says woman ‘masqueraded’ as her daughter Eilidh’s aunt at council meeting
A woman posed as the aunt of a cyclist who was killed in London in order to oppose plans for a new segregated bike lane, according to the victim’s mother.
Eilidh Cairns, a television producer from Alnwick in Northumberland, died aged 30 in 2009 after being hit by a tipper truck while riding in Notting Hill in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Continue reading...Chongqing’s population is estimated at just below 10 million but that rises to more than 31 million if the built-up surroundings are included. Belgian photographer Kris Provoost finds that in a city so large, individuals can get lost
Continue reading...Exclusive: Special rapporteur on health says social justice more important for mental health than therapy and medication
Austerity, inequality and job insecurity are bad for mental health and governments should counteract them if they want to face up to the rising prevalence of mental illness, the UN’s top health envoy has said.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian to coincide with a hard-hitting report to be delivered to the UN in Geneva on Monday, Dr Dainius Pūras said measures to address inequality and discrimination would be far more effective in combatting mental illness than the emphasis over the past 30 years on medication and therapy.
Continue reading...We make good-faith efforts to help the planet by recycling, but what we really need to do is even simpler
Did you ever decide to get off a jammed freeway and take the backroads even though deep down you knew that it wouldn’t be any faster? Are you constantly switching to the faster lane on a busy freeway even though you notice that cars sticking to their lanes keep catching up with you?
Both are examples of action bias, the phenomenon in which people prefer doing something over doing nothing, even if the likely outcome of the action is worse than the outcome of inaction. Research has shown that actively managed portfolios tend to do worse than passive investments. And one study found that soccer goalkeepers prefer to jump left or right during a penalty kick, even though the best thing would be to stay put in the middle.
Continue reading...If a test in 2011 had been accurate, Vicky Phelan might have avoided cancer. Now she is trying to give some hope to terminal patients
When Vicky Phelan was told in January 2018 to get her affairs in order because she had less than a year to live, she crumpled. “The legs went from under me,” she recalled.
Emerging from the doctor’s office she avoided the gazes of her daughter and mother waiting outside and sought refuge in a bathroom. “I was in there for about 20 minutes. I bawled my eyes out.”
Continue reading...Under-resourced but undeterred, Fiji’s officers battle surge in trafficking – with just one boat
• The new drug highway: Pacific islands at centre of cocaine trafficking boom
Sitiveni Qiliho, Fiji’s police commissioner, says he doesn’t watch films any more because, since taking on Fiji police’s top job two years ago, his life has enough drama.
Over the past few months he has found himself scuba diving in search of multimillion-dollar stashes of cocaine stored in huge underwater nets, arresting drug traffickers on the high seas and informing remote islands communities that the mysterious packages washing up on their beaches are full of cocaine and shouldn’t be baked into cakes or put in tea.
Continue reading...In a first-of-its-kind forum, the former vice-president claimed a ‘100% voting record’ – before his mic suddenly cut out
In the first presidential forum on reproductive rights in recent memory, former vice-president Joe Biden told an audience of mostly female Planned Parenthood supporters he had a “100% voting record” on reproductive rights.
In fact, his record on the subject is mixed, as a question to the former vice-president suggested.
Continue reading...CBI among industry groups to sign open letter amid concerns over project’s future
Business leaders are calling on the next prime minister to commit to completing HS2, adding that if they do not they risk blocking future investment in the north.
In an open letter, more than 20 figures from industry and commerce have called for the next Tory leader to back the project in full.
It comes amid speculation that the next prime minister – with Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson now the final two MPs vying for the position – could decide to axe the second phase of the project due to concerns over spiralling costs.
Johnson is reported to have asked a former boss of the £56bn scheme to carry out a review if he is made prime minister, while Hunt has said HS2 is “absolutely vital” and he would not scrap the project in its entirety.
Signatures of the letter include the Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses and London First, the BBC reports.
Continue reading...Jürgen Rudloff’s chain of ‘wellness spas’ sold sex as a health service for men. But his business model was fatally flawed – as his trial for aiding and abetting trafficking revealed
Until his dramatic fall from grace, Jürgen Rudloff was the self-proclaimed “brothel king” of Germany. Owner of a chain of clubs he boasted was the “the largest marketplace for sex in Europe”, he was every inch the well-dressed entrepreneur, a regular face on reality TV and chat shows.
Rudloff is now serving a five-year sentence for aiding and abetting trafficking. His trial laid bare the misery and abuse of women working as prostitutes at his club who, according to court documents, were treated like animals and beaten if they didn’t make enough money. His imprisonment has dismantled the idea of Germany’s “clean prostitution” industry and raised troubling questions about what lies behind the legalised, booming sex trade.
Continue reading...Could an ‘outrageously heterosexual’ father handle his eldest child coming out at 16?
Sam Khalaf and his son Riyadh used to call themselves the two musketeers. When Riyadh was growing up in Bray, south of Dublin, they were inseparable. Like twins or best friends, they say. So the Iraqi-born, Irish citizen remembers keenly the moment when he realised his eldest child had drifted from him.
“We used to go everywhere together,” 54-year-old Sam recalls. “Every weekend we’d go to a tropical fish shop and pick out which koi carp to go into our pond. The first time Riyadh didn’t come with me, he was about 15. And the lad who worked there said: ‘Where’s your mate?’ I said, ‘He’s grown up now, he’s out with his friends.’ It was a shock to the system.”
Continue reading...Pharmaceutical known chemically as bremelanotide is aimed at women with low sexual desire disorder or HSDD
Drug regulators in the United States have approved Vyleesi, the latest attempt to come up with a “female Viagra” for women with low sexual desire.
Vyleesi, chemically known as bremelanotide, is said to activate pathways in the brain involved in sexual desire, helping premenopausal women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). It has been developed by Palatin Technologies and licensed to Amag Pharmaceuticals, and is expected to be available from September through select pharmacies.
Continue reading...Deputy grand imam of al-Azhar calls for marriage based on mutual consent with minimum age set at 18
One of the world’s most prestigious centres of Islamic learning has issued a fatwa against child marriage, saying marriage should be based on the consent of both parties and “particularly the young woman”.
The deputy grand imam of al-Azhar, considered by some Muslims to be the highest authority of Islamic jurisprudence, hammered out the document with his team and young activists at the first African summit on child marriage and female genital mutilation, which took place in Senegal this week.
Continue reading...The Illustrated City: In a multicultural city, soccer gives children like my daughter a common ground
Continue reading...In time-honoured fashion we see the tired trope of cocaine users’ responsibility for violence in Colombia (Colombian president says middle-class cocaine users are hypocrites, 18 June). It is 10 years since the UK and Colombian governments launched their “Shared Responsibility” campaign to highlight links between users and the criminal trade. It was dropped because it was ineffective in reducing demand. This most recent call will have little or no effect on demand, but does serve politicians’ need to distract citizens from the catastrophic failure of the so-called “war on drugs”.
Anyone who buys illegal drugs does contribute to the criminal market. However, this vast unethical trade is co-created by politicians, including President Duque of Colombia, who back a policy of global prohibition. Duque’s predecessor, President Santos, said he would consider legalising cocaine in 2011, and is now a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which collectively supports the legal regulation of drug markets. Unless and until policymakers begin to seriously engage with the issue of who controls the international drug trade, we cannot make progress in reducing opportunities for organised crime and improving international development and security.
Danny Kushlick
Head of external affairs, Transform
As two exhibitions of the photojournalist’s work open in Madrid on her 70th birthday, Ferrato recalls some of the most powerful images in Holy – a retrospective spanning nearly 40 years
For nearly four decades, the photojournalist Donna Ferrato has documented the effects of domestic violence on abused women and their families. Her book and series Living with the Enemy is one of the most important works on the subject.
She launched a campaign in 2014 called I Am Unbeatable, which features women who have left their abusers.
Continue reading...Research shows government could make more than £5m by charging vulnerable children
The UK government could profit by more than £5m by charging children who have fled war-torn Syria to apply for British citizenship, according to research.
The revelation, based on the Home Office’s own data, has sparked accusations that the government is profiteering from vulnerable children and making a windfall profit by driving vulnerable families into debt.
Continue reading...Fewer than 30 of 879 villages built to house nationalist KMT soldiers and their families remain in Taiwan. After a lengthy battle, Daguan is to be demolished this week
At 22, Cynthia Tang was one-third the average age of the other people crowded into the abandoned Taipei storefront that served as the office of the Daguan Anti-Eviction Movement.
Looking fervently through the frames of her large round glasses, Tang, a student at the prestigious National Taiwan University, addressed the small crowd. “Two of our student activists have been arrested,” she said. “Now the government is suing them. This is not only their problem – this is everyone’s problem.”
Continue reading...Just half of people in eastern Europe think vaccines are safe, compared with 79% worldwide
A global survey of attitudes towards science has revealed the scale of the crisis of confidence in vaccines in Europe, showing that only 59% of people in western Europe and 50% in the east think vaccines are safe, compared with 79% worldwide.
Around the globe, 84% of people acknowledge that vaccines are effective and 92% say their child has received a vaccine. But in spite of good healthcare and education systems, in parts of Europe there is low trust in vaccines. France has the highest levels of distrust, at 33%.
Continue reading...Veterans with complex needs report overwhelmingly negative experiences of benefits system
Ex-service personnel with physical and mental health issues have described how they felt ignored and let down by their country after falling foul of a social security system that failed to offer adequate support when they fell on hard times.
Research has found that many armed forces veterans with complex needs report overwhelmingly negative experiences of universal credit, fit-for-work tests used to gauge eligibility for disability benefits, and benefit sanctions.
Continue reading...Head of UN’s World Food Programme threatens suspension of food aid if safe delivery not assured
The head of the United Nations food agency has accused Yemen’s Houthi rebels of diverting food from the country’s hungriest people and threatened to suspend food aid.
David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said the agency had found “serious evidence” that food supplies had been diverted in the capital, Sana’a and other Houthi-controlled areas in the country, which is in the midst of a four-year civil war. He called on the Houthis to implement agreements that would allow the UN agency to operate independently.
Continue reading...