Category Archives: Media

Meet Dainty Duck: the loo cleaner with a feminine touch

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Household brands’ mascots have undergone a makeover ahead of International Women’s Day

He’s the jolly bearded Father Christmas lookalike who for decades has dominated the seas – and our TV screens – as the familiar face of Birds Eye frozen fish fingers.

But with a handful of fellow male advertising mascots Captain Birds Eye has been temporarily elbowed aside – and replaced with a more youthful female equivalent – in a new drive to highlight the lack of women fronting some of the UK’s top household brands.

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Ronan Farrow condemns his publisher over Woody Allen memoir

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Writer known for #MeToo investigations – whose sister says Allen abused her – suggests he can no longer work with Hachette

Ronan Farrow has distanced himself from the publisher of his latest book after the company announced plans to publish a memoir by his father, Woody Allen, saying the move “shows a lack of ethics and compassion for victims of sexual abuse”.

The journalist, best known for his groundbreaking investigations into claims of sexual abuse and misconduct against powerful men, issued a scathing statement in response to Hachette’s announcement on Monday that it would release Allen’s memoir, Apropos of Nothing, on 7 April.

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Britain is leaving Europe. The Guardian is not

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The editor-in-chief explains why the Guardian is deepening its commitment to European voices, issues and people

Today we are making a renewed and deeper commitment to reporting on every aspect of Europe – the continent, its people, its politics, institutions, economy and culture.

The Guardian is a European news organisation with a close relationship with our large and committed audience in Europe. And we believe readers, from Paris to Porto, Madrid to Munich, want journalism that tries to understand our continent better and to explore hopeful solutions to the crises and challenges facing it. At this critical moment in history, where many are turning to disengagement, introspection and national self-interest, we will stay open to shared perspectives and the public sphere.

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Children as young as eight used to pick coffee beans for Starbucks

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Nespresso also named in TV exposé of labour scandal in Guatemala

High street coffee shop giant Starbucks has been caught up in a child labour row after an investigation revealed that children under 13 were working on farms in Guatemala that supply the chain with its beans.

Channel 4’s Dispatches filmed the children working 40-hour weeks in gruelling conditions, picking coffee for a daily wage little more than the price of a latte. The beans are also supplied to Nespresso, owned by Nestlé. Last week, actor George Clooney, the advertising face of Nespresso, praised the investigation and said he was saddened by its findings.

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Ted Cruz tried to mock AOC’s scientific knowledge – it didn’t end well

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The Texas senator tried to pick a fight after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out Mike Pence’s coronavirus credentials

If you were in search of a scientifically minded, steadying presence to guide the country through the potential fallout of the coronavirus, you could not do much worse than Vice-President Mike Pence. This being the Donald Trump administration, however, where qualifications and expertise are often seen as prohibitive factors for top jobs, that’s exactly who we’ve been given.

Cutting to the heart of the matter with her characteristic bluntness, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez this week pointed out the absurdity of placing Pence in charge of a potentially looming health crisis.

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‘Let’s burn Amber’: texts allegedly sent by Johnny Depp about ex read in court

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As actor’s libel case continues in London, high court hears details of messages allegedly sent about Amber Heard

Texts allegedly written by actor Johnny Depp contained death threats against his then wife Amber Heard, London’s high court has heard.

In November 2013, Depp allegedly sent a text to actor Paul Bettany saying: “Let’s burn Amber.” The same day, he allegedly texted Bettany saying: “Let’s drown her before we burn her!!! I will f–k her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she is dead.”

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Trump campaign sues New York Times for libel over Russia story

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  • Suit alleges ‘extreme bias’ in knowingly publishing falsehood
  • Opinion piece titled ‘The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo’

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign said on Wednesday it had filed a libel suit against the New York Times accusing the newspaper of intentionally publishing a false opinion article related to Russian interference in the 2016 US election.

In an escalation of the Republican president’s long-running battle with the news media, campaign officials said the lawsuit was being filed in New York state supreme court, the state’s trial-level court.

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Facebook users would tell social media platform their bank balance for $8.44 a month

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Study of people across six countries finds German users would charge most for sharing personal data

German Facebook users would want the social media platform to pay them about $8 per month for sharing their contact information, while US users would only seek $3.50, according to a study of how people in various countries value their private information.

The study by US-based thinktank the Technology Policy Institute (TPI) is the first that attempts to quantify the value of online privacy and data. It assessed how much privacy is worth in six countries by looking at the habits of people in the United States, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia and Argentina.

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Barbara B Smith, groundbreaking model and lifestyle guru, dies aged 70

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  • Author and entrepreneur had early onset Alzheimer’s
  • Eponymous Manhattan restaurant achieved society success

The groundbreaking model, restaurateur and lifestyle guru Barbara B Smith, known to many as “the black Martha Stewart”, has died, her family announced on Sunday. She was 70.

Smith died on Saturday evening after suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s disease, which she was found to have in 2013. Following her diagnosis, Smith and her husband, Dan Gasby, raised awareness of the disease and particularly its impacts on the African American community.

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Julian Assange was ‘harassed’ by cell search, father claims

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John Shipton says his son’s Belmarsh room was targeted on eve of extradition hearing

Julian Assange’s father has claimed his son was “harassed” by a prison cell search the day before his extradition hearing was planned to begin.

John Shipton visited the WikiLeaks founder at Belmarsh prison in south-east London for two hours on Sunday.

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Lawyers to seek asylum for Julian Assange in France

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Assange’s European defence team say it is their duty to raise case with Emmanuel Macron

Julian Assange’s European defence team have said they will try to seek asylum for him in France. Hearings over Assange’s extradition from the UK to the US on spying charges are due to start next week in London.

Éric Dupond-Moretti said the “fate and the status of all journalists” was at stake in Assange’s case. “We consider the situation is sufficiently serious,” he said, “that our duty is to talk about it” with the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

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Julian Assange: Australian MPs call on UK to block US extradition

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Politicians from WikiLeaks founder’s home country have flown to UK to visit him in jail

Boris Johnson should block attempts to extradite Julian Assange to the US, say two Australian MPs who have flown to the UK to visit the WikiLeaks founder.

Andrew Wilkie, an independent federal MP, said the extradition of Assange, who has been charged by the US with conspiring to hack into a secret Pentagon computer network, would set a dangerous precedent.

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Politicians condemn press intrusion after Caroline Flack’s death

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ITV says Sunday’s Love Island will not be broadcast as calls mount for regulation of traditional and social media

Politicians have condemned press intrusion, calling for more regulation of both traditional and social media after the death of TV presenter Caroline Flack.

The former Love Island presenter is understood to have taken her own life on Saturday at her home in Islington, London. She had been charged with assaulting her partner and was due to stand trial in several weeks’ time.

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YouTube at 15: what happened to some of the platform’s biggest early stars?

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As YouTube celebrates its 15th birthday, we talk to five early adopters about how the all-singing all-dancing platform has evolved

Late on the evening of 14 February 2005, Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen registered the website YouTube.com. Two months later, when the first video (of Karim briefly describing the elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo) was uploaded, a platform was launched that has gone on to change the world.

Today, more than 2bn of us visit YouTube monthly, and 500 hours of footage is uploaded every minute. That’s a far cry from the 18-second video that started it all. Its stars are multi-millionaires: YouTube’s highest earner in 2019 was an eight-year-old called Ryan, who netted $26m. The number of creators earning five or six figures has increased by more than 40% year on year. At first, users earned a few hundred pounds for mentioning products in their videos; now they can make hundreds of thousands, and much more through exclusive brand deals. Not many like talking about their income: it makes them less relatable.

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Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook must accept some state regulation

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Co-founder says site sits between telephone company and newspaper as content provider

Facebook must accept some form of state regulation, acknowledging its status as a content provider somewhere between a newspaper and a telephone company, its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has said.

He also claimed an era of clean democratic elections, free of interference by foreign governments, is closer due to Facebook now employing 35,000 staff working on monitoring content and security.

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Lebanon’s financial crisis leaves its envied media industry in freefall

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Agenda-setting newspapers and TV stations facing scramble to survive amid state dysfunction

For nearly 80 years since its postwar independence, Lebanon has been a haven for regional media, giving a platform to journalism and entertainment that few other countries in the Middle East would dare to match.

Its newspapers set agendas, its TV stations tested boundaries, and its proprietors defied both war and downturn, producing content that challenged state narratives and tested the patience of the powerful.

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Fox News guests spread ‘disinformation’ – says leaked internal memo

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Among those named in document are frequent guests Rudy Giuliani, John Solomon, Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova

Fox News has a credibility problem. Most critics of the cable news network will be well aware of that, but in this case the admission is coming from Fox News itself.

An internal research briefing obtained by the Daily Beast names four regular contributors to the network for peddling “disinformation”, particularly when it comes to the Ukraine scandal that led to Donald Trump’s impeachment.

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Brazil: judge dismisses cybercrimes accusations against Glenn Greenwald

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Prosecutors had accused the journalist of helping a group hack into the phones of local authorities

A Brazilian judge has rejected charges against the US journalist Glenn Greenwald stemming from his role in producing a series of damaging political exposés involving the celebrity justice minister of Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.

Federal prosecutors last month accused Greenwald – a staunch Bolsonaro critic – of being part of a “criminal” group of hackers which had allegedly pilfered messages from the mobile phones of Brazilian prosecutors and judges.

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PMQs: Boris Johnson faces Jeremy Corbyn – live news

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Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs

The SDLP’s Colum Eastwood asks about the involvement of the IRA in the murder of Paul Quinn in 2007. It was claimed Quinn was a criminal, he says. That was a lie, he says.

Johnson says the government will implement the Stormont House agreement so as to provide justice for victims.

The SNP’s Owen Thompson asks when the report into Russian interference in UK elections will be published.

Johnson says it will be published when the intelligence and security committee is reconstituted. He says conspiracy theorists will be disappointed by its conclusions.

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Ex-Obama official exits Israeli spyware firm amid press freedom row

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Juliette Kayyem has left NSO, which denies its technology has been used to target activists

A former Obama administration official who has faced criticism from press freedom groups for her role as a senior adviser at NSO Group has stepped down from the Israeli spyware company.

The disclosure of the public departure of Juliette Kayyem, a high-profile national security expert and Harvard professor, as a senior adviser to NSO came just one day after a controversy over her role at the spyware group prompted Harvard to cancel an online seminar she was due to host.

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