Category Archives: World News

Nosedive in UK-US relations is another casualty of Afghanistan’s fall

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Ministers are becoming openly critical of Joe Biden after being left in the dark about major decisions

So much for the special relationship. As the Afghanistan crisis has unfolded, it has precipitated a high-speed deterioration in Anglo-American relations.

What began as a muted disagreement on whether it was right for the US to withdraw militarily has reached the point where UK government sources are openly briefing against President Joe Biden as the situation in Kabul worsens.

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‘An artist in search of good material’: My time at an Auckland massage parlour | Megan Dunn

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In this extract from her new book, New Zealand writer Megan Dunn describes her time answering the phone at Belle de Jour

I got a job at Belle de Jour in 1998. I was 24 years old and had just graduated from art school. What did I need next? Life experience.

The neon sign hung in the window of the ranch slider. The massage parlour logo was of a vintage femme fatale: a raven-haired Betty Page-ish beauty with bright red lips who wore a cheetah V-neck and elbow-length black gloves and toked a cigarette in a cigarette holder. Like Lauren Bacall. One of those classic screen sirens, a quip at the ready. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Slim? You just put your lips together and…

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‘We lost everything’: Afghan wheelchair basketball team captain speaks out

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Nilofar Bayat begins rebuilding her life in Spain after days of fear for her life under Taliban rule

When the Taliban entered Kabul, Nilofar Bayat, the captain of Afghanistan’s female national wheelchair basketball team, knew she had to get out.

“There were so many videos of me playing basketball. I had been active in calling for women’s rights and the rights of women with disabilities,” she said. “If the Taliban found out all of this about me, I knew they would kill me.”

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Labour says PPE contracts must not go to Xinjiang firms that use forced workers

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Exclusive: Emily Thornberry appeals to Sajid Javid to tackle issue of forced labour in Chinese province

Labour has written to the health secretary, Sajid Javid, urging him to ensure a new £5bn contract for NHS protective equipment including gowns and masks is not awarded to companies implicated in forced labour in China’s Xinjiang region.

Following up earlier concerns about medical gloves for the NHS being produced in Malaysia, where there have been consistent reports of forced labour in factories, Emily Thornberry called for an urgent response.

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Coronavirus live news: UK reports 32,253 new cases as Ho Chi Minh City prepares for lockdown

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Panic buying as Vietnamese city prepares for lockdown; UK also reports 49 further deaths

More children are being hospitalised with Covid in the US south and midwest than ever before, as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads among unvaccinated people.

One hospital in New Orleans has reported as many as 20 children hospitalised for Covid at a time in the past three weeks, the Wall Street Journal reports. In 2020, that number never topped seven, the hospital’s physician-in-chief told the paper.

Doctors and staff working in GP surgeries across England are reporting a torrent of physical and verbal abuse from patients, the Independent reports.

Some GPs have told the newspaper they fear coming to work and say staff have quit over the threats they are receiving on a near-daily basis.

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Henri makes landfall in Rhode Island, packing high winds and heavy rain

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  • Biden says storm has ‘potential for widespread consequences’
  • Inland rainfall seen as major threat in north-east states

Tropical Storm Henri made landfall in Rhode Island on Sunday, packing high winds and heavy rains that were projected to leave devastation from New Jersey and New York up to Massachusetts.

Related: The show did not go on: storm thwarts Central Park concert celebrating city’s Covid comeback

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Matt Gaetz, Republican in sex-trafficking investigation, marries in California

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  • Florida congressman denies paying for sex with 17-year-old
  • Former Rand Paul staffer presides over surprise ceremony

The Republican Florida congressman Matt Gaetz eloped to southern California on Saturday, in order to marry Ginger Luckey in a small ceremony on Catalina Island.

Related: Trump booed after telling supporters to get Covid vaccine

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Stefan Löfven steps down as Sweden’s PM after seven years

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Leader of Social Democratic party recently became first Swedish leader ever to lose a motion in parliament

Stefan Löfven said on Sunday that he will step down as Swedish prime minister and head of the Social Democratic party in November, after seven years in power.

The unexpected announcement – made during his annual summer speech – came before next year’s general election and after Löfven in June became the first Swedish leader ever to lose a motion in parliament.

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Full FDA approval of Pfizer Covid shot will enable vaccine requirements

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Full federal approval of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine will empower businesses and universities to require vaccinations and tip hesitant Americans toward getting the jab, the surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, said on Sunday.

Related: Breakthrough infections and booster shots: what you need to know

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Josephine Baker to become first Black woman to enter France’s Pantheon

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Performer who became part of the French resistance will be moved to the mausoleum in November

The remains of Josephine Baker, a famed French-American dancer, singer and actor who also worked with the French resistance during the second world war, will be moved to the Panthéon mausoleum in November, according to an aide to President Emmanuel Macron.

It will make Baker, who was born in Missouri in 1906 and buried in Monaco in 1975, the first Black woman to be laid to rest in the hallowed Parisian monument.

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Nicole Ari Parker to join Sex and the City reboot in place of Kim Cattrall

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Boogie Nights star reportedly cast as Carrie Bradshaw’s best friend in HBO Max series And Just Like That …

Nicole Ari Parker has been billed to replace Kim Cattrall in the Sex and the City reboot, following the backlash that accompanied the news that the era-defining show’s most iconic character was done with the series.

Ari Parker, known for starring in the acclaimed series Empire as well as Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights, will reportedly replace Cattrall as the fourth member of the New York friend group. According to the Mail on Sunday, Ari Parker, 50, will play Carrie Bradshaw’s new best friend, documentary-maker Lisa Todd Wexley.

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Taliban claim they have changed … but all the signs suggest it’s only for show

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As regime talks of tolerance, reports emerge of beatings, house searches and attacks on women

The first time the Taliban took Kabul, 25 years ago they tortured and killed former President Mohammad Najibullah, dragged his body behind a truck through the streets, then hung it from a lamp-post.

Last week, with Kabul surrounded and a second victory almost inevitable, the Taliban ordered their troops to hold back from entering the city, to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. When they did march in, it was to a soundtrack of their commanders offering an “amnesty” for anyone who had opposed them over the last two decades.

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Germany’s resurgent SPD has new hope of succeeding Merkel

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The centre-left Social Democrats had been written off but surge of support could make Olaf Scholz chancellor in September

An old party with an ageing membership, fronted by a politician with all the charisma of a middle-ranking bank clerk, following the humiliating descent from national institution to electoral also-rans already suffered by its comrades across Europe. The obituary of Germany’s Social Democratic party (SPD) had already been written.

Yet as Germany’s election campaign is about to enter its home stretch, it is the centre-left party of Olaf Scholz that is enjoying a surge of energy as its rivals start to lag.

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US music star Don Everly dies aged 84

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Singer and guitarist who formed one of pop’s greatest vocal partnerships, the Everly Brothers, dies in Nashville

Don Everly, one half of the rock’n’roll duo the Everly Brothers, has died at his home in Nashville at the age of 84.

A spokesperson for the family confirmed Everly’s death to the Los Angeles Times, but did not disclose a cause.

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UK scientists look at reducing boosters to save vaccine for rest of the world

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JCVI considers lower third jab dosage to release stocks for poorer nations

Scientists in Britain are examining whether smaller doses of Covid vaccine could be used as part of booster programmes, amid hopes that the approach could also increase the supply of jabs across the world.

The use of so-called “fractional doses” has been proposed as a way of ensuring that precious supplies can immunise as many people as possible in parts of the world where there are shortages, while still providing high levels of protection from the virus.

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Cuba’s health system buckles under strain of overwhelming Covid surge

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A lack of medical supplies is crippling the Covid response, amid an economic crisis sparked by the pandemic and US sanctions

Julia, a community doctor in Havana, was drafted to the intensive care unit soon after Covid-19 first reached Cuba.

Last week, her cousin died from the virus. This week, she also tested positive amid a surge in cases which has pushed the island’s vaunted health service to its limits and prompted rare public criticism from Cuban doctors.

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Excommunicated Spanish ‘witch’ village turns curse into tourist cash

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Embracing its strange past is a blessing for Trasmoz as thousands flock to its witchcraft attractions

Tucked into the foothills of northern Spain, the village of Trasmoz attracts thousands of tourists each year. For many, the allure is not its half-ruined castle nor stunning mountain backdrop but rather a curious quirk of history: Trasmoz is Spain’s only excommunicated and cursed village.

“So far, being excommunicated and cursed hasn’t been bad for us,” said Lola Ruiz Diaz, one of the 47 or so people who live all year round in Trasmoz, some 50 miles north-west of Zaragoza. “It’s turned out to be a point in our favour.”

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The Wuhan lab leak theory is more about politics than science

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Whatever this week’s Biden review finds, the cause of the pandemic lies in the destruction of animal habitats

If Joe Biden’s security staff are up to the mark, a new report on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic will be placed on the president’s desk this week. His team was given 90 days in May to review the virus’s origins after several US scientists indicated they were no longer certain about the source of Sars-CoV-2.

It will be intriguing to learn how Biden’s team answers the critically important questions that still surround the origins of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Did it emerge because of natural viral spillovers from bats to another animal and then into humans? Or did it leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology? And, if so, had it been enhanced to make it especially virulent?

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‘A complete shock’: the rightwing contrarian leading the California recall race

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Larry Elder doesn’t believe in gun control or the gender pay gap. He has risen to the top of the Republican field in the recall election for governor

Larry Elder is a confounding frontrunner in the Republican race to replace Gavin Newsom as California governor.

Related: Grizzly Flats: the California town leveled by the Caldor fire – in pictures

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Ghani’s hasty departure leaves anger and bitterness in its wake

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The chaos that followed the president’s exit has created its own suffering – and may leave a much longer legacy of pain

By the middle of last week, Kabul’s capitulation to the Taliban was perhaps inevitable – but the horror and chaos of the last few days were not.

As the militants swept across Afghanistan, seizing towns then major cities, their negotiators in Qatar offered a deal that would have ushered in a pause in fighting, with a two-week transition period to a new government, the Wall Street Journal reported.

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