We are raiding the Audio Long Reads archives and bringing you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.
This week, from 2016: For Syrians in exile, food is more than a means of sustenance. It is a reminder of the rich and diverse culture being destroyed by civil war. By Wendell Steavenson
Continue reading...UK and EU senior figures hail moment as a ‘new chapter’ of friendly relations after four years of division
The European parliament has given its overwhelming backing to the Brexit trade and security deal, prompting senior figures on both sides to speak of hope for a “new chapter” of friendly relations after four years of division.
Five MEPs voted against the deal, with 660 in favour and 32 abstentions, although in an accompanying resolution the chamber described the referendum result of 23 June 2016 as a “historic mistake”.
Continue reading...Category winners in the awards recognising the art and diversity of food photography
Continue reading...While some point to the number of teenage boys jailed for consensual sex, others fear gender equality gains could be lost
Kenya’s judges and child welfare organisations are embroiled in a fresh debate on whether to lower the age of consent.
Some members of the judiciary believe the age of consent should be lowered from 18 to 16 for heterosexual acts (gay sex is criminalised at any age, punishable by up to 14 years in prison) because boys and girls have “reached the age of discretion and are able to make intelligent and informed decisions about their lives and their bodies”.
Continue reading...After Congress ordered the US Marine Corps to fully integrate women into its west coast training battalions, the first 53 female recruits have become Marines
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For Democrats it has been a hundred days of sweeping legislation, barrier-breaking appointments and daring to dream big. For Republicans, a hundred days in the political wilderness.
The party that just four years ago controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress now finds itself shut out of power and struggling to find its feet. As Joe Biden forges ahead with ambitions to shift the political paradigm, Republicans still have a Donald Trump problem.
Related: Republicans still orbiting Trump dark star fail to derail Biden’s first 100 days
Senate Democrats are pushing Biden to admit more refugees into the US.
Biden’s announcement earlier this month that he would not increase refugee admissions from the record low cap of 15,000 that Donald Trump set before leaving office. After intense pushback from advocates and Democratic lawmakers, Biden said he’d increase the cap by 15 May.
Related: Biden walks back refugee admissions policy after outcry and will lift cap in May
Continue reading...Opponents hope investigation will torpedo chances of re-election for far-right president
Brazil’s congress has launched a parliamentary inquiry into what critics call Jair Bolsonaro’s disastrous and potentially criminal response to a Covid pandemic that has killed nearly 400,000 Brazilians.
The politically charged investigation, which rivals of Brazil’s far-right president hope will torpedo his chances of re-election, will be conducted by 11 of the country’s 81 senators, including several of Bolsonaro’s fiercest opponents.
Continue reading...Spaniards David Beriáin and Roberto Fraile, and Rory Young, a Zambian-born Irish citizen, ambushed by jihadists
Two Spanish journalists and an Irish conservationist have been killed after they were ambushed by jihadists while on an anti-poaching mission in Burkina Faso.
On Tuesday, Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, said 44-year-old David Beriáin, a reporter, and 47-year-old Roberto Fraile, a photographer, were believed to have been murdered on Monday, after they were identified from an image provided by Burkinabe authorities.
Continue reading...Former leader of neo-Nazi party convicted in absentia in 2020 faces extradition to Athens
When the authorities caught up with Ioannis Lagos, they caught up with him fast. The MEP, once a feared leader of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, has been arrested hours after he was stripped of his immunity as an elected member of the European parliament and told he would be extradited to Athens.
Seized in his Brussels home on Tuesday, the convicted lawmaker had been sentenced to 13 years after a Greek court determined at the end of a landmark trial in 2020 that Golden Dawn was a criminal organisation masquerading as a political party.
Continue reading...Our Delhi correspondents pay tribute to the Indian journalist and Guardian news assistant, who has died of Covid
Every Guardian south Asia correspondent over the past decade can remember the first time they met Kakoli Bhattacharya. A smart, brilliant and tenacious journalist, Kakoli joined the Guardian in Delhi in 2009 as an assistant, translator and fixer – but the role she would play in the lives of all the correspondents who worked with her far outstripped her official duties.
On Saturday, Kakoli – who was known to her friends and family as Pui, meaning “birdsong” – died in hospital of Covid-19. She was 51. Her death leaves a great absence. Here, Delhi correspondents past and present share their lasting memories of a much valued colleague and friend.
Continue reading...Karen Garner, who has dementia, reportedly fractured arm during arrest outside Walmart in Loveland last year
New footage has been released that shows the disturbing aftermath of the violent arrest of a 73-year-old woman, believed to suffer from dementia, after she left a Walmart store in Colorado last June.
Related: Police killings of Black Americans amount to crimes against humanity, international inquiry finds
Continue reading...Jamie Reuben’s involvement in bid supported by Boris Johnson raises more cronyism questions
An investor in the planned takeover of Newcastle United that received high-level support from Boris Johnson last year is a major Conservative party donor who has personally funded the prime minister’s constituency office and leadership campaign.
Jamie Reuben, 34, his father, David, and uncle Simon, who own the Reuben Brothers property development empire, were co-investors with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF), and the financier Amanda Staveley, in the £300m bid to buy the Premier League club from Mike Ashley.
Continue reading...Setting means iPhone users can stop advertisers following their digital lives – to the ire of Facebook
Users of iPhones can now prevent advertisers tracking them across their apps, after the release of the latest software update from Apple introduced the controversial feature despite the protests of Facebook and the advertising industry.
The update, iOS 14.5, includes a setting called “app tracking transparency”, which for the first time requires applications to ask for users’ consent before they are able to track their activity across other apps and websites.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Torture survivors and lone children stuck in Greece and Italy after Home Office ‘deliberately’ ends cooperation on family reunions
The Home Office has been accused of failing to reunite vulnerable refugees who have the right to join family in the UK under EU law, leaving lone children and torture survivors stranded.
The government faced widespread criticism when it announced that family reunion law would no longer apply after the UK left the EU, and it promised that cases under way on that date would be allowed to proceed.
Continue reading...Authorities lambast British-born Paul Harris for criticising treatment of pro-democracy campaigners
Beijing and Hong Kong authorities have accused the British-born head of Hong Kong’s bar association of being an “anti-China politician” after he criticised jail sentences imposed on pro-democracy activists.
Paul Harris, a human rights lawyer and the chair of the HKBA, had represented one of 10 people convicted this month for organising or attending unauthorised assemblies during the pro-democracy protests in 2019. The defendants were given a range of suspended sentences or immediate jail terms of up to 18 months.
Continue reading...The European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Monday that she felt hurt and alone during a meeting with Turkey’s president earlier this month and that she was treated poorly simply because she is a woman. She said that fortunately cameras were present at the meeting and that the images made headlines around the world, but she said that many women's experiences went unrecorded.
Continue reading...Airport’s plan not in the interests of consumers, says Civil Aviation Authority
Heathrow’s request to increase airport charges to recoup £2.6bn lost during the pandemic has been rejected by the UK’s aviation regulator.
The Civil Aviation Authority’s consumers and markets director, Paul Smith, described the plan as “disproportionate and not in the interests of consumers”.
Continue reading...First-time director Fernanda Valadez conjures up a vision of real evil in her story of the terrors faced by migrants into the US
There is unbearable heartbreak in this migrant drama from first-time Mexican film-maker Fernanda Valadez – and also a vision of real evil. At times, it looks something like social-realist folk horror. Mercedes Hernández plays Magdalena, a middle-aged woman from Guanajuato in central Mexico whose teenage son Jesús left home three years before, with a friend, on a bus bound for the border, where he’d hoped to take his chances on disappearing into the US as an illegal. But the body of Jesús’s friend has been found on Mexican territory, in an unspeakably grim holding area where the corpses of teen runaways are routinely kept in container boxes awaiting identification – though there is still no proof that Jesús himself is dead.
Continue reading...Younger people invited to get jab at more than 1,600 sites across country
The Covid-19 vaccine rollout has been extended in England for the second time in two days. Adults aged 42 and over are now able to book their jab.
Here are your questions answered as the NHS in England takes another step forward in the biggest vaccination programme in its history.
Continue reading...Powering Past Coal Alliance accused of failing to follow up on pledges as many countries expand use of coal
An attempt by the UK government to encourage countries and businesses around the world to quit coal for power generation is failing to make an impact, and in danger of being used as “greenwash”, an assessment has found.
The Powering Past Coal Alliance, led by the UK and Canada, with 111 members including 24 governments, local governments and businesses, is a key plank of Boris Johnson’s strategy for vital UN climate talks to be hosted in Glasgow in November.
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