Speculation is growing over whether Donald Trump might pardon Edward Snowden after the US president told an interviewer that the exiled former intelligence operative was “not being treated fairly”.
Related: Edward Snowden on 9/11 and why he joined the army: ‘Now, finally, there was a fight’
Continue reading...Man who was granted injunction due to risk of suicide says he sustained an injury during attempted removal
An asylum seeker who crossed the Channel to the UK on a small boat claims he was forced out of his cell in a detention centre by officers who wanted to put him on a flight even though a judge had halted his removal hours earlier, the Guardian has learned.
He was restrained and sustained an injury during the attempted removal in the early hours of Wednesday morning by officers unaware of the high court decision.
Continue reading...(Atlantic)
By rooting modern production in traditional melody, and drawing on various musical styles while staying true to African pop, Burna Boy defines multilayered black identity
For a vivid snapshot of what Burna Boy is capable of, head for track 12 of new album Twice as Tall, entitled Monsters You Made. The music is modern Africa, in the same way grime precisely captured young London of the day. Drill down, and the cleverly deconstructed phrases echo familiar-sounding black music concepts – in this case, roots reggae – but as a whole it’s totally of its immediate environment, and utterly original. Lyrically, the song is a sharp focusing of the singer’s never-far-from-the-surface rage into a furious condemnation of an under-considered aspect of global black life. He addresses the ruling classes, arguing that it is they who have fomented any black anger, even crime, through colonial oppression. If Black Lives Matter organisers were looking for a theme song, they’d be hard pushed to find a better fit.
Monsters You Made also has an in-song pairing we’re never likely to see again: 78-year-old Ghanaian feminist, political activist and playwright Ama Ata Aidoo and Coldplay’s Chris Martin. The former is in the shape of a snatch of TV interview about the damage done to Africa by colonialism, in which she rinses the host and hangs him out to dry; the latter finds Gwyneth Paltrow’s ex-husband singing a chorus warning that there’s only so much people are going to take.
Continue reading...As UK announces 14-day isolation for those arriving from France after Saturday, travellers are left wondering what to do
France has been added to the UK coronavirus quarantine list meaning that anyone returning to the UK after 4am on Saturday will have to quarantine for 14 days or face a fine. With some travellers desperately trying to return before the deadline, others have decided to stay in France.
Continue reading...More families arrive in Dunkirk each day and they would rather sleep in woods than seek asylum in France
“They are kids, so they are always playing. Like children in the UK play mums and dads or doctors and nurses, our children will re-enact boat crossings, getting patted down by the police, going to food distributions, meeting smugglers. Because one of the way parents safeguard their children is to present attempted border crossings as an adventure.”
In a nature reserve near Dunkirk, Caia Fallowfield runs a play project for migrant children who live among the trees with no running water or toilets. These are the children who vanish overnight off the French coast and reappear on the front pages of British newspapers, being pulled out of dinghies in Dover, often cold, wet and frightened.
Continue reading...After police beat up demonstrators, flower-waving women take to streets demanding change
The first chain of women appeared on Wednesday: a few hundred brave souls, dressed in white and holding aloft flowers, in a quietly powerful response to the gruesome violence inflicted on thousands of Belarusians over the previous days.
By the next afternoon, columns of flower-waving women were everywhere, parading along the broad avenues of central Minsk smiling, laughing and resolutely demanding political change.
Continue reading...‘The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached,’ says Erdoğan
Turkey has threatened to suspend its diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and recall its envoy, a day after the Gulf state announced it would become the third Arab country to establish full ties with Israel.
“The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters on Friday.
Continue reading...Rate of new deaths could rise in California and Colorado over the coming four weeks and decline in Arizona, CDC says
The US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic is set to reach 200,000 by Labor Day as children across the country prepare to return to school, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) forecast.
The rate of new deaths could rise in California and Colorado over the coming four weeks and decline in Arizona, the CDC said. More than 160,000 people have died from Covid-19 in America, although scientists have pointed out the number of excess deaths so far this year exceeds even this toll.
Continue reading...Israel’s relationship with neighbours is no longer defined by occupation, Palestinians say
Shortly after Donald Trump announced he had brokered a “huge breakthrough” deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the White House published a list of bullet points detailing what it had achieved.
Only at the bottom, just after “expanded business and financial ties between these two thriving economies”, did the very last sentence blandly mention what had previously been the key regional issue: the fate of the Palestinians.
Continue reading...Retail sales dropped 1.1% in July while industrial production remains subdued
Fears over the strength of China’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic have been raised after retail sales slumped in July and industrial production remained subdued.
Fuelling concerns for the world economy, retail sales in China dropped in July by 1.1% compared with the same month a year ago, missing predictions for a small increase in consumer spending.
Continue reading...President Lukashenko claims demonstrators are pawns of foreign powers as he attempts to retain grip on country
The standoff in Belarus appeared to be entering a decisive phase on Friday evening, as tens of thousands of protesters marched towards government buildings in central Minsk, holding flowers and signs demanding an end to violence and the resignation of president Alexander Lukashenko.
In a sign that more violence could be imminent, an angry Lukashenko appeared on television on Friday evening, ordering Belarusians not to take to the streets. “You are being used, and our children are being used, as cannon fodder,” he said, blaming shadowy forces from “Poland, the Netherlands and Ukraine” who had arrived in Russia and mentioning the anti-Kremlin politician Alexei Navalny. “Aggression against the country has already started,” he said.
Continue reading...Boyko Borissov says he will step down if his plan for assembly election is approved
The Bulgarian prime minister, Boyko Borissov, has called for an overhaul of the constitution in an apparent effort to defuse weeks of anti-government protests by mostly younger Bulgarians weary of endemic corruption in the EU member state.
The three-times premier promised to resign if lawmakers approved his call for the election of a grand national assembly tasked with drafting amendments aimed, among other things, at improving the efficiency of the much-criticised judiciary.
Continue reading...Chinese investment in Argentina’s hog industry would boost exports, but environmentalists fear risk of pandemic
A government-sponsored plan to turbocharge Argentina’s hog industry with Chinese capital is generating unprecedented resistance among its supposed beneficiaries – the Argentinian general public.
Nearly 400,000 people have signed petitions opposing the move. “We never had such a huge response before,” said environmental lawyer Enrique Viale, one of the group who banded together last month to challenge the government’s initiative. His petition currently has 200,000 signatures; another on change.org has almost 120,000 additional signatures, and three separate petitions on the same platform have clocked up another 55,000 between them.
Continue reading...‘President for life’ knows he is protected by France while Chadians die of hunger
Once a year, there is a ranking of the conditions of the world’s nations. It’s like a country’s report card, with health, education and living standards as key indicators. The UN’s Human Development Index tells citizens – and campaigners like me – how well or badly a country is doing.
Since 1990, the year Idriss Déby seized power, ousting his mentor Hissène Habré in a bloody war, Chad – a landlocked former French colony that separates the Sahara in the north from the savannah in the south – has consistently ranked at the bottom of the index, fluctuating between 160 and 187 (out of 189).
Continue reading...Lockdown has tipped many working-class Nigerians from struggle to crisis
Drawing open the curtains in Alapere, Lagos, unveils a sea of shanty roofs and watery-coloured housing blocks. “We don’t see any virus but we see suffering,” says Juliana Chokpa, a 38-year-old cleaner.
This working-class Lagos community has been reeling from job losses, a collapse in informal services, and rising food and transport costs. The pandemic, Chokpa says, has wrought a swift descent from struggle into crisis.
Continue reading...Move over payment guideline violations prompts maker Epic Games to take legal action
Apple and Google have removed the enormously popular video game Fortnite from their app stores for violating their in-app payment guidelines, prompting the maker, Epic Games, to take legal action challenging the tech giants’ iron grip over the industry.
Its removal from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store came after Fortnite circumvented the companies’ in-app payment system and hefty fees, encouraging users to pay the gaming company directly.
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Just hours after Joe Biden announced Kamala Harris as his running mate, in her home state of California fierce speculation had already begun as to who might replace her in the Senate if she wins a spot in the White House.
Related: If Kamala Harris wins, who might fill her California Senate seat?
From Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem and Julian Borger in Washington:
Israel and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties in a historic Washington-brokered deal under which Israel will “suspend” its plans to annex parts of the Palestinian territories.
Continue reading...Cabinet to meet at 3pm to discuss Auckland lockdown as health minister Chris Hipkins says city not yet looking at moving from level three to four
New Zealand is not yet looking at a level 4 lockdown, because the rising number of Covid-19 cases are all related to a single cluster, the health minister has said.
Chris Hipkins told Radio NZ that more than one cluster would have to be circulating for the country to rise to level 4 restrictions, and so far there was no evidence of that, though more cases from the same cluster had emerged overnight.
Continue reading...As France is taken off the government’s travel corridor list and new quarantine rules come into play, should UK holidaymakers cancel trips?
The UK government has removed France from its list of travel corridors, leaving hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers scrambling to rearrange their travel plans. A 14-day quarantine on return to the UK from France will come into effect from 4am on Saturday (15 August), leaving a window of little more than 30 hours for travellers to get home if they want to escape the measures.
The UK criteria for removing a country from the list is based on per capita case numbers. If these go above 20 per 100,000, the UK government categorises that country as high-risk. This Wednesday France reached 30.4, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, with significant numbers in recent days: 2,524 new cases were reported on Wednesday, up from 1,397 on Tuesday, and over 2,000 a day last weekend.
Continue reading...Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden on Thursday called on all governors to mandate mask wearing to slow the spread of the coronavirus that has killed more than 165,000 people in the United States. In his second day on the campaign trail with former rival and now running mate Kamala Harris by his side, Biden made the call for a nationwide mandate on masks after a virtual meeting with public health advisers in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
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