Belgian and Dutch students protest against Israel’s war on Gaza
Students in Ghent and Amsterdam occupied universities to protest against Israel's war on Gaza.
Boeing in new inquiry over 787 inspection doubts
The plane-maker told US regulators staff may have falsified inspection records for 787 Dreamliner jets.
Australia news live: Michele Bullock says data ‘pretty bumpy’ but RBA vigilant about continued high inflation risk
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- Reserve Bank leaves interest rate on hold at 4.35% despite higher than expected inflation
- Victorian state budget 2024: airport train delayed and sick leave for casuals scrapped in bid to rein in debt
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The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, says the prime minister needs to “pick the phone up” and speak directly to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, after the Australian government accused a Chinese fighter jet of dropping flares close to an Australian helicopter in international waters.
The defence minister, Richard Marles, yesterday branded the incident as “unacceptable” and said the Australian pilot had to take evasive action to avoid the flares. You can read all the details below:
I think the prime minister needs to pick the phone up, frankly, and speak to the Chinese president … and express our deep concern, because at some stage, there’s going to be a miscalculation and an Australian defence force member is going to lose their life.
And that is a tragic circumstance that has to be avoided at all costs, but there will be a miscalculation by somebody who’s flying that jet or somebody who’s on the deck of a Chinese naval ship, something will happen.
Continue reading...US soldier detained in Russia and accused of theft
US soldier detained in Russia on charges of criminal misconduct, adding to strained relations.
Threats to school of Perth student who was shot by police dismissed as ‘hacking’
Police have no concerns for safety, Rossmoyne senior high school principal says, after messages on an internal service threatening to ‘shoot up the school’ were investigated
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Fresh threats to “shoot up the school” attended by the teenager who was shot dead by police in Perth on the weekend have been dismissed as a hacking incident, with the school insisting there was no threat to students.
The 16-year-old was fatally shot by police in a car park in Willetton on Saturday night after he stabbed a stranger in the back. The teenager, a white convert to Islam, was known to police and had been in a deredicalisation program for two years.
Continue reading...‘An exceptional experience’: Adrian Dunbar to curate Samuel Beckett festival in Liverpool
Line of Duty actor will oversee classic plays as well as new pieces inspired by the Irish author in Beckett: Unbound 2024
Adrian Dunbar is to curate a festival in Liverpool dedicated to the work of Samuel Beckett. The programme includes four specially commissioned productions, one involving prisoners at HMP Liverpool.
The Line of Duty actor said of Beckett: Unbound 2024: “Engaging with Beckett makes you think about the fundamentals of life. Those fundamentals are sometimes hard to engage with, but at the end, when he drives everything to a conclusion, he also makes you feel something that is liberating.”
Beckett: Unbound, Liverpool and Paris, 30 May–7 June
Continue reading...Australian couple sentenced to decades in prison for child sex abuse after using victims as ‘playthings’
One man sentenced to 37 years behind bars and other to 26 years for ‘prolonged and egregious’ abuse
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Two men who committed hundreds of acts of child sexual abuse – including against family members and children at a childcare centre – have been sentenced to decades in prison for their crimes.
The men, aged 25 and 30, used their many victims as “playthings” before their arrests in June 2020, a judge declared on Tuesday during their sentencing in Sydney.
Continue reading...Supermarkets inquiry: forcibly break up major retailers for anti-competitive behaviour, report says
Senate committee examined how major chains including Coles and Woolworths have set prices during Australia’s cost of living crisis
Major supermarkets should be forcibly broken up if they engage in anti-competitive behaviour, a Senate inquiry has recommended, in a move designed to empower shoppers and suppliers against Australia’s dominant food retailers.
The findings pit the Greens-chaired Senate committee against the Labor government, which opposes legislative changes that would allow the court-enforced divestiture of assets. Supporters say the move would act as an incentive for supermarkets to not misuse market power.
Continue reading...Guernica-style battle of Orgreave painting stars in miners’ strikes exhibition
Bob Olley’s unsettling vision of clash between miners and police is part of 40th anniversary show in Bishop Auckland
Bob Olley was there 40 years ago at the “battle of Orgreave”. “I saw the violence,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought I was in a foreign country when I saw what the police did. It is hard to believe it happened in this country.”
The brutality he and others witnessed on 18 June 1984 as striking miners met 6,000 police officers on horses or wielding batons on foot will stay in the memory. It was in his head as, some years later, he embarked on his response to one of the world’s greatest artworks, Picasso’s Guernica.
Continue reading...Asylum seekers ‘hide or flee to Ireland’ to avoid UK Rwanda detentions
Charities fear ‘increasing risks of destitution and exploitation’ of refugees as they go into hiding
The Home Office is dealing with growing fallout from the high-profile round-ups of asylum seekers it wants to send to Rwanda, as some have gone into hiding while others have fled across the border to Ireland.
Officials began rounding up asylum seekers to detain them for the Rwanda scheme a week ago, with at least one now on hunger strike and another threatening suicide.
Continue reading...Extra virgin olive oil prices tipped to top £16 a litre next month
Price rise for mass-market types expected as global production falls to lowest level in more than 10 years
Olive oil prices are set to climb further this year – heading to more than £16 a litre for a bottle of extra virgin – amid a drop in global production to the lowest level in more than a decade.
Lower production in Greece, Morocco and Turkey as part of the natural cycle of olive growth is expected to offset an improving situation in Spain and Italy, where trees have suffered from extreme heat and drought in recent years as the climate crisis wreaks havoc on harvests.
Continue reading...‘Serious job’: How a collective in election-bound India fights hate speech
Hate Speech Beda trains volunteers from across the southern state of Karnataka on using the law to combat hate crimes.
‘Unacceptable’: Australian PM criticises China over fighter jet incident
Protests lodged after Chinese aircraft fired flares in path of an Australian navy helicopter in international waters.
Reserve Bank leaves interest rate on hold at 4.35% despite higher than expected inflation
Mortgage holders have avoided another rate rise with the RBA opting to keep rates steady for the fourth consecutive meeting
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Borrowers have been spared a 14th interest rate rise and further increases are not certain as the Reserve Bank of Australia avoids a “tightening bias” even as inflation retreated slower than previously expected.
The RBA left its cash rate on hold at 4.35% for a fourth consecutive meeting on Tuesday in a result that was widely expected. Only one economist, Capital Economics, predicted the central bank would lift the cash rate.
Continue reading...Scottish salmon industry challenged over move to drop ‘farmed’ from labels
Fish welfare campaigners say Defra decision facilitates greenwashing and will mislead consumers
Animal welfare campaigners are challenging the decision to allow producers of Scottish salmon to drop the word “farmed” from labelling.
An application by the industry body claimed changing the protected name wording on the front of packaging from “Scottish farmed salmon” to “Scottish salmon” made sense because wild salmon was no longer sold in supermarkets, which consumers were aware of.
Continue reading...Germans grill Olaf Scholz over soaring cost of doner kebabs
Die Linke party is among those calling for a Dönerpreisbremse or price cap on the hugely popular street food
The soaring cost of doner kebabs has led to growing calls in Germany for a government subsidy programme to keep the inflation-hit dish, one of the country’s favourites, affordable as politicians report it is frequently cited as a concern in doorstep conversations with voters.
The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has become so used to being asked about the price of kebabs during public appearances that his government has even posted on social media to explain that price rises are in part due to rising wage and energy costs. “It’s quite striking that everywhere I go, mainly from young people, I’m asked whether there shouldn’t be a price brake for the doner,” Scholz has said.
Continue reading...‘A colonial mindset’: why global aid agencies need to get out of the way
With the world’s humanitarian system in crisis, many NGOs now recognise that local charities can deliver much more at far less cost
Before civil war engulfed her Ethiopian home region of Tigray in 2020, Tsega Girma was a prosperous trader who sold stationery and other goods. But when hungry children displaced by the conflict started appearing in the streets, she sold everything and used the proceeds to buy them food.
After that money dried up, Tsega appealed to Tigray’s diaspora for donations. At the height of the war, her Emahoy Tsega Girma Charity Foundation provided meals to 24,000 children a day.
Continue reading...Train strikes to halt most trains in south-east England on Tuesday
Commuter routes in and out of London hit as train drivers begin three days of rolling strikes amid six-day overtime ban
Most trains will not run in south-east England on Tuesday – including on key commuter routes in and out of London – after train drivers embarked on three days of rolling strikes at national rail operators.
Drivers in the Aslef union are striking for 24 hours at each English operator between Tuesday and Thursday, while continuing a week-long nationwide overtime ban that started on Monday, as part of a long-running pay dispute.
Continue reading...US, UK, most EU nations to boycott Putin inauguration
Russia's Vladimir Putin will be sworn in for a fifth term as president in a ceremony at the Kremlin later on Tuesday.
Bonza administrators worry that 20,000 out-of-pocket airline customers could attend creditors meeting
‘That would require a stadium,’ federal court hears as airline administrators try to organise online meeting for Friday that would allow everyone to vote
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Administrators determining the future of the troubled airline Bonza are bracing for as many as 20,000 out-of-pocket customers to join a creditors meeting this week with the federal court hearing that online voting options are being considered.
On Tuesday lawyers representing Hall Chadwick, the administrators controlling Bonza after its planes were abruptly repossessed a week ago, appeared before the federal court justice Elizabeth Cheeseman seeking orders to streamline the process for the first creditors meeting on Friday. It will be held amid ongoing efforts to find a new owner for the budget carrier.
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