Bangladesh’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina has been sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Dhaka for crimes against humanity over a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year. The Guardian's Hannah Ellis-Peterson describes the events leading up to the conviction and what this unprecedented sentencing means for the future of Bangladesh
Lib Dem MP says way figures were compiled on ‘non-British-sounding’ surnames in court was ‘frankly racist’
GB News has been accused of risking inflaming tensions over crime committed by migrants after presenting unscientific research that counted the number of defendants with “foreign-sounding names”.
Ofcom, the UK’s media regulator, has received complaints about a segment on the rightwing news channel last week that drew a link between “non-British” names and those in court charged with sex offences.
Men aged 20 to 23 convicted at trial that showed pattern of far-right activists getting together in gyms
Four men in Sweden have been found guilty of racially motivated assaults and sentenced to jail after a trial that revealed a growing pattern of far-right activists banding together in fitness clubs.
The four men, aged 20 to 23, were members of an “active club”. Such clubs are loosely structured groups that meet in gyms and aim to promote white nationalist, misogynist and hyper-masculine ideology.
Exclusive: Experts urge water companies to update plants to avoid another catastrophe, as analysis reveals scale of use
At least 15 sewage plants on England’s south coast use the same contaminated plastic beads that were spilled in an environmental disaster in Camber Sands, Guardian analysis can reveal.
Environmental experts have urged water companies to update these old treatment plants to avoid another catastrophic spill, which can lead to plastic beads being permanently embedded in the environment and killing marine wildlife.
The international community allowed all of this to happen. We must not look away or move on
Genocide is a process, not an event. When genocide happens, its roots, and the conditions that allowed it, often become visible only in retrospect. If those conditions remain unchanged and there is no accountability, there’s every reason to believe the violence will return, perhaps even worse, especially if it was never fully halted. This is exactly what we are seeing in the case of Gaza. Demanding accountability from Israeli leaders isn’t just about the past, it’s the only way to challenge a system designed to repeat such violence.
A strange kind of calm has settled over Israel in the weeks since the Gaza ceasefire was declared. The sirens stopped. The hostages who survived the 7 October attack and nearly two years in captivity came home. But this calm – which has not been extended to Gaza, where more than 200 civilians have been killed since the ceasefire supposedly went into effect is built around an unclear plan by Donald Trump that does not address the root causes of the violence, and is merely a mirage. Nothing has changed in the violent political system that Palestinians and Israelis live under. The machinery behind the violence remains intact. The logic of domination still rules.
Yuli Novak is executive director of the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem
You don’t need to be a fright flick aficionado to enjoy this smart and witty tale of a romantic weekend break going gruesomely wrong
It is certainly unusual to see in closeup an arrow fired into a naked scrotum before the title of a film has even been shown, but this is that rare film. The scrotum in question belongs to a man fleeing unclothed through the woods from an unseen assailant, together with an equally naked female companion who also comes swiftly to a sticky end. As opening salvoes go, it hits the spot, as it were.
Then the film proper begins. A couple arrive at a bougie rental home only to find themselves facing the ultimate millennial nightmare: you’ve shelled out your hand-earned cash on a place for the weekend but find another couple have also booked it. This is the problem of listings on multiple platforms! Or is something more sinister going on? (If the ballsack shish kebab didn’t tip you off, another clue lies in the fact that the movie is called Bone Lake, not Airbnb Clash.) Imagine the social boundary-pushing of recent horror Speak No Evil with characters from White Lotus season 2 using the set-up from Barbarian, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of how much fun this will all prove to be.
It is the second-largest tropical forest on Earth, and one of the most vital carbon sinks, but is losing out when it comes to climate policy and funding
In October 2023, leaders, scientists and policymakers from three of the world’s great rainforest regions – the Amazon, the Congo, and the Borneo-Mekong basins – assembled in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo. They were there to discuss one urgent question: how to save the planet’s last great tropical forests from accelerating destruction.
For those present, the question was existential. But to their dismay, almost no one noticed. “There was very little acknowledgment that this was happening, outside of the Congo basin region,” says Prof Simon Lewis, a lecturer at the University of Leeds and University College London, and co-chair of the Congo Basin Science Initiative (CBSI).
The home secretary’s idea makes her sound so much like a cartoon villain that I initially assumed it couldn’t be true ...
You can’t react to every piece of flotsam on the unending tide of nastiness that emanates from Westminster on the subject of immigration, or you’ll start to feel like you’re the idiot. Are we surprised that a Labour home secretary would want to remove any prospect of permanent citizenship for all refugees, thereby ending Britain’s standing as a place of sanctuary? Petty, vindictive, counterproductive, narrow-minded, yes, but you could hardly call this surprising.
But, finally, a policy arrived that was so out of the normal run of things that I assumed it was a joke – a piece of satire, floated on X by some member of the wokerati, to make Shabana Mahmood sound truly heinous. Apparently, she wanted to seize the jewellery and other valuables to pay for their accommodation.Deploying exaggeration to underscore how much like a cartoon villain a politician sounds is a little bit sixth form and so far hasn’t been effective. And yet it couldn’t possibly be real, right? Because it sounds like a cartoon villain.
As Gore Verbinski’s AI-apocalypse film Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die hurtles towards us, it’s clear from the over-caffeinated trailer that we won’t be getting another ponderous parable about robot souls, digital enlightenment or the hubris of man
It’s easy to forget, given the current glut of robot-uprising doom flicks, that Hollywood has been doing the artificial intelligence thing for decades – long before anything resembling true AI existed in the real world. And now we live in an era in which a chatbot can write a passable sonnet, it is perhaps surprising that there hasn’t been a huge shift in how film-makers approach this particular corner of sci-fi.
Gareth Edwards’ The Creator (2023) is essentially the same story about AIs being the newly persecuted underclass as 1962’s The Creation of the Humanoids, except that the former has an $80m VFX budget and robot monks while the latter has community-theatre production values. Moon (2009) and 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey are both about the anxiety of being trapped with a soft-voiced machine that knows more than you. Her (2013) is basically Electric Dreams (1984) with fewer synth-pop arpeggios.
There is logic to the fresh international format, due to launch next year, but glaring issues and logistical challenges too
OK, let’s just pick the ball up and run with it for a little while. A reimagined global Test landscape pitching the northern hemisphere against the south commencing next July. Twelve men’s national sides playing six games each with a final playoff weekend. Concluding with one champion team hoisting a shiny trophy aloft in front of, hopefully, a worldwide television audience of millions.
On paper – and years of scribbling on the backs of envelopes have gone into this – there is some logic to it. Instead of seemingly random Tests scattered like distant dots on someone else’s map there is at least a discernible framework. Every game will, in theory, resonate. And, by virtue of pooling everybody’s TV rights, there are hopes of a collective commercial and promotional upside that can benefit the whole sport.
The home secretary is seeking “to use children as a weapon” in her changes to the asylum system, a veteran Labour peer who came to Britain as a child refugee has said.
Alf Dubs, who arrived in the UK aged six in 1939 fleeing the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, described Shabana Mahmood’s proposals as “a shabby thing”.
In the troubling HBO documentary Thoughts and Prayers, the $3bn active shooter preparedness industry shows the bleak reality of being a child in the US
Talking about changes experienced by kids Ttday often runs the risk of sounding reactionary, not to mention naive. No, there wasn’t as much talk about autism, or transgender kids, or any number of topics growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, because they weren’t understood or discussed in the same way – not because they didn’t exist. But it’s striking, watching the new HBO documentary Thoughts and Prayers, the degree to which it shows a demonstrable change from the experiences of someone growing up 30 or 40 years ago versus today: the absolute universality of emergency action plans that go beyond the scope of the fire drills you might remember. Thoughts and Prayers surveys many of those lockdown drills, and the many supplements available to contemporary schools designed to offer further protection from an active shooter: bulletproof backpacks, in-classroom shelters, and astoundingly elaborate real-life simulations, complete with stunningly realistic makeup for bullet wounds.
This change isn’t lost on directors Zackary Canepari and Jessica Dimmock. “Zack and I have an eight-year-old daughter,” Dimmock said in a joint interview, “and the idea for this film came about because she was coming up in school, and we were facing the thing that basically every American parent faces. Almost every kid in America does drills like this, across the board. We definitely did not grow up doing this, either, and I think there will be a huge part of the audience that will look at this and be like, ‘wow, right, I knew this was happening, but [still surprised] to see it.’ And there will be this whole other part of the audience that will be like, ‘yeah, mom, dad, I do this three times a year and have since I was five years old.’”
The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives is expected to vote on Tuesday to force the release of investigative files related to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the latest move in a scandal that has dogged Donald Trump since he returned to the White House.
In a sharp reversal this weekend, Trump dropped his opposition to a vote releasing files from the criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice into Epstein on Sunday. On Monday, Trump said he would sign the measure if it reached his desk.
Rubbing the inside of the peel over leaves will leave a glossy sheen, but is it any more effective than a damp cloth?
Theproblem
Dust isn’t just unsightly; it also blocks light from reaching your plant’s leaves, slowing growth and leaving them looking dull. Plant forums are full of DIY polishing tips. One of the most popular? Banana peel.
The hack
Rub the inside of a banana peel on to your plant’s leaves to clean them and leave a glossy sheen. Some swear by it as a natural – and free – alternative to chemical leaf-shine sprays.
Mark Bray has become one of the highest-profile people caught up in Donald Trump’s efforts to target Antifa
Baggage dropped and boarding passes in hand, Mark Bray and his family cleared security at Newark airport in early October. Their flight to Spain was meant to ferry the family of four to safety after days of mounting threats; instead, as they waited at the gate to board, they were told that someone had cancelled their reservation.
“It felt like I was being watched and laughed at,” said Bray, a professor at Rutgers university who teaches a course on the history of antifascism and in 2017 wrote a book on Antifa. “I knew it was politically motivated one way or the other.”
His company is potentially creating the ultimate state surveillance tool, and Karp has recently been on a striking political and philosophical journey. His biographer reveals what makes him tick
In a recent interview, Alex Karp said that his company Palantir was “the most important software company in America and therefore in the world”. He may well be right. To some, Palantir is also the scariest company in the world, what with its involvement in the Trump administration’s authoritarian agenda. The potential end point of Palantir’s tech is an all-powerful government system amalgamating citizens’ tax records, biometric data and other personal information – the ultimate state surveillance tool. No wonder Palantir has been likened to George Orwell’s Big Brother, or Skynet from the Terminator movies.
Does this make Karp the scariest CEO in the world? There is some competition from Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Palantir’s co-founder Peter Thiel. But 58-year-old Karp could give them all a run for their money in terms of influence, self-belief, ambition and – even in this gallery of oddballs – sheer eccentricity. In his increasingly frequent media appearances, Karp is a striking presence, with his cloud of unkempt grey hair, his 1.25x speed diction, and his mix of combative conviction and almost childish mannerisms. On CNBC’s Squawk Box, he shook both fists simultaneously as he railed against short sellers betting against Palantir, whose share price has climbed nearly 600% in the past year: “It’s super triggering,” he complained. “Why do they have to go after us?”
Beat Denmark and qualification for first time since 1998 is guaranteed. Is it in the stars?
Wounding events in modern history mean Scotland can not be a football country that expects. It is, however, one on tenterhooks as the prospect of long‑awaited World Cup qualification looms so large.
On paper, the task is simple: beat Denmark at Hampden Park on Tuesday and the Scots will take a place in next summer’s tournament. It is the significance of progress that matters far more than the fact the Danes are ranked 18 places higher in the world.
Security spokesperson says the incident at the weekend was a terrorist attack ‘initiated by special services from the East’
Heads up: Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk will address the Polish parliament around 1pm local time (midday UK) to give lawmakers an update on the latest on the rail sabotage incidents over the weekend.
As Reform announces what it claims are £25bn in savings through cuts, Labour says ‘Farage’s fantasy numbers don’t add up’
A majority of potential Reform UK voters would back a one-off wealth tax on the very rich, polling suggests, with about three-quarters supporting windfall taxes on energy companies and banks, Peter Walker reports.
In France the far-right National Rally, whose politics loosely align with Reform UK’s, has backed a wealth tax. But the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has consistently opposed the idea, saying it would lead to high earners leaving Britain, and the party itself was, in its early days, highly dependent on a relatively small number of wealthy donors.
Shipped out of Dallas and dropped into Hollywood, Dončić has responded with a leaner body, a louder voice and a growing command of the Lakers’ post-LeBron future
It’s been nine and a half months since the trade that rocked the sports world was broken via a Shams Charania tweet that prompted the majority of the basketball news-breaker’s followers to assume he’d been hacked. Fresh off of a trip to the NBA finals, the young Slovenian superstar Luka Dončić was shipped off in the middle of the night to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis, and the NBA as we know it was changed forever. The fallout from one of the most shocking trades in sports history is still evolving in real-time: disgraced Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison, who spearheaded the transaction, was let go by the team last week, in a move Mavericks fans have been loudly clamoring for since news broke that their homegrown franchise player was being abruptly cast to sea. But on the other side of the coin was a mixed blessing and a new beginning. But on the other side of the coin was a mixed blessing and a new beginning: Dončić, who had imagined spending his entire career in Dallas like mentor Dirk Nowitzki, suddenly found himself recast as the face of the NBA’s most iconic franchise under the bright lights of Hollywood. And, as it turns out, the future is now.
While Dončić’s breakup with the Mavericks was both very public and very messy (the team was not shy about vocalizing its reasoning for the move, and painting the 26-year-old in quite an unflattering light in the process), the silver linings showed themselves quickly. He might not have considered himself suited for the Los Angeles spotlight, but with his flair for the dramatic and a feel for the sport’s theater, playing for such a high-profile franchise proved an unexpectedly good fit. And it couldn’t have worked out better for the Lakers: the team had been staring down the barrel of an uncertain future, with the retirement of 40-year-old LeBron James looming, and Anthony Davis’ injury history creating a cloud of doubt around his ability to be the No 1 option in the eventual aftermath. Enter stage right: a ticket to franchise salvation, equipped with the newfound motivation that can only be borne from being publicly and mercilessly dragged through the mud.
Gen Z actors such as Millie Bobby Brown and Jenna Ortega are refusing to do what is expected of ‘the talent’
Last week, I saw a clip that made me want to stand up and cheer. It was of the actor Millie Bobby Brown talking back to a photographer on a red carpet. The paparazzi had been yelling at her to smile, and Brown retorted: “Smile? You smile,” before walking off. She refused to do what was expected of her.
It’s a similar story with the star of the recent TV series Alien: Earth, Sydney Chandler. The actor did not appear on the cover of Variety magazine alongside the show’s creator and one of her co-stars, after she said she didn’t want to take part in a video interview for a regular series called How Well Do They Know Each Other?. The interviewer spent the first half of the resulting cover story explaining the situation in a bemused, tut-tutting tone, noting all the stars who had been willing to take part in the franchise.
Priya Elan writes about the arts, music and fashion
An affectionate biography of the polymath includes details of never-produced gems such as Monty Python’s Third World War
Terry Jones was a Python, a historian, a bestselling children’s author and a very naughty boy. He loved to play women in drag, started a magazine about countryside ecology (Vole), founded his own real-ale brewery and was even once a columnist for this newspaper, beginning one piece in 2011 like this: “In the 14th century there were two pandemics. One was the Black Death, the other was the commercialisation of warfare.” He even used to write jokes for Cliff Richard.
It would be tempting in view of all this to call him a renaissance man, except that Jones rather despised the highfalutin Renaissance, preferring the earthiness of medieval times: his first published book was a scholarly reinterpretation of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, arguing that the hero’s fighting and pillaging was being presented satirically by the poet as something deplorable. Later he raided the Norse myth-kitty for the beloved children’s book (and, later, film) The Saga of Erik the Viking. His illustrator told him that Vikings didn’t really wear those massive helmets with horns sticking out at the sides, but Terry insisted on them. Historical accuracy could only get you so far.
Connexion
