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Politics
Policy, power, and the news of the day.
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US’s Reagan-era economic promises return as Trump’s AI-fueled growth fantasy
‘Even if AI supercharged the economy, its impact on the government’s finances would be muted’ Back through political history to the age of Ronald Reagan , Republicans have repeatedly promised the US public that tax cuts would pay for themselves, firing up economic growth and filling the government’s coffers. The promise never really panned out. From the Gipper’s day on, the Republicans’ tax cuts inevitably increased the budget deficit. Despite its failure, though, the promise is back, coated in a fine new layer of artificial intelligence pixie dust. It will fail again. Continue reading...
Labour has got the message – poorer nations suffer most from bond market turmoil | Heather Stewart
Just as Brown and Blair did in 2005, Andy Burnham aims to champion debt relief to help developing countries Developing nations face triple shock, UN warns From Washington to Paris, London to Tokyo, policymakers in every large economy have been counting the costs of bond market turmoil in recent weeks. But the brunt of the pain is being borne by heavily indebted developing countries, that have little hope of influencing the whims of global investors, but pay the price regardless. Continue reading...
Britain stands behind Zelenskyy, says Streeting after Trump’s call for new leader in Ukraine
Defence secretary backs Ukrainian president and says priority is to maintain western unity over Russia conflict Britain stands behind Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the defence secretary has said, after Donald Trump called for the Ukrainian president to be replaced and the US announced a controversial agreement to buy Russian diesel. Wes Streeting said Ukrainians alone should be able to decide who led their country as he indicated Trump was facing domestic political pressure over fuel prices ahead of next month’s US midterm elections. Continue reading...
‘When you look at the numbers, we win’: the prophetic Texas pastor poised to take Jasmine Crockett’s House seat
Rev Dr Frederick Douglass Haynes III is reclaiming a faith-based politics to counter Trump-allied white evangelicals It was that point in the evening: dinner plates were cleared; speeches had run long; people were chatting, milling or eyeing the exit. But then the Rev Dr Frederick Douglass Haynes III took the stage. Bald, bearded, bespectacled and dressed in black, he delivered a mix of fiery sermon and performance poetry. Soon the guests were back in their seats – rapt, listening, clapping and whooping. Haynes’s rolling cadence was evocative of the pulpit but the political message was far from kumbaya. Aiming to succeed Democratic star Jasmine Crockett in Texas’s 30th congressional district, he danced like a butterfly with references to the boxer Muhammad Ali and rapper Tupac Shakur. But he also stung like a bee, branding Donald Trump as “President Pickpocket” and Republicans as the authors of racist gerrymandering and voter suppression. Continue reading...
Former Irish Olympic swimming coach and child abuser George Gibney to be sentenced
Gibney, 77, will face justice for abusing athletes in the 1970s and 80s after decades of effort to track and extradite him More than half a century after he started sexually abusing children, and enjoyed prestige as Ireland’s Olympic swimming coach before fleeing to the United States, George Gibney is to face justice. The 77-year-old is to be sentenced at the central criminal court in Dublin on Monday for abusing four young female athletes in the 1970s and 1980s. Continue reading...
‘She was swaying, zoning out’: UK pets poisoned in record numbers by illicit drugs
Toxicology helplines report 42% increase in calls involving animals poisoned by drugs and nicotine A record number of pets are ingesting recreational drugs and requiring veterinary care in the UK, figures shared with the Guardian reveal. Last year, the UK’s only emergency poison centre for animals received its highest ever number of calls involving animals poisoned by cannabis, cocaine, magic mushrooms and nicotine, and it is on course to do so again this year. Continue reading...
Surgeon faces deportation as Home Office revokes refugee status for Syrians
UK classifies Syria as safe to return to despite UN refugee body’s advice A Syrian plastic surgeon is facing deportation from the UK after the Home Office revoked his refugee status, declaring it is now safe for him and his family to return to their home country. Despite Foreign Office guidance advising against all travel to Syria because of the “volatile” security situation, the government has classified it as a safe place for refugees to return to. Continue reading...
Man accused of child rape set to become police chief in small Louisiana town
Republican Christopher Paul is running unopposed for seat despite allegations he raped two girls 20 years ago A candidate for police chief in a small Louisiana town candidate is on course to be elected unopposed despite two charges of child rape pending against him, leaving his community to weigh whether to convert the position into an appointed office rather than one determined at the ballot box. Christopher Paul, a Republican who on 6 August signed up to run for chief of police in the south-western Louisiana village of Elizabeth, was arrested on 8 September on allegations that he raped two girls in 2005 and 2006. Continue reading...
Fixated on AI, the world has forgotten what is staring it in the face: nuclear annihilation | Simon Tisdall
This is no scoffing matter. The accelerating proliferation of advanced nuclear weapons is bringing ‘end times’ closer by the day Humankind has fearfully and sometimes joyfully anticipated the end of the world ever since it began. The Bible’s Book of Revelation speaks of “end times”, a period of tribulation, war, famine, plague, floods and environmental catastrophe that may seem a less absurd prospect today than perhaps it once did. Islam, too, posits a fateful day of judgment or day of reckoning. Christian evangelicals believe that, in the final rapture, a chosen few – the righteous or the “elect” – will be saved while sinners burn. It’s a minority view. Matthew’s gospel predicts most people will defy, ignore or ridicule warnings of imminent Armageddon. Peter, another of Jesus’s disciples, agreed: “In the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.” Yet such worldly scepticism does not mean a universal cataclysm is less likely. It may make it more probable. Donald Trump’s blanket denials of the dangers ostensibly posed by artificial intelligence, whose uncontrolled development is seen by some as the latest harbinger of apocalypse , could be interpreted as fulfilling Peter’s prophecy. This US president, the nearest thing the world has to a one-man doomsday machine, is a great one for scoffing and evil desires. In Robert Harris’s 2019 novel, The Second Sleep, a worried scientist lists half a dozen ways the world might end. They include devastating climate change, pandemic disease, a giant asteroid collision with Earth, or some other overwhelming calamity. Few heed the fictional scientist’s fears. In the event, what destroys him and almost everybody else is a disturbingly plausible cyber crash – a global digital and internet meltdown. Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator Continue reading...
After RAF Fairford incident, how big a threat to the UK is Iran?
Although there is scepticism about Tehran’s capabilities, it has become clear it wants Britain to feel it poses a risk Britain may have been only peripherally involved in the bombing of Iran that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu started, but in the past fortnight it has become clear that Tehran wants to pose a threat inside the UK in response. In the aftermath of the confused incident near RAF Fairford, western officials are weighing up whether to warn publicly that Iran now has US military targets in Europe on its mind, such as the air force base in Gloucestershire. Continue reading...
Middle East crisis live: Houthis warn passengers against using Saudi airport after deadly attack on Riyadh
US president Donald Trump says he is weighing whether the US will join Saudi strikes against the Iran-backed Houthis The Houthis this morning have just also issued a warning to travellers and airlines against using Saudi airports following yesterday’s attack. It’s the first public message from the group since Saturday’s deadly assault. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said airports and airspace “are exposed to targeting and constitute a theatre of operations for our forces”, he said, adding that the group was pursuing: “airport for airport, siege for siege, and escalation for escalation”. He said the airports in Mecca and Medina – the holiest cities in Islam- were excepted. Continue reading...
‘Under tremendous strain’: CIA analyst turned spy novelist on a fraying US-UK alliance
David McCloskey’s new book depicts a calamitous collapse of the ‘special relationship’ – could things get darker still? The “special relationship”, the time-honored emotional bond between the US and Britain that has sustained through war and peace, is in trouble. The ties of history, culture and language that have bridged an ocean and bound the two countries politically for generations are fraying as perhaps never before – strained relentlessly by Donald Trump, who has gleefully sacrificed traditional alliances and diplomatic niceties on the altar of his “America first” agenda. Continue reading...
Missing Australian hiker Jordan Yap last seen on remote trail found dead in Peru
Family and friends say Melbourne man should be remembered for ‘immense joy he brought to so many people’s lives’ Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast An Australian trekker who was last seen on a remote South American hiking trail has been found dead, his family have said. Jordan Yap, 30, last made contact with friends and family on 14 September ahead of a planned 10-day solo trek along Peru’s Huayhuash mountain range, 400km north-east of Lima. Continue reading...
‘Halloweenmas’: how the spooky one-nighter turned into a month-long spectacular
Welcome to Halloweenmas, weeks of themed fun and gifts – from costume parties to decorating trees – without the stress, rules or cost of Christmas The tree is up, the wreath is hanging on the front door and you’ve just opened your advent calendar . All told, it’s beginning to feel a lot like … Halloween . If it sounds like the stuff of nightmares then that’s the point: Britons are increasingly decorating their homes with ghoulish versions of Christmas traditions. Think of it as Halloweenmas. Continue reading...
‘It was a terrible thing’: Panama declares state of emergency as quake aftershocks rattle communities
More than 100 aftershocks as high as magnitude-5.8 recorded after two quakes toppled buildings and prompted evacuations Panama’s government has declared a state of emergency on Saturday as the aftershocks of two powerful earthquakes that roiled the country shook communities for hours. Officials did not attribute any deaths to Friday’s 7.7- and 6.6-magnitude earthquakes, but reported damages in all 10 of Panama’s provinces and two Indigenous territories. Continue reading...
A Trump impersonator and opera singers: CPAC was a spectacle, but the right still can’t agree how to take down Labor
Preferences proved the sticking point at the conference as conservatives face the prospect of a third successive election defeat Get our new political email , free app or daily news podcast Many mainstream Australians would feel as if they’d been dropped in a foreign country at the Conservative Political Action Conference, lost amid oblique references to transgender swimmers, blue hair, women’s bathrooms, jokes about falling off stages and Matt Canavan in hi-vis and speed dealer sunnies . It’s an interesting spectacle. At this year’s conference in Brisbane, rightwing campaigner Monica Smit was deep in conversation with a Donald Trump impersonator, opera singers belted out the national anthem (the first verse, twice, for unknown reasons), senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and her folk singer husband sang the anthem again , and Stefanovic jokingly thanking CPAC for “rudely interrupting my unemployment”. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s Politics, really newsletter here Continue reading...
Manchester-based composer creates requiem to honour enslaved Africans
David Önaç uses insurance documents for work funded by Lloyd’s of London after research uncovered its slavery links A centuries-old insurance document detailing the trafficking of enslaved Africans began with the words: “In the name of God, Amen.” For Dr Errol Francis, the artistic director and chief executive of the arts and heritage charity Culture&, the contradiction was striking: an invocation of God in a document that treated human beings as cargo. Continue reading...
‘We need less point scoring’: What party conference season taught us about UK climate action
Tories plan to scrap low-carbon housebuilding, Greens back new nuclear reactors, and Labour put oil-drilling decisions on hold New homes could be built without solar panels, heat pumps and high-grade insulation, leading to higher household bills if the Conservative party wins the next general election. Kemi Badenoch made scrapping the future homes standard (FHS) one of the central planks of her bid to become the next prime minister at the Tory party conference this week. Continue reading...
‘You have a meeting’: the calendar phishing scam growing exponentially
Appointment or renewal reminder appears in victims’ calendar to lure them into logging in to fake Google, Microsoft or PayPal page You’re preparing for the week ahead and take a look at your Google calendar. There’s an entry for a meeting that you must have completely forgotten. The note that pops up when you click on it says you’ll be reviewing a project and includes a link to more details. Confused, you follow it to find out more; the website you land on asks for logon details, and you provide them. Unfortunately, this was not a failure of your memory but a calendar phishing scam. You have handed your name and password to fraudsters who will sell it on in a batch with other people’s details, use it to break into your work email, or to persuade you that they are contacting you from your bank , or another institution. Continue reading...
Ben Roberts-Smith attends Canberra event honouring Australian troops who served in Afghanistan
Anthony Albanese speaks at Australian War Memorial event commemorating 25th anniversary of country’s involvement in the conflict Anthony Albanese has honoured Australian troops who served in Afghanistan, using the 25th anniversary of the country’s involvement in the conflict to describe their heroism as a fight for “who we are as a people”. The prime minister joined hundreds of veterans, family members and dignitaries at a commemoration of the start of the campaign in Canberra on Sunday, with nation’s most decorated living soldier and accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith among the crowd at the Australian War Memorial. Continue reading...
Two Carlton players treated in hospital after needing care for ‘separate circumstances’
Club issues brief statement about Lachie Cowan and Will Hayward, saying latter suffered minor cut to head after a fall Carlton football club has said two of its players, Lachie Cowan and Will Hayward, required treatment in hospital on Sunday morning in “separate circumstances”. The club released a statement on Sunday after reports in several media outlets that unnamed players had been taken to hospital by ambulance after a night out. Guardian Australia contacted Carlton seeking comment on the reports. Continue reading...
‘Restore the authority’: the challenge for the BBC’s new director of news
Rachel Jupp takes role as corporation grapples with digital transformation, a cash crisis and its public service role With looming job cuts and an ongoing pay dispute, there has not been much to smile about for BBC journalists working in “the pit” – their pet name for the newsroom deep in the belly of New Broadcasting House. On Monday afternoon, however, they were greeted by a grinning figure conducting a tour of the news floor. She was Rachel Jupp , the BBC’s newly appointed director of news and current affairs. Jupp engaged in a series of polite if brief conversations with her new troops. Continue reading...
Retrofit schools and consider moving exams to beat extreme heat, says teaching union leader
NEU’s Daniel Kebede says earlier start times and longer summer breaks may be needed to help pupils and teachers Schools should consider changing start and finish times, reordering holidays and moving exams from the summer months in an effort to adapt to the UK’s increasingly severe heatwaves, according to the leader of the country’s biggest education union. Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said this summer’s repeated bouts of extreme heat had a devastating impact on teachers and pupils , as classroom temperatures topped 40C and hundreds of thousands of young people were sent home. Continue reading...
Christian nationalism in Britain driven by people who seldom go to church, says report
Research challenges the notion that the growing visibility of crosses and other symbols reflects a revival of Christianity Christian nationalism in Britain is being driven largely by people who rarely attend church and are more concerned with defending the country’s Christian heritage, according to research. The report, by the thinktank Theos, identified five different groups within the UK in a survey that looked at their attitudes to Christianity and Britishness. Continue reading...