Mehdi Mahmoudian detained after signing statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader for recent bloodshed
A co-writer of Oscar-nominated film It Was Just an Accident has been arrested in Teheran just weeks before the Academy Awards, after signing a statement that condemned Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, for the recent bloodshed in the country.
Human rights campaigner Mehdi Mahmoudian was detained on Saturday after putting his signature to a statement that said “the primary responsibility for these atrocities lies with Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, and the repressive structure of the regime”.
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© Photograph: AP
© Photograph: AP
© Photograph: AP
The countries have come closer to agreeing on some issues, according to Russia, but there are some complex differences
Meanwhile, we are getting a news line from the Kremlin, saying that Russia and Ukraine have narrowed their differences on some issues but not on other more complex issues.
Make of that what you will.
“Those who say that we need a European army … maybe those people haven’t really thought this through practically because, having been a prime minister, you know that you have one army, you have one defence budget.
So if you are already part of Nato, … you can’t … create a separate army, besides the army that you already have.
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© Photograph: Iryna Rybakova/AP
© Photograph: Iryna Rybakova/AP
© Photograph: Iryna Rybakova/AP
Exclusive: Andy George, who has been subject to several investigations, believes there is an effort to marginalise the views of those he represents
“I tell you now, there is an attempt by some of the longer serving chief constables to get rid of me,” says Ch Insp Andy George. “I can guarantee I know exactly what they think of me: that I’m a wee upstart, so I am, that doesn’t know my place,” he adds with a smile.
The eldest son of a Protestant mother from Armagh in Northern Ireland and a father who was born in Malaysia but served in the British army, George is the longest-serving president of the National Black Police Association (NBPA).
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© Photograph: Paul Faith/The Guardian
© Photograph: Paul Faith/The Guardian
© Photograph: Paul Faith/The Guardian
Writing towards the end of the first world war, the poet, novelist, journalist and suffragist Benson here dreams of a secure peace
The Secret Day
My yesterday has gone, has gone and left me tired,
And now tomorrow comes and beats upon the door;
So I have built To-day, the day that I desired,
Lest joy come not again, lest peace return no more,
Lest comfort come no more.
© Photograph: Helen Dixon/Alamy
© Photograph: Helen Dixon/Alamy
© Photograph: Helen Dixon/Alamy
The latest in our series of writers paying tribute to their most rewatched comfort films is a trip back to 1992 for the unique rock comedy
When the conversation of the most overrated band in history crops up I often want to put Queen forward as my suggestion. Their omnipresent hits represent the worst of bands who favour stadium-sized grandeur over true ambition. However, I can never truly get behind the idea of trashing Freddie and co when their music helped create one of my most beloved scenes in cinema history.
Early in 1992’s Wayne’s World, a bunch of rockers squeeze into an AMC Pacer with custom flames painted on the side. As they drive past the automarts, car washes and beef stands of downtown Chicago, Bohemian Rhapsody plays on the car stereo. The song’s operatic verses are used for laughs (the “Let me go” line becomes a cry for help from a friend who is partied out and might “honk” in the backseat) while the breakdown in the middle creates space for a spot of high-speed headbanging. To me it’s as thrilling a car scene as anything in Bullitt or the Mad Max franchise.
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© Photograph: Album/Alamy
© Photograph: Album/Alamy
© Photograph: Album/Alamy
Ric Roman Waugh’s predictable plot redeemed by fight choreography as Statham faces up to Bill Nighy, and casting of young Hamnet actor Bodhi Rae Breathnach
Say what you like about Jason Statham, but he definitely knows his fanbase and gives them what they want. In his latest vehicle, he is back playing a former armed-forces operative haunted by his violent past who is compelled to take up weaponry again. This is basically the setup for the Transporter franchise in which he starred, many more works featuring Statham and, to be frank, most action movies, which are (let’s face it) basically variations on Achilles sulking in his tent in the Iliad until he is forced to fight once more. There is nothing new under the sun.
Shelter, formulaically directed by Ric Roman Waugh (Greenland) working from a script by Ward Parry (The Shattering), feels populated by indestructible plastic tropes that have cracked and faded after years of scorching sun exposure. Statham plays Mason, once a special-forces super soldier with secrets who is first met hiding on a remote island in the Outer Hebrides, with only goodest boy German shepherd Jack for company. Fans of the John Wick franchise will immediately feel anxious about Jack’s future – although if you’ve seen Leon: The Professional you probably won’t feel so worried about young Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), an orphaned girl whom Mason takes under his wing when her only relative, her uncle, is killed in a boating accident. That little spark of kindness triggers MI6 to track Mason down, having first falsely identified him as a terrorist, and then sending assassins to kill him all of whom he swats away like so many flies.
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© Photograph: FlixPix/Alamy
© Photograph: FlixPix/Alamy
© Photograph: FlixPix/Alamy
With some of Ukraine’s most valuable biodiversity sites and science facilities under occupation, experts at Sofiyivka Park in Uman are struggling to preserve the country’s natural history
In the basement laboratory of the National Dendrological Park Sofiyivka, Larisa Kolder tends to dozens of specimens of Moehringia hypanica between power outages. Just months earlier, she and her team at this microclonal plant propagation laboratory in Uman, Ukraine, received 23 seeds of the rare flower.
Listed as threatened in Ukraine’s Red Book of endangered species, Moehringia grows nowhere else in the wild but the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine. Of those 23 seeds, only two grew into plants that Kolder and her colleagues could clone in their laboratory, but now her lab is home to a small grove of Moehringia seedlings, including 80 that have put down roots in a small but vital win for biodiversity conservation amid Russia’s war with Ukraine.
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© Photograph: Courtesy of Buzkyi Gard National Nature Park
© Photograph: Courtesy of Buzkyi Gard National Nature Park
© Photograph: Courtesy of Buzkyi Gard National Nature Park
No deal on table for left-back after respectful discussions
Arsenal in talks to sign Barcelona full-back Ona Batlle
Katie McCabe is likely to leave Arsenal when her contract expires this summer, with no new deal on the table after what sources have described as “very respectful discussions” about her future.
Arsenal regard McCabe as a club legend, the left-back having been there for just over 10 years and helped them become world and European champions, but they plan to refresh this summer with younger players.
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© Photograph: Jay Patel/Sports Press Photo/SPP/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Jay Patel/Sports Press Photo/SPP/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Jay Patel/Sports Press Photo/SPP/Shutterstock
Core X programme is working to lift match officials from underrepresented communities into the professional game
“If you can’t manage personalities on the field and you can’t articulate your decisions, refereeing might not be for you,” says Dan Meeson, Professional Game Match Officials’ development director. We are in the cafe area of the Burleigh Court hotel, tucked away on Loughborough University’s campus, where a promising group of officials are being put through their paces by the elite refereeing body as they try to reach the top level.
The 29-strong group forms part of the Core X programme, designed to elevate into the professional game match officials from historically underrepresented ethnic communities who operate at semi-professional level. The programme, launched in 2023, runs in collaboration with the Football Association and is supported by the advocacy group Bamref. It accounts for more than three‑quarters of Black, Asian and mixed-heritage referee promotions into the professional game.
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© Photograph: Courtesy of PGMOL
© Photograph: Courtesy of PGMOL
© Photograph: Courtesy of PGMOL
© Daniel Cole/Reuters
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