Bali governor says new instructions issued to stop hotels and restaurants being built on productive land, especially rice fields
Indonesia will ban the construction of new hotels and restaurants built atop cleared rice fields and agricultural land on the popular resort island of Bali, after recent flash flooding killed at least 18 people.
A state of emergency was declared on Bali on 10 September after the island experienced the most severe flooding in more than a decade.
Indian players refuse to shake hands with Pakistani counterparts after Asia Cup match, in sign that traditional onfield camaraderie is eroding
As nationalistic rivalries go, few run as deep as India and Pakistan. But even as the neighbours fought wars against each other, carried out rival nuclear tests and conducted nightly shows of strength along their heavily militarised border, there was always one thing that brought them together: cricket.
But as the two sides came together on Sunday for a match in the Asia Cup tournament, the camaraderie that was once celebrated as cricket diplomacy had vanished.
Everybody loved Robert Redford. Directors and co-stars including Ralph Fiennes, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Judd Hirsch, Norman Reedus and F Murray Abraham explain why
In the city of Tarim, colourful mansions built by the city’s merchants are being knocked down as the war-torn nation cannot afford to maintain them
Words and photographs by Saeed al-Batati in Tarim
When the bulldozers moved into Abdul Rahman Bin Sheikh al-Kaf’s mud-brick palace in Tarim and began tearing down its spectacular architecture, the clouds of dust around the landmark attracted a large gathering in the Yemeni city.
Haddad Musaied, a local journalist, got a call from a friend telling him about the destruction and encouraging him to come and see it. “As a journalist, you have a responsibility to stop what is happening,” the friend said.
I put myself forward as a human guinea pig to study the effects of long-term sub-aquatic living. Not everyone can say they have befriended a lobster and a shark
My stay in Jules’ Undersea Lodge started in March 2023. The habitat, secured to the bed of a 30ft-deep lagoon in Key Largo, Florida, wasn’t the most comfortable hotel I’ve spent time in, but then I wasn’t there for a holiday. I’m a biomedical researcher and I was there as part of a scientific mission called Project Neptune 100.
The main aim was to research the mental and physical impact on the human body of living in increased atmospheric pressure – 70% higher than at the surface. It was also to study what happens when you leave someone alone in a confined environment for 100 days. The data might have all manner of applications – for future missions to Mars, for example.
This animated comedy about a hotel full of ghosts comes from a Rick and Morty writer. But banish all thoughts about cartoon sitcom greatness – it is relentlessly, endlessly OK
Animated comedy for adults should be a limitless playground for the world’s brightest comic imaginations and sometimes it is, but it is also a genre that has been bloated by bland, empty calories – inessential shows that viewers leave running in the background while they potter or doomscroll. To the teetering pile of landfill entertainment can be added Haunted Hotel, Netflix’s new comedy about, unsurprisingly, a haunted hotel.
As you ponder whether or not to put it on your watchlist, push the giants of cartoon sitcom out of your mind: showrunner Matt Roller has episodes of Rick and Morty on his CV, but Haunted Hotel doesn’t have the fizzing imaginative leaps of that series, nor does it deliver the finely honed, classic comedy of The Simpsons, the lewd snark of Family Guy or the black profundity of BoJack Horseman. Instead, it is, at best, quite funny. It has lines that conform to the familiar shape of jokes. Some of the synapses you associate with laughter will experience mild stimulus. If you don’t like this gag, another will be along in a minute, and although you probably also won’t like that one, you won’t strongly dislike it either. This show is relentlessly, endlessly OK.
The nationalist policies of Sohei Kamiya’s party, Sanseito, are drawing a mix of youth voters, disaffected conservatives and conspiracy theorists
Sleeves rolled up and perched atop his campaign vehicle, Sohei Kamiya was a familiar sight in Tokyo as he railed against the political establishment in the run-up to Japan’s upper house elections. He drew applause from admirers, and grimaces from those fearful of his divisive brand of “Japanese first” politics – inspired by his natural ally, Donald Trump.
Kamiya’s political party, Sanseito – literally the “political participation party” – has been described as far-right, ultraconservative and nationalist – with migrants, the “liberal elite” and foreign capital the objects of its anger. Its nickname – the do-it-yourself party – speaks to its role, it says, as a place for self-starters who have grown tired of the Japanese political mainstream.
Sunday’s demonstration in Manila to coincide with anniversary of 1972 martial law declaration as president backs rally in bid to placate anger
Thousands of people are expected to join a mass protest in Manila on Sunday amid a groundswell of anger in the Philippines against perceived corruption in government-funded flood control projects.
Dubbed the “Trillion Peso March”, the demonstration is named after a Greenpeace estimate of $17.6bn that the environmental organisation alleges is the amount skimmed from climate-related projects in 2023.
President says Ukrainian forces in east have reclaimed 160 sq km of land and cleared another 170 sq km as counteroffensive ‘achieving results’. What we know on day 1,304
Ukrainian forces have pushed back some of the gains Russia made over the summer, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said, calling the operation an “important success” after months of battlefield setbacks. The Ukrainian president said his troops had reclaimed 160 sq km (62 sq miles) of land near the eastern coalmining town of Dobropillia, where Russia pierced Ukraine’s defences in August. Russia did not immediately comment on the claims. Zelenskyy said after meeting troops in the eastern Donetsk region on Thursday that his army was “achieving results” in an ongoing counteroffensive there. In addition to reclaiming the 160 sq km, Ukrainian forces had “cleared” Russian troops from an additional 170 sq km of land but had not yet formally taken the territory, he said in a video address. Zelenskyy did not say when Ukraine made the gains but said Russia had “suffered thousands of losses”. DeepState, an online battlefield tracker linked to the Ukrainian army, showed Russian troops made rapid advances near Dobropillia last month but that some of their gains had evaporated in recent weeks. The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.
Donald Trump has accused Vladimir Putin of letting him down in a joint press conference with Keir Starmer during which the US president piled criticism on his Russian counterpart, report Kiran Stacey and Pippa Crerar. Trump said he had hoped to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine soon after entering office but that Putin’s actions had prevented him from doing so. Putin “has let me down”, Trump said. “He’s killing many people, and he’s losing more people than he’s killing. The Russian soldiers are being killed at a higher rate than the Ukrainian soldiers.” His comments on Thursday came during an hour-long press conference alongside the UK prime minister which marked the culmination of a two-day state visit. His comments about Putin will delight British officials who had hoped to use the unprecedented second state visit to isolate the Russian president on the world stage.
A Russian air strike on the Donetsk region town of Kostiantynivka on Thursday killed five people, Ukrainian police said. The town is about 8km from the front line and is surrounded by Russian troops on three sides, according to DeepState. Kyiv has been hitting back with long-range strikes on Russia’s oil sector, with the latest attack on Thursday morning triggering a fire at a refinery in the central Bashkortostan region, about 1,400km from the front. Vladimir Putin said more than 700,000 Russian soldiers were now deployed on the Ukrainian front line.
Russia has responded to a US-based report about the forced re-education of deported Ukrainian children. Yale’s School of Public Health said after an investigation that it had identified more than 210 sites where Ukrainian children have been taken for military training, drone manufacturing and other forced re-education by Russia as part of a large-scale deportation programme. The facilities – across Russia and occupied Ukraine – include camps as well as schools, military bases, medical facilities, religious sites and universities, it said. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed on Thursday that the report was full of fabrications and based on questionable data. Ukraine says Russia has illegally deported or forcibly displaced more than 19,500 children to Russia and Belarus in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Masculine adequacy is a curse, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Beyond assuring him he meets the standard, could you help him to see the standard doesn’t matter?
My boyfriend sees sex as a competition he is losing. He feels like he doesn’t perform enough (he does) and worries he isn’t big enough (he is!).
He grew up without a father – the father’s fault – and I wonder if this has something to do with it. How can I assist him to see sex as non-competitive? I love him, and I find this self-loathing distressing.
Eleanor says: I assume he doesn’t think he’s losing the competition with you, somehow, but with imagined manly foes, comparisons, symbols of everything he (imagines he) isn’t?
Croft’s recent win the 174km Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc made her the first woman to take out the triple series crown in the prestigious event
Growing up in Stillwater, New Zealand, population 86, Ruth Croft learned hard work from a young age. Her father ran a transport company, managing dozens of drivers and semi-trailers across the 600km West Coast in the South Island.
“On school holidays I worked for my dad full time, sometimes 14-hour days,” says Croft. “Shitty jobs like cleaning drains or the grease bay. I don’t know anyone who works as hard as he does.”
Bridge theatre, London Ibsen’s mysticism and mermaids are thrown out as director Simon Stone amps up the 1888 play’s psychological intensity with his eco-focused update
Writer-director Simon Stone is known for his rock’n’roll takes on the classics. This is a characteristically high-octane version of Ibsen’s play: loud, modern and led by screen stars Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln. Yet his script, again created in the rehearsal process, retains all of Ibsen’s layers and adds some of its own in the updating.
All mystical talk of the sea and mermaids is excised. The production brings a sharply lit realism to the privileged yet complex family at its heart that seems to be slowly drowning: Ellida (Vikander), as the young, second wife of neurologist Edward (Lincoln), is caught between life with her husband and a long lost, formative ex-lover, Finn (Brendan Cowell), who makes a reappearance. Ellida’s stepdaughters, Hilda (Isobel Akuwudike) and Asa (Gracie Oddie-James), are trying to stay afloat amid grief for their biological mother, who killed herself.
Robertson looks a better bet for Merseyside derby, a fresh test for Bournemouth, protests at West Ham and more
It would be a surprise to see Arne Slot start Milos Kerkez against Everton, given the left-back’s struggles against Burnley last weekend. Kerkez was booked for diving and was lucky to avoid a second yellow after fouling Jaidon Anthony before being substituted for Andy Robertson after 38 minutes at Turf Moor. Surely Slot will not risk a similar performance in the cauldron of the Merseyside derby, especially with such a dependable option in Robertson and the tricky Iliman Ndiaye on the right wing for Everton? “It’s a massive jump [playing for Liverpool],” said the Scot as he came to the defence of Kerkez this week. “I came from Hull City, he’s come from Bournemouth, and it’s probably quite similar. He will be the starting left-back for Liverpool in the future and it’s up to me to push him this season and help him improve.” Kerkez is lucky to have such an experienced mentor, but may face a wait to get back into Slot’s starting XI after Robertson started against Atlético Madrid in midweek. Michael Butler
Analysis reveals 24% of guilty doctors handed suspensions but are allowed to keep working in medicine
UK doctors who are guilty of sexual misconduct are not being appropriately sanctioned due to weak disciplinary processes, research reveals.
Nearly a quarter (24%) of doctors found guilty of sexual misconduct were handed suspensions but allowed to continue working in medicine, according to analysis of fitness to practice tribunals by the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS). This is despite the regulator, the General Medical Council (GMC), recommending they be struck off the medical register.
Experts react with concern that increasing the number of vaccinations required will threaten children’s health
A powerful vaccines committee for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) voted on Thursday to change US vaccine policy and start recommending that children receive multiple vaccines to protect against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, instead of a single vaccine that can protect against all four diseases.
The new recommendations from the panel, the advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP),arrived just a day after top former CDC officials said Robert F Kennedy Jr was a threat to US children’s ability to receive vaccines on schedule. The committee’s work typically determines which vaccines are provided free of charge through the US government, shapes state and local laws around vaccine requirements, and influenceswhich vaccines health insurers tend to cover.
Researchers into idea to blend powdered PTFE into food as a zero-calorie filler to curb hunger win chemistry prize
For decades scientists, doctors and public health officials have battled to solve the obesity crisis. Now researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for a radical new approach: slashing people’s calorie intake by feeding them Teflon.
The left-field proposal was inspired by zero calorie drinks and envisaged food manufacturers blending powdered polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) into their products in the hope it would sate people’s hunger before quietly sliding out.
Sorry to my enemies, but little boosts like this help stop me from abandoning my dreams
Moments of brightness are few and far between in our current landscape, but we were lucky enough to experience a couple earlier this week.
If, on Tuesday morning, you heard high-pitched squeals from your neighbourhood, sorry, that was probably me after tuning into the Emmys broadcast just in time to see Jeff Hiller’s name announced. He had won Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as Joel on the beautiful and underrated TV show Somebody Somewhere.
A little over 24 hours before kick-off, Hansi Flick spoke about how lucky he felt to have acquired Marcus Rashford on loan from Manchester United.
Barcelona’s manager was not remotely bothered that the forward’s stock had fallen so far at Old Trafford. Rashford, he said, was a player he had long admired and could help improve.
Pep Guardiola said of drawing Napoli and having Kevin De Bruyne return: “It was always going to happen, right?” He might have spoken, too, of his No 9’s ruthlessness, as Erling Haaland broke this game open with Champions League goal No 50 in a record 49 matches, a feat that handsomely beats Ruud van Nistelrooy’s previous 62-appearance mark.
His strike was a seventh in five for City – form as ominous as the Norwegian’s in the 2022-23 treble season.
Brendan Carr says he supports free speech – but has gone after broadcasters he deems are not operating in the ‘public interest’
“The FCC should promote freedom of speech,” Brendan Carr, now the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, wrote in his chapter on the agency in Project 2025, the conservative manifesto that detailed plans for a second Trump administration.
It’s a view he’s held for a long time. He wrote on X in 2023 that “free speech is the counterweight – it is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.”
Lily James plays former Tinder employee who became founder of Bumble in an illuminating yet corny rise-to-fame tale
In 2012, a plucky, headstrong young entrepreneur crashes a startup mixer in Los Angeles, desperately trying to get their big idea off the ground. Naive and ruthlessly ambitious, they brave the skeptics, the losers, the people too good to talk to them and the people who don’t take them seriously. Eventually, inevitably, their genius – obvious, unsinkable, perhaps diabolical – collides with opportunity. Voilà! An origin story is born.
Swap out the date and the city, and this would describe a pivotal scene in any number of recent movies and TV shows that take cinematic interest in the self-mythology of entrepreneurs. The dramatic logic and iconography of the origin story, basically true but always highly glossed, is by now so recognizable it almost writes itself: initial rejection, dogged persistence, chance meeting, lightbulb moment, big break. We’ve seen it in a wave of brand backstory movies – Flamin’ Hot, Air, BlackBerry and Tetris to name a few – as well as the recent boomlet of shows depicting 2010s hustle culture. The twist with Swiped, Hulu’s new film on the founding of online dating titans Tinder and Bumble, is that this founder is a woman.
The cast radiate charm, the storytelling is hugely imaginative and the narrative is irresistibly heartwarming. It’s not the funniest comedy, but it has so much more going for it than just laughs
Mawaan Rizwan began his career as a YouTuber; he later attended the prestigious Paris clown school, École Philippe Gaulier. In Juice, the 33-year-old’s BBC sitcom, he effortlessly unites these disparate comedy training grounds. As the fun-loving commitment-phobe Jamma, Rizwan channels the archetypal man-child vlogger. Puppyish and relatable, he wears his insecurities on his sleeve, and his attempts to conform to the expectations of adulthood are inevitably thwarted. But he is also a figure of more outre fun. With a severe bowl-cut and a penchant for retina-searing fashion, Jamma is overtly ridiculous: a master of slapstick and a magnet for chaos.
In series one, Jamma spent most of his time clowning about: hardly working at a quirky marketing company (with mini trampolines instead of desk chairs) and messing around his sensible therapist boyfriend Guy (Russell Tovey). Now – having been fired from the job and broken up with Guy – he’s crashing with his friend Winnie and working as a clown in a care home. Jamma seems fine with his new gig and more interested in sleeping around than patching things up with lovelorn Guy. But after their paths cross again, he becomes determined to win him back.
Manchester United reached the main draw of the Women’s Champions League for the first time after an Elisabeth Terland hat-trick helped them overturn a first-leg deficit to deservedly eliminate the Norwegian side Brann in the third qualifying round.
Terland netted a perfect hat-trick, scoring with her right foot after earlier doing so with her left and nodding in a header, to ensure Marc Skinner’s team will be included in Friday’s draw for the new, 18-team league phase of the competition, along with Chelsea and the holders Arsenal.
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