6 d. ago Slayer review – spectacle, gore, mayhem and some of metal’s greatest songs

Blackweir Fields, CardiffThe thrash legends’ first UK gig in six years is a lean and unforgivingly mean set – no breathers, no ballads, only teeth-rattling bangers‘Forty years ago, dude. Duuuuude,” Tom Araya exhales, reflecting on Slayer’s maiden, gob-spackled UK show at London’s Marquee Club in 1985. They were just kids then, on the verge of becoming the most belligerent force in thrash metal’s “big four” with Reign in Blood, but time hasn’t dulled their blade. The bassist-vocalist’s mane might be streaked with grey as he addresses the heaving pit but he still has bile to spare, immediately calling up a take on War Ensemble fit to loosen teeth a dozen rows from the front.Orbiting their contribution to Black Sabbath’s forthcoming final show in Birmingham, this is Slayer’s first UK date in six years after a final tour that, not unsurprisingly given metal’s spotty record in this regard, wasn’t so final after all. There’s little sense of a sheepish re-emergence, though, with a lengthy ...

Politics

9 d. ago 'Ready to conquer': Scotland ace takes on new challenge and is unveiled with bagpipe

Defender has agreed to join PAOK in Greek Super League

Politics

9 d. ago Shakespeare in war: bard’s ‘existential’ theatre takes hold in Ukraine

‘You can always find an intersection to Shakespeare’s world in such situations as we have,’ says translator, as Shakespeare productions boom across UkraineThe Ukrainian Shakespeare festival in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk did not open with a play. Another kind of performance was staged on the steps of the theatre, one that did not deal with sad stories of the death of kings but with tragedy unfolding in real life.This was theatre in a different sense: a rally involving several hundred people demonstrating on behalf of Ukrainian prisoners of war, thousands of whom are estimated to remain in Russian captivity. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Palestine Action documentary makers fear being criminalised under anti

Exclusive: Directors of To Kill a War Machine take legal advice as Home Office plans to proscribe protest groupThe makers of an award-winning documentary about Palestine Action say they fear they will be criminalised if they continue distributing the work after the group is banned under anti-terror laws.The online release of To Kill a War Machine was brought forward to this week after it emerged that the Home Office was going to proscribe the protest group, which takes direct action against Israeli arms companies in the UK. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago ‘If things were bad before, they will be worse’: can families recover from the stress and strain of war?

In Ukraine, three years of war have taken a huge toll on the relationships of those in combat– and experts say society must start to address the problemPhotographs by Anastasia VlasovaWhen her husband went off to help defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion in 2022, Yulia stayed at home with their toddler. She describes being overcome by a feeling of “numbness”.“I’d been left alone with a small child. The worst thing for her was the thought that her father had left her and would never come back. The worst time was when she blocked her father when he tried to call. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Ukraine war briefing: Soldiers captured by Russia in Mariupol among those released in prisoner swap

EU extends Russia sanctions but new package blocked by Slovakia. What we know on day 1,220Ukraine and Russia exchanged a new group of captured soldiers on Thursday, the latest in a series of prisoner swaps agreed at peace talks in Istanbul earlier this month. Neither side said how many prisoners were released in the latest exchange. The majority had been held captive for more than three years, according to Ukraine’s coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war. Many of them were taken prisoner in Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city that fell to Russian forces in 2022 after a nearly three-month siege, it said. Russian officials said its soldiers had been transferred to Belarus and were receiving “psychological and medical care”.The EU’s 27 leaders on Thursday agreed to extend sanctions on Russia for another six months, resolving fears that Kremlin-friendly Hungary would let the measures lapse, officials said. The decision at a summit in Brussels means that the EU’s swe...

Events

2 w. ago Orwell prize for political writing awarded to novelist killed in Ukraine war

Victoria Amelina wins with her unfinished book Looking at Women Looking at War while Donal Ryan takes the award for political fiction with an intimate portrait of an Irish townA novelist killed in the Ukraine war has won the Orwell prize for political writing.Victoria Amelina, who died in July 2023 from injuries sustained in a Russian bombing of a restaurant in Kramatorsk, won the prize with her unfinished book Looking at Women Looking at War. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago First evacuation flight takes off as 1,000 Britons seek escape Israel war zone

Foreign secretary tells MPs the Middle East faces a ‘perilous moment’

Politics

2 w. ago First evacuation flight takes off as 1,000 Britons seek escape from Israel war zone

Foreign secretary tells MPs the Middle East faces a ‘perilous moment’

Politics

2 w. ago Scottish cities among safest places to live in UK if nuclear war breaks out

With tensions between the US and Iran reaching breaking point, fears of nuclear war are growing fast. We’ve taken a look at the safest spots to live in the UK if disaster strikes.

Events

2 w. ago Takeaways from AP report on accusation that Wagner commits war crimes by promoting atrocities

The International Criminal Court has been asked to review a confidential legal report asserting that the Russia-linked Wagner group has committed war crimes by spreading images of apparent atrocities in West Africa on social media

Events

2 w. ago Israel and Iran launch strikes a week into their war as new diplomatic effort takes shape

Israel and Iran have struck at one another again a week into their war as President Donald Trump weighs U.S. involvement and new diplomatic efforts appear to be taking place

Politics

3 w. ago Trump undecided on joining war on Iran as Khamenei warns him not to attack

‘I may do it, I may not do it,’ US president says as Tehran reportedly prepares to strike US bases in responseDonald Trump said he had not decided whether or not to take his country into Israel’s new war, as Iran’s supreme leader said the US would face “irreparable damage” if it deployed its military to attack.Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel had made a “huge mistake” by launching the war, in his first comments since Friday. “The Americans should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage,” he said in a statement read out by a presenter on state TV. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago ‘He just looks like a happy, cheeky boy’: Palestinian child refugees pick up the camera

Photographer Misan Harriman gave lessons and equipment to young people who have fled Gaza – and the pictures they took are funny, revealing and often heartbreakingA boy pulling a funny face, a sleeping pet, a grandfather in his chair – all ordinary scenes from life that many of us would take for granted. What makes these images special is they were taken by Palestinian children, refugees displaced to Egypt since Israel’s war in Gaza, making sense of their new, if hopefully temporary, home and what they have escaped from.“It’s familial life, relationships, and although they’ve seen so much, you’re not seeing trauma, you’re not seeing the faces of people that have given up,” says the photographer Misan Harriman, an ambassador for Save the Children. “Even though none of these kids know what the future brings and there’s huge uncertainty, they are living in the moment. They’re doing their best to thrive and learn.” The camera, he adds, is “a seemingly inanimate object that can help you ...

Events

4 w. ago Mad Russians are taking over a bridge to 'scream' every morning as Putin's war takes toll

As Russia's war threatens to break into WW3, a Russian man has found a unique way of shedding emotional baggage and now has a healthy crowd that join him every morning

Politics

4 w. ago Ukrainian held by Russia describes torture, sinister threats and Kafkaesque court process

Maksym Butkevych tells of pattern of beatings and threats of execution and sexual violence to extract ‘confession’The first moments in Russian captivity for Maksym Butkevych saw humiliations that would pale in comparison with what would soon follow.Taken prisoner in the early months of the war in Ukraine in 2022, Butkevych and his fellow soldiers – who had been lured into a trap on the eastern frontline – at first were punched and robbed. “There were a few kicks and punches,” recalls Butkevych, who had been a human rights defender and journalist before Russia’s invasion compelled him to volunteer as a soldier. Continue reading...

Events

4 w. ago Scot held captive by Saddam Hussein hopes new documentary will help fight for justice

Air steward Charlie Kristiansson was one of 385 passengers and crew taken hostage when BA Flight 149 was sent into a war zone.

Politics

last month Gangland war erupts in Greater Manchester as gunman opens fire on packed takeaway and family homes

Two men have been jailed for acts described as having 'all the hallmarks of a dispute between serious organised criminals'

Events