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Police pulled back after attempted dawn raid on Polytechnic University was met with fire

• Full story: Hundreds trapped as police lay siege to university
  

7.49am GMT

Hello, this is Sarah Marsh, taking over our live coverage of Hong Kong, where police and protesters have been clashing on the outskirts of the Polytechnic University. The latest images from chaotic scenes in and around the campus, which has become the site of the most prolonged and tense confrontation between police and demonstrators in more than five months of political unrest.

5.27am GMT

Thanks for following our rolling coverage of the latest developments in Hong Kong. We are going to pause the liveblog now, but will continue in-depth coverage.

Here is our full news story on what happened today.

Related: Hong Kong protests: up to 800 trapped as police lay siege to university

Dean Baquet decries abuse of journalists and defends not calling president racist

The executive editor of the New York Times has accused Donald Trump of putting his reporters’ lives at risk by subjecting them to personal abuse and describing them as “enemies of the people”.

Dean Baquet, who has led the news outlet during one of the most tumultuous periods in its history, said the US president’s history of verbal attacks on journalists such as the New York Times’s political reporter Maggie Haberman was “appalling” and risked having serious consequences.

Exclusive: PM’s relationship with Helen Macintyre will be examined by London assembly

• Latest election news - live updates

An investigation into the prime minister’s relationship with the US businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri will also review an affair that Boris Johnson failed to declare when he was mayor of London, the Guardian can reveal.

Johnson escaped censure in 2010 when he failed to declare an interest over an unpaid City Hall adviser, Helen Macintyre, who it later emerged had an extramarital affair with the then London mayor and gave birth to one of his children.

US president says potential Democratic rival is ‘somewhat better than that’ and urges North Korean leader to agree nuclear deal

Donald Trump has come to the defence of one of his potential rivals for the presidency, telling North Korea its recent description of Joe Biden as a “rabid dog” that should be “beaten to death” was a little unfair.

Trump’s criticism of Pyongyang – albeit via a half-hearted endorsement of Biden’s character – came amid attempts to resurrect stalled nuclear talks, with Trump imploring North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to “get the deal done”, and the US and South Korea agreeing to postpone an annual air force drill the North routinely condemns as a rehearsal for an invasion.

Lawyers for Epstein’s victims say they were ‘almost completely ignored’ in interview

Prince Andrew is facing a transatlantic backlash over his extraordinary defence of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein after lawyers who represent 10 of the billionaire predator’s victims branded the royal unrepentant and implausible and demanded that he speak to the FBI.

After the royal’s defiant Newsnight interview on Saturday triggered a disbelieving reaction from the public and the media, the prince was under growing pressure from critics in the UK and US on Sunday who demanded an apology for his conduct and said that his defence of his actions was simply not credible.

Trump tactic suggesting Marie Yovanovitch and Alexander Vindman have mixed loyalties criticized as bigoted

Republicans and Donald Trump have sought to smear key witnesses in the impeachment inquiry against the president as having dual or mixed loyalties to the US, due to being born abroad.

The move has sparked condemnation as a bigoted tactic that has maligned career US diplomats and officials as being potentially disloyal to their adopted country due to not being born in America.

Even the prime minister has chopped the vegetable out of her official menu after monsoon caused Indian crop failure

Bangladesh has been forced to import planeloads of onions as the price of the cooking staple soared to record highs, an official said, with even the prime minister chopping the bulb from her menu.

The price of onions – a sensitive subject in south Asia where shortages can trigger widespread discontent with political ramifications – has climbed to eye-watering levels in Bangladesh since neighbouring India banned exports in late September after heavy monsoon rains reduced the crop.

Police say 10 people shot by unknown assailants at family gathering in California city

Four people have been shot dead in Fresno, California, after suspects entered a backyard party and fired into the crowd, police said.

The shooting took place at about 6pm at a residence in the south-east of the city where people were gathered to watch a football game, according to Fresno police.

Dan McGarry of the Daily Post told at Brisbane airport the Vanuatu immigration service had barred him from flying back to the island country

The media director of a Vanuatu newspaper whose visa renewal was refused this month has been barred from flying home to Vanuatu from Brisbane with his partner.

Dan McGarry, who has lived in Vanuatu for 16 years, applied to have his work permit renewed earlier this year but it was rejected. McGarry believes his visa was refused due to articles he had published about China’s influence in Vanuatu.

Experts say major parties must defend multiculturalism and put populist parties last on their how-to-vote cards

The major parties have been urged to put populist parties last on their how-to-vote cards and reject the myth of a “homogenous national identity” in submissions to the Senate nationhood inquiry.

Two academic experts, Glenn Kefford and Duncan McDonnell, have warned the inquiry that Australia may have avoided outbreaks of populism only because of poor leadership on the extreme right. Major universities have called for transparent and independent decision-making in government as a cure for voter disillusionment.

Three decades after the Berlin Wall fell, the crossing is a mess of souvenir shops and fast-food restaurants – and time is running out to change things

It was the most famous border crossing in the Berlin Wall, the official gateway for allied diplomats, military personnel and foreigners to enter communist East Berlin by road.

And in 1961, Checkpoint Charlie seized the world’s attention when a diplomatic spat about allied forces’ freedom to travel in East Berlin quickly escalated and saw Soviet and American tanks squaring up to one another. The world watched aghast, fearful of a third world war, as a formidable flock of superpower tanks rolled towards the border, standing just 100 yards apart.

Restaurants offering fixed-price three-course menús have been a cornerstone of the country’s urban life for decades, but tourism, shorter lunch breaks and gentrification have put them under threat. What will it take to fight back?

Food is at the heart of Spanish culture. From social life to business deals, everything revolves around food – above all, lunch. How did Mariano Rajoy, then prime minister, react last year when faced with an unprecedented vote of no confidence? He went to lunch. For eight hours.

The three-course menú del día has been the cornerstone of Spanish cuisine and social life for generations. Consequently, the restaurants serving these menús – generally low on aesthetics and high on value for money – have been a feature of the urban landscape. Now, though, their existence is threatened by a combination of rising rents, changing tastes and working hours, tourism and gentrification.

A bureaucratic loophole has left Kafr Aqab as a district where Palestinians can keep a foot in both Jerusalem and the West Bank – and be with their loved ones

For some Palestinian sweethearts, there’s only one place to live.

It’s an unremarkable suburb, crisscrossed by thin muddy streets and dotted with high-rise apartment blocks that cling to the steep hills on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

While hi-tech cosmopolitan centres like Milan flourish financially and culturally, former industrial towns continue to decline

Night-time haunts go in and out of fashion, but the Bar Basso in Milan, which opened in 1967, remains one of the city’s most venerable social institutions. Embodying a very Milanese combination of stylish prosperity and tasteful design, it is a favourite destination for the area’s creative elite and the discreetly wealthy.

Tucked away in a corner, Pierluigi Dialuce is explaining why, if a political nightmare unfolds in the rest of Italy, the city he has made his home will be able to cope.

The director and actor talks about his near-death experience, becoming vegan and the star-studded reboot of the film that first made him famous 25 years ago

In February last year, Kevin Smith performed 90 minutes of standup for a TV special, padded back to the green room and started to worry that the joint he had smoked before the show was too strong. He was sweaty and nauseous, which was not entirely out of the ordinary. But after he lay down on the tile floor and vomited, he was rushed to hospital, where a doctor broke the news that Smith was having a massive heart attack.

Smith stayed calm. Honestly, he tells me, as we talk at his Hollywood Hills home, he was still stoned. On learning that he might die, he says: “I was like: ‘I’m going to make peace with this right away.’ You did way more than you ever set out to do, you got to do some cool shit, and if it’s done, it’s done.”

Planned changes would be biggest shakeup to country’s electoral system for 50 years

A bill is being introduced that would give the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds in many elections in Wales and empower local authorities to decide which voting system they use.

The Labour-led Welsh government said the planned changes would be the biggest in the Welsh electoral system since the voting age was reduced to 18 in the UK half a century ago. They come as a bill to reduce the voting age to 16 for Welsh assembly elections nears the end of its journey through the Senedd.

The country’s traditional powerhouses on the centre-left and the centre-right face a moment of reckoning

Postwar German politics has a reputation for being moderate, consensual and a touch on the dull side. But there have been moments of high drama. In November 1959, for example, the Social Democratic party (SPD) abandoned its historic ambition to replace capitalism with socialism, dropped the Marxist account of class struggle and began to pitch itself as a broad-based Volkspartei (people’s party). History vindicated the decision. For the next 50 years or so, the SPD vied for power with the country’s other great political force, the CDU (and its CSU Bavarian ally), as both parties regularly achieved a vote share of over 40%.

Famed for their practice of big-tent politics, what the CDU and SPD would give for such numbers now. The agonies of Brexit and the rise of rightwing populism have claimed the political limelight around Europe. But those looking for clues to the continent’s future would do well to watch Germany closely over the coming weeks.

Alleged evidence implicates UK troops in murder of children in Afghanistan and Iraq

The UK government and the British army have been accused of covering up the killing of children in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Leaked documents allegedly contain evidence implicating troops in killing children and the torture of civilians.

A radical experiment to genetically modify a strain of mosquito in order to stop them breeding malaria-carrying daughters is one of the latest efforts to tackle the deadly scourge of malaria

At 6.30am five-year-old Osman Balama and his mother reach the state hospital of Bobo-Dioulasso, the second-largest city in Burkina Faso. He hasn’t been feeling well for a few days and his mother is worried that he has contracted malaria. The waiting room is already full of mothers and grandmothers with young children on their laps, all with the same tired look as Osman.

“The rainy season has started,” says Sami Palm, head of the clinic. “That means more mosquitos. I’m certain that almost everyone here has malaria.”

The Cuban government is planning a jubilee week as the capital city celebrates the anniversary of its birth, with hundreds of events at restored monuments and historic sites, a visit from the Spanish royal family and fireworks over the Malecon seaside promenade. Archive photographs show how much, and how little, the capital has changed

The Revolution Museum, which was inaugurated in 1920 as the presidential palace, before becoming a museum in 1974

Most Asian markets rise after China’s rate cut, as investors await further news on trade

8.12am GMT

The local economy has been hit by the protests, which have continued for months. The Hong Kong government warned on Friday that the city’s economy could shrink by 1.3% this year – the first annual recession since 2009.

8.09am GMT

You can follow the latest developments in Hong Kong on this live blog.

Related: Hong Kong protest: police fire rounds of teargas at protesters trying to leave campus – live

#HongKong police press conference about to start. No doubt a lot of questions about the sitn inside PolyU & the thinking behind not letting student protestors leave campus. Mass arrests soon? Or are they hoping activists will get hungry and thirsty and give themselves up? #China

State minister says she wants to work on underwriting new power generation and KerangLink is ‘vital’

Victoria has asked the Morrison government to fast-track work on the KerangLink – a transmission line increasing power transfer capability between the Snowy area and Melbourne – ahead of Friday’s long-delayed meeting of federal and state energy ministers.

The request from Victoria follows a similar pitch from the New South Wales government, which has asked Canberra to underwrite new generation to replace the Liddell power station, and either underwrite or de-risk new investments in transmission that have been highlighted as urgent by the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo).

O’Plérou Grebet designs images that reflect culture of his country, Ivory Coast

In January 2018, O’Plérou Grebet set himself a challenge. For every day of the year, the graphic design student, then aged 20, decided to design an emoji that reflected the culture of his home country, Ivory Coast, and the wider region of West Africa.

“I wanted to create a project to promote African cultures to change the image the Western media have of Africa: hunger, poverty and wars,” he said. “I wanted to show a different and positive side.”

Discrimination against girls is still entrenched in the laws of many African countries. Shocking examples are easy to find

I love my job, but it can be pretty depressing. I’ve spent the past year researching and writing the first-ever continental report of the routine, blatant discrimination suffered by African girls.

The fact that girls and women are treated as inferior citizens is hardly news, except that this report reveals the extent to which gender discrimination is frequently state-sanctioned – embedded into the laws, policies and practices of many African nations. We’re talking about legal, institutional discrimination with its roots in a deeply gendered and patriarchal society. We are also talking about the denial of respect for the dignity of the African girl.

New research raises hopes of oral vaccine for dogs, the chief source of transmission to humans

Researchers have discovered a way to stop rabies from shutting down critical responses in the immune system, a breakthrough that could pave the way for new tools to fight the deadly disease.

Rabies kills almost 60,000 people each year, mostly affecting poor and rural communities.

Study of chicken egg samples reveals presence of dangerous chemical compounds around areas where waste is dumped

Plastic waste exports to south-east Asia have been implicated in extreme levels of toxins entering the human food chain in Indonesia.

A new study that sampled chicken eggs around sites in the country where plastic waste accumulates identified alarming levels of dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls long recognised as extremely injurious to human health.

Toppling of Bolivian president reignites movement to remove leftist ally Nicolás Maduro

Venezuela’s flagging opposition movement has hit the streets for its first major protests in months, as leaders sought to reignite their campaign to force Nicolás Maduro from power after his leftist ally Evo Morales was toppled in Bolivia.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets on Saturday morning in towns and cities across the crisis-stricken south American country, hoping the dramatic sea change in Bolivian politics might portend similar change in Venezuela.

How poignant that Behrouz was freed from Australia’s grip and welcomed by Christchurch, a city that knows prejudice only too well

Today our world is a little freer, a little fairer, and a little more hopeful. Today, one less innocent man is incarcerated in Australia’s detention camp on Manus Island, guilty only of seeking refuge from persecution. Behrouz Boochani was no ordinary detainee. The Iranian Kurdish journalist and author became the voice of Manus detainees, and with it the persistent conscience of us all as we learned of the atrocities committed by the Australian government on its remote Pacific island detention camps.

How poignant that he was finally freed to visit Christchurch, a city that knows only too well the violence and suffering borne of prejudice. A city that wrapped its arms so warmly around its refugee community after a terror attack just seven months ago, to heal their wounds and stand for inclusion. Behrouz has said that Christchurch has taught the world about kindness this year. He is also quick to note that the prejudice that leads to violence against refugees is the same that underpins policies allowing cruel treatment of them by governments such as Australia’s. For him, the plight of refugees and displaced persons across the globe right now is connected to the fear-mongering politics of Donald Trump and Scott Morrison.

Beyond the tussle between Democrat Adam Schiff and Republican Devin Nunes is the big question – will party interest reign supreme?

The battle for American hearts and minds in the unfolding impeachment drama is, at its core, a battle between two very different California congressmen.

In the red corner is Devin Nunes, a Republican former dairy farmer from the state’s agricultural Central Valley, who long ago threw his lot in with Fox News talking-point orthodoxy and has never hesitated to defend Donald Trump, no matter how much the rest of the political establishment – and the factual record – was arrayed against him.

The mosque attacks rocked New Zealand but good deeds and generosity will help keep us together

The day of 15 March 2019 will stay with me forever. I was working in my bedroom, listening to radio and drawing. The on-air chat and music was interrupted as news of a shooting at a mosque in Christchurch began to filter through. How could this possibly be happening in our quiet little island tucked away at the bottom of the world?

I brushed it off as some sort of mistake, until news of a shooting at a second mosque emerged minutes later. While witnesses and locals reported the horror that had just unfolded, I scrolled online looking for some sort of explanation, a way to make sense of it – and found everyone was lost for words as I was.

Police deployed water cannon against protesters in Hong Kong on Sunday, in some cases using blue-dyed water laced with pepper spray. Teargas was also fired in an attempt to drive people away from the streets outside Polytechnic University. Protesters who occupied several university campuses last week have largely retreated, but hardliners have fortified themselves inside the campus and are refusing to leave

• Fire, rocks and teargas fly in day of battle at Hong Kong university
  

Chinese soldiers stationed in Hong Kong came out to clear streets on Saturday, which protesters had strewn with debris to slow down any police advances while they had been on the campus. People's Liberation Army soldiers joined the cleanup outside Hong Kong Baptist University, the site of clashes earlier in the week. They can only be deployed to help with disaster relief or to maintain public order if requested by the local government. The controversial move threatens to escalate already high tensions in the Chinese territory

• Hong Kong: Chinese troops deployed to help clear roadblocks
  

Thirty years ago, Czech photographer Bohumil Eichler was working for a dissident student-run news agency when the Velvet Revolution began. His work from Prague has rarely been seen, until now.

The second day of impeachment hearings featured compelling testimony from Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine who was sacked by Trump. Yovanovitch evidence drew links between corrupt elements in Ukraine and the Trump administration's push to force her from her post. She said she was 'shocked and devastated' by Trump's personal attacks on her. As she spoke, Donald Trump attacked her on Twitter, prompting the Democrat chair of the hearing, Adam Schiff, to read the tweets to Yovanovitch in real time. 'The effect is intimidating,' she said, as Democrats accused the president of witness intimidation on a day of high political drama 

• Trump smears and witness drama: key Marie Yovanovitch takeaways

The US president has denied that attacks directed at the former US ambassador to Ukraine, as she testified in the second day of impeachment hearings, amounted to witness intimidation. ‘Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad,’ Trump wrote in tweets which were dramatically read aloud to Yovanovitch at the hearing. Democrats immediately accused Trump of attempting to intimidate a witness.

• Ukraine ambassador describes Trump’s ‘shocking’ smear campaign against her

Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee, read out a tweet by Donald Trump disparaging Marie Yovanovitch as the former US ambassador to Ukraine testified to the president's impeachment hearing. When Schiff asked whether she thought the tweet was intended to intimidate her, Yovanovitch replied: 'I can’t speak to what the president is trying to do, but I think the effect is to be intimidating.'

Schiff replied: 'I want to let you know, ambassador, that some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously.'

• Democrats to consider Trump Twitter smear in articles of impeachment – live

At least two people have died and several more have been injured in a shooting at Saugus high school in Santa Clarita, California, on Thursday. Footage showed sheriff's deputies swarming the school and lines of students being escorted away

• Santa Clarita: two dead and more hurt in high school shooting, authorities say