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A viral video of a barbershop blow-up prompts tales of shear panic. Tell us about your worst haircut experience in the comments

A tradiewent viral this weekafter blowing up at a barber who he claimed left him with a lopsided buzz cut.

The tradesman insisted on paying for the allegedly substandard haircut before storming out. The exchange has sparked a conversation online, with some saying they would never be brave enough to complain and others recounting their worst haircut experiences.

Here Guardian Australia writers – in what almost became a group therapy session – tell us about their worst haircuts. You can share yours in the comments below.

I was in the middle of an almost year-long backpacking trip around the world in 2000. My hair was getting what I’d describe as quite lustrous but my then girlfriend had another word. Anyway, we were in a town somewhere south of Santiago and I gave in and found a barber. I emerged into the Chilean sun looking like the love child of a 1960s Paul McCartney andSharon Strzelecki. At least I didn’t stick out – every other male seemed to have the same haircut. And no, I don’t have pictures.

When I moved to London, paying for a haircut seemed prohibitively expensive. So I signed up to be a “hair model” (AKA guinea pig) at a fancy salon in Covent Garden. The waiver I signed meant I was handing myself over to the stylist to do whatever they pleased. My hairdresser said he wanted to replicate the hairstyle he’d given the day before to a woman with dead-straight blond hair on my shoulder-length brown curls. Then he proceeded to cut my hair to the length and shape of a cheap clown wig, with a bizarre band of 2cm-long tufts around the hairline. It might have looked edgy on the blond but on me it looked like a lawnmower had broken down midway doing through the job, and from the horrified look on the hairdresser’s sweating face, he knew it.

Quite early in my career at the West Australian newspaper I switched from dark brown to blond hair, for no clear reason I can now remember. They stopped sending me to political doorstops as a brand protection measure. After that I had bright red hair and an eyebrow ring, again I can’t recall why, and they switched me to a desk-bound column job for a while, and the main editorial cartoonist drew a caricature that senior editors shared around afternoon news conference.

I went on a TV show and said if I won the trophy I’d get a bowl cut with it. I won, and my mate put the trophy on my head and chopped. I do not have the straight Beatle-style locks required to keep a bowl cut flat so it just looked like half my normal wavy hairdo had gone missing.

But I was committed – I kept the cut for nearly a month, the constant expansion of the hair above my ears only accentuated by the absence of anything below. Who knew my forehead could look so big?

I’ve got a mate who’s a rock star. He’s admirably self-effacing about it but that’s what he is: a bona fide, write-in-on-your-tax-return rock star. We used to kick around in bands together but he was always destined for greater things: his life is now sold-out stadiums across the US, pool parties with the Wu-Tang Clan, his face on T-shirts.

Allied to his extraordinary musical talent, this man has an effortless, charming charisma. He went and got a haircut that was very cool at the time: a supremely high buzz cut up the sides, betopped by a cheeky fringe. He wore it, it looked amazing. I thought, “Yeah, I could totally nail that.”

I did not nail it. It was awful and aggressive and made me look thuggish. Photos from the time make me cringe. I think I ended up just shaving my head and starting again – chastened and altogether more careful about trying to be cool.

I was going through a major life change in London – I’d quit my job and was planning to travel and write a book, so felt I needed a new haircut to reflect the new me. I decided to leave my old hairdresser of many years, thinking she was too edgy and “didn’t get me”. So I tried out a new, very expensive and “trendy” hairdresser in London, who had given a friend the most perfect bob. At this new place they give you a glass of wine before the cut, so the stylist can get to you know you. Overcome by how cool the hairdresser was, I gave my consent to an asymmetrical bob.

It was so bad – everyone I knew just stared at me dumbfounded. I went out for a drink and who was the only other person in the bar? My old hairdresser! And I felt personally attacked by theFleabag asymmetrical bobstoryline.

Exclusive:Agriculture minister Julie Collins and Indigenous affairs minister Malarndirri McCarthy expressed concern over Sturt Plateau pipeline’s construction

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Senior Albanese government ministers disagreed over whether a controversialNorthern Territorygas pipeline should be allowed to go ahead without being fully assessed under national environment laws, an internal document shows.

An environment department brief from February shows representatives for the agriculture minister, Julie Collins, and the Indigenous affairs minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, were concerned about the impact of the Sturt Plateau pipeline’s construction on threatened species and First Nations communities.

A delegate for Collins argued the development should be declared a “controlled action”, a step that indicates it was likely to have a significant impact on a nationally important environmental issue and required a thorough assessment under federal law.

The brief, released under freedom of information laws, shows this was not accepted by the department, acting on behalf of the then environment minister,Tanya Plibersek. It concluded the pipeline did not need a national environmental impact statement before going ahead.

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APA Group, an energy infrastructure business, plans to build the 37km pipeline to connect a fracking operation in the NT’s Beetaloo gas basin with the existing Amadeus pipeline. About 134 hectares of vegetation – equivalent to about 18 football grounds – would be cleared in the NT outback, about 600km south of Darwin. The new pipelineis expected to operate for 40 years.

The environment department said that the construction would clear “high -quality habitat” for the critically endangered northern blue-tongued skink, including about 29 hectares that was “likely critical for the survival of the species”.

But it decided the pipeline route did “not form part of the species’ area of occupancy” and concern about the skink was not grounds to fully assess the development.

Collins’ delegate disagreed. They said the pipeline should be fully assessed due to its potential impact on threatened species habitat and the assessment should consider “cumulative impacts” – that is, that the pipeline and the Shenandoah pilot fracking project developed by Tamboran Resources should be considered together.

The delegate argued that approval of the development should include conditions to protect “the resource base on which agriculture depends” – including groundwater – and Indigenous culture.

McCarthy’s delegate told the environment department that First Nations groups were concerned about the project’s connection to fracking, which they opposed due to its potential impact on “water supplies and aquifers, the environment, culture, sacred sites and songlines”.

But a delegate for the minister for resources and northern Australia, Madeleine King, backed APA Group’s view that the pipeline did not need a full assessment, arguing it was “unlikely to cause significant impact on protected matters” under environment law and was “key enabling infrastructure to Tamboran’s activity within the Beetaloo basin”.

Hannah Ekin, from the Arid Lands Environment Centre, said in her opinion the brief showed gas industry interests had been prioritised over concerns about the environment and Indigenous culture.

She said it was “really frustrating” that Plibersek did not act on calls for the pipeline to be fully assessed, and particularly that McCarthy’s comments had been disregarded, given she was an NT senator familiar with the region and local Indigenous concerns.

Ekin said the environment department brief indicated the pipeline was found to not need an assessment in part because it was deemed as not “integral” to the extraction of gas. She said this made no sense given the pipeline’s explicit purpose was to ensure gas from Shenandoah could get to Darwin and be usedunder a deal between Tamboran and the NT government.

She said the impact of the pipeline and the fracking development should have been assessed as one. “The federal government must stop putting off looking at the terrible impacts this fracking project will have on the local environment and on the climate,” Ekin said.

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She said the NT government had removed laws that protected communities and the environment and urged the new federal environment minister, Murray Watt, to “step up and call these fracking projects in for independent assessment”. Otherwise, she said, “it’s only a matter of time before we have an environmental disaster”.

Georgina Woods, from the grassroots environmental organisation Lock the Gate Alliance, said the pipeline was “part of the apparatus for fracking in the NT” and should have activated a “water trigger” in federal law for a full assessment. The trigger requires the environment minister to consider the impact of major fossil fuel developments on water resources.

“We don’t feel enough attention is being paid by the federal government to the environmental consequences already under way in the NT as part of the fracking industry,” Woods said. “To see the agriculture department raise concerns, to see the Indigenous affairs department raise concerns, and for these not to be taken up and acted upon is frustrating.”

Federal ministers and the environment department declined to respond to questions from Guardian Australia. APA Group also declined to comment. The NT government was asked for its response.

Lock the Gate is challenging Tamboran Resources’ Shenandoah pilot project in the federal court, alleging it is likely to affect water resources and should not be allowed to go ahead unless referred to Watt for assessment. A hearing starts on Monday.

Fracking in the Beetaloo basin is part of a planned major gas industry expansion overseen by the NT Country Liberal party government. It said this week it hadabandoned a commitment made before it was elected last yearto set a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for 2030.

Scientists and environmentalists have accused the NT government of also overseeing a ramping up of forest and vegetation destruction on pastoral properties. Nearly 26,000 hectares – an area about 90 times larger than the Sydney CBD – was approved for clearing in the first six months of this year.

More than half of the clearing was given the green light by the NT government’s pastoral land board in a nine-day period earlier this month. None of it was deemed significant enough to refer for assessment under federal environment laws for the potential impact on threatened species and ecosystems.

Kirsty Howey, from the Environment Centre NT, accused the CLP of unleashing an “environmental catastrophe” and “approving more deforestation in six months than has been approved in any one year in the last decade”.

Watt this week met with representatives from industry, environment, farming and First Nations organisations to discuss changes to nature laws. He suggested they could both improve environmental protection and lead to faster approval decisions for development proposals.

Howey said the laws should be immediately reformed “to stop the rampant deforestation and nature destruction occurring across northern Australia before it’s too late for the largest intact savanna woodland left on Earth”.

LNP member for Mermaid Beach says absence of legislative power to remove tents set up in his electorate is ‘unacceptable’

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A Gold Coast Liberal National party MP has called for the return of vagrancy laws to allow police to prosecute homeless people amid an ongoing crackdown on tent cities inQueensland.

Ray Stevens, the member for Mermaid Beach, made the call in a speech to parliament last week.

He spoke about the rise of “presumably homeless people” setting up in tents in “some of the most sought after locations anyone could wish for – absolute beachfront” in his electorate.

“There are many local voices contacting my office to ask what I am doing to protect their residential amenity. My first call of course is to my local police station,” he said.

“The police reluctantly tell me they have no legislative power to move these people on, which I find incredibly disappointing. The vagrancy act is no longer applicable and unless there is demonstrable public disturbance the police, I am told, cannot move them on. This is unacceptable.”

“It is imperative a solution be found that includes giving law enforcement officers the legislative power to enforce the removal of these illegal camp sites,” he said.

The 1931 Vagrants, Gaming, and Other Offences Act made “having no visible lawful means of support or insufficient lawful means” an offence subject to six months’ prison. It also banned begging, public drunkenness, fortune telling, using bad language and more.

South-east Queensland is facing its worst housing crisis in generations, with hundreds living in tent cities or sleeping bags. Councils in the Gold Coast,Moreton Bay and Brisbanehave carried out a campaign of clearing the camps in recent months.

Council rangers don’t have the same powers of detention as arrest, though they can levy a fine and can remove property such as tents from public land. Police typically accompany them during homeless camp clearances butonly as a supporting element.

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A University of Queensland law professor, Tamara Walsh – who has long studied laws criminalising homelessness – said police can still charge people with public nuisance offences.

But they tend not to because doing so is extremely expensive to the taxpayer, due to the cost of putting an offender through court and jail.

“If people are living in poverty and unhoused, then that is a housing issue. It’s a social welfare issue, it’s not a criminal law issue,” she said.

Walsh said homelessness is typically not a choice, so punishing people for being homeless can’t make them stop.

“I wonder how many people would swap their very comfortable, warm home for a beachfront squat at the moment, I certainly wouldn’t. Yeah, the view is spectacular, but at night you can’t see a thing and all you are is in the freezing cold,” she said.

North West Community Group president, Paul Slater, said bringing back the act would be a step in the wrong direction.

“Making homelessness illegal would be a disgrace and would be shameful for our country,” he said.

The attorney general, Deb Frecklington, was contacted for comment.

The state government is alsoconsidering bringing back laws against public drunkenness, contrary to the recommendations of the 1991 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody.

Stevens said that he understood “that there must be solutions to where the homeless people can be moved to” but that he had heard several reports of bad behaviour on the part of the homeless, including one father who saw two of them “fornicating in the public toilets”.

Council rangers moved on a tent city in Rebel Wilson park in the Gold Coast on Tuesday. A few kilometres away, the National Homelessness Conferencewas being held at the same time.

The border dispute has led to a surge in nationalist sentiment and tit-for-tat actions by both governments

Cambodia has banned imports of fruit and vegetables from Thailand, the latest escalation in a series of retaliatory actions sparked by a long-running border dispute between the South-east Asian neighbours.

Tensions flared in May when troops briefly exchanged fire at a contested area of the border, killing a Cambodian soldier.

The incident has led to a surge in nationalist sentiment and tit-for-tat actions by both governments. Thailand has imposed border restrictions with Cambodia in recent days, whileCambodiahas banned Thai films from TV and cinemas, closed a border checkpoint, and cut internet bandwidth fromThailand. Both countries have shortened visas stays for visitors for one another’s citizens.

A ban on imports of Thai fruit and vegetables to Cambodia came into effect on Tuesday. This follows an ultimatum by Cambodia’s former leaderHun Sen, who ran the country for almost four decades before handing over to his son in 2023, who said those imports would be blocked unless Thai border restrictions were lifted.

On Wednesday, tens of thousands of Cambodians, carrying national flags and pictures of the country’s leaders, took to the streets of Phnom Penh for an official rally to support the government’s stance.

The deputy prime minister, Hun Many, brother of the prime minister, told the crowd the march was “an encouragement and additional energy for the government and our forces”.

“When the country faces a threat or any insult, the Cambodian people will not stay still, we will stand up in united spirit,” he said.

Cambodia has asked the international court of justice (ICJ) to resolve the border dispute. However,Thailanddoes not accept the court’s jurisdiction and has said it prefers to solve the matter through direct negotiations.

The long-running dispute dates back more than a century, to when France, which occupied Cambodia until 1953, first mapped the land border.

The dispute has, over the years, has repeatedly fanned nationalist sentiments in both countries. In 2003, rioters torched the Thai embassy and Thai businesses in Phnom Penh after a Thai celebrity allegedly questioned the jurisdiction over Cambodia’s World Heritage-listed Angkor Wat temple.

Tensionsflared most recently in 2011when an estimated 28 people were killed, and tens of thousands displaced by fighting at the border.

The Thai and Cambodian armies both said they acted in self-defence in May’s exchange of fire.

Cambodia has asked the ICJ to rule on four areas of the disputed border. This includes Mom Bei or Chong Bok, an area where the borders of Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos meet, and which was the site of last month’s clash, as well as three ancient temples.

“The royal government of Cambodia will undertake this task with strong determination and high responsibility to protect our territorial integrity and the best interest of the Cambodian people,”prime minister Hun Manetsaid in a statement earlier this week.

Hun Manet has added that he wanted to maintain “peace and good cooperation” with Thailand.

Cambodia has previously referred the dispute to the ICJ, and in 1962, the court ruled that Preah Vihear, an 11th century Hindu temple, was Cambodian, though it did not rule on the area surrounding it. Cambodia sought a clarification of the ruling in 2011, and in 2013, the ICJ verdict stated that anarea next to the temple was also Cambodia.

Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, has said the government is committed to protecting Thailand’s sovereignty, and ensuring peace along the border. She has criticised “unprofessional communication”, in an apparent reference to frequent social media statements by the former leader Hun Sen.

Wellington says it has paused payment of some funding until Pacific island nation takes steps to ‘repair the relationship and restore trust’

New Zealand has halted millions of dollars in funding to the Cook Islands over the “breadth and content” ofagreements the smaller Pacific nation made with China, officials from the New Zealand foreign minister’s office has said.

New Zealand, which is theCook Islandsbiggest funder, won’t consider any new money for the nation until the relationship improves, a spokesperson for foreign minister Winston Peters told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Relations between other Pacific islands and their larger regional backers Australia and New Zealandhave stumbled over ties with Chinain recent years as Beijing has vied to increase its Pacific sway.

But the latest move by New Zealand’s government was striking because it reflected growing friction between two countries with strong constitutional ties – Cook Islands is self-governing but shares a military and passports withNew Zealand– over two countries’ diverging approaches to managing relations with Beijing.

Cook Islands prime minister Mark Brown told lawmakers in parliament on Thursday that the funding was “not halted, it’s paused,” and downplayed the significance of the amount frozen.

News of the NZ$18.2m ($11m) funding halt on Thursday, which emerged only when a Cook Islands news outlet saw its brief mention in a government budget document, is likely to prove difficult for New Zealand’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, who is inChinafor his first official visit and is due to meet President Xi Jinping this week. Beijing has defended its Cook Islands pacts before, saying in February that the deals were not intended to antagonise New Zealand.

Brown made a pointed reference to Luxon’s China visit in parliament on Thursday, highlighting the New Zealand leader’s announcements of increased trade with Beijing and looser visa requirements for Chinese travellers. The Cook Islands leader said he trusted any agreements Luxon made in Beijing would “pose no security threat to the people of the Cook Islands” despite Avarua not knowing their content.

Separately the Cook Islands foreign ministry said in a statement the country was committed to restoring its high-trust relationship with New Zealand and appreciated the funding support received from Wellington.

In a report tabled in the Cook Islands parliament this week, the public accounts committee registered “concern” about a reduction of NZ$10m ($6m) in the government’s purse, the first known mention of the finance freeze. The money was earmarked for “core sector support”, which funds the Cook Islands’ health, education and tourism sectors – with audits by Wellington on how it’s spent.

The money is part of NZ$200m directed to the Cook Islands by New Zealand over the past three years as part of an almost 60-year-old arrangement. The links demand consultation by Cook Islands leaders with Wellington on its agreements with other parties that might affect the relationship and the deals with China were the first serious test of those rules.

The Cook Islands, population 15,000, has a large and lucrative exclusive economic zone, with Brown’s government exploring prospects for deep sea mining activity, and Cook Islanders can freely live and work in New Zealand. That prompted dismay in Wellington when officials learned of the raft of agreements Brown signed in February.

The agreements didn’t promise security cooperation between Beijing and Cook Islands, but they did pledge more funding from China for infrastructure projects and educational scholarships. Not all of the documents Brown signed were released publicly.

The spokesperson for New Zealand foreign minister Peters said on Thursday said the agreements illustrated “a gap in understanding” between the governments “about what our special relationship of free association requires”, which included consultation to ensure the preservation of shared interests.

The “breadth and content” of the deals and lack of consultation with Wellington about them in advance prompted a review of funding to the Cook Islands, Peters’ office said.

“New Zealand has therefore paused these payments and will also not consider significant new funding until the Cook Islands government takes concrete steps to repair the relationship and restore trust,” the spokesperson’s statement said.

New Zealand’s latest action was an “entirely avoidable consequence of Cook Islands’ strategic flirtations with China,” said Mihai Sora, analyst with the Australia-based thinktank Lowy Institute.

“It’s a bit cute to sign up to a comprehensive strategic partnership with China in 2025 and pretend there is no strategic angle for Beijing, given all the mounting evidence of China’s malign strategic intent in the Pacific,” he said.

In phone call, Paetongtarn Shinawatra discusses border dispute with former Cambodian leader and calls him ‘uncle’

Thailand’s prime minister,Paetongtarn Shinawatra, apologised after a leaked phone conversation with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen prompted public anger and threatened the collapse of her government.

In the leaked call, Paetongtarn – daughter of the populist former leader Thaksin Shinawatra –discusses an ongoing border disputewith Hun Sen, who is known to be a friend of her family.

In the recording, she can be heard criticising a senior Thai military commander who she said “just wanted to look tough”, describing him as an opponent. Addressing Hun Sen as “uncle”, she adds that if there were anything he wanted to “just let me know, I’ll take care of it”.

Paetongtarn told a press conference on Thursday: “I would like to apologise for the leaked audio of my conversation with a Cambodian leader which has caused public resentment.”

Hun Sen, who ruled Cambodia for almost four decades, was succeeded by his son, Hun Manet, the current prime minister, in 2023, but remains politically powerful.

Paetongtarn said her comments were a negotiating tactic, but this has done little to quell public anger.

The Thai foreign ministry summoned the Cambodian ambassador on Thursday to deliver a protest letter complaining about the leaking of the call. The full version was released by Hun Sen after the initial clip was leaked.

The phone call threw Paetongtarn’s government into chaos, threatening to destroy the uneasy partnership formed between her family and their former rivals in the military.

The conservative Bhumjaithai party – the second largest in the coalition – pulled out of the ruling coalition, leaving her government with a slim majority. Leaders of the Chartthaipattana, United Thai Nation and Democrat parties held urgent talks on the crisis on Thursday afternoon but have not withdrawn.

If another coalition partner were to pull out, it could make her position untenable and could force an election, or an attempt by other parties to cobble together a new coalition.

Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, leader of the opposition People’s Party, earlier called for Paetongtarn to dissolve parliament to prevent groups from exploiting the situation “and inciting an incident that could harm the democracy”, warning against a military coup.

Thailand’s government has been challenged by a dozen coups since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, and for the past two decades the country’s politics has been dominated by a power struggle between the military and Paetongtarn’s family, the Shinawatras. Her father, Thaksin Shinawatra, was ousted in a 2006 coup, and her aunt Yingluck was removed from power by a court ruling followed by a coup in 2014.

Hundreds of anti-government protesters, some of them veterans of the royalist, anti-Thaksin “Yellow Shirt” movement of the late 2000s, demonstrated outside Government House on Thursday, demanding that Paetongtarn quit.

Ken Lohatepanont, a Thai political analyst, said that “while a coup is no longer completely unthinkable” it did not appear likely yet, adding: “The democratic process has not yet reached an impasse.”

Thailand’s military said in a statement that army chief Gen Pana Claewplodtook “affirms commitment to democratic principles and national sovereignty protection”.

“The Chief of Army emphasised that the paramount imperative is for ‘Thai people to stand united’ in collectively defending national sovereignty,” it said.

Paetongtarn, who has been in officeless than a year, is also facing legal threats. At least three petitions have been filed against the leader over the leaked call, including to the National Anti-Corruption Commission, accusing her of ethical misconduct and violating the constitution, and to the Central Investigation Bureau, accusing her of offences against national security. The Election Commission has also been urged to investigate.

The crisis comes at a time when the Thai economy is struggling, with a fall in Chinese visitors hitting its tourism industry, and the threat of US tariffs of 36% looming.

Paetongtarn has not responded to calls for her to resign, but has sought to convince the public that her government stands united with the military as it responds to the dispute with Cambodia.

“Now, we have no time to fight among ourselves. We must defend our sovereignty, and the government is ready to support the armed forces by all means. We will work together,” she said.

On Friday, Paetongtarn will travel to Thailand’s northeast, where clashes have occurred, to meet with Lt Gen Boonsin Padklang, the commander of the forces in northeast Thailand, whom she criticised in the call.

Messages advise staff to also warn students off celebrations to avoid violating national security law

Teachers inHong Konghave been warned to keep themselves and students away from any US Independence Day celebrations as they may breach national security laws, educators have alleged.

A text message purportedly sent by the principal of a Hong Kong school to staff said the education bureau’s regional education office had reminded them “to be careful about Independence Day activities organised by the US consulate in Hong Kong, and not to participate to avoid violating the national security law and Hong Kong laws”.

The text was published on Edu Lancet, a Facebook page run by a former manager at the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority, Hans Yeung. It urged staff to be diligent in “protecting” any students who were considering participating, and to discourage them.

Another email shared on Edu Lancet, and seen independently by the Guardian, told faculty staff that any teacher who received an invitation from an embassy or a foreign organisation funded by an embassy must seek permission to attend from the principal for the purpose of “maintaining national security”.

The Hong Kong education bureau did not confirm or deny the claims in response to questions from the Guardian, but in a statement said it had enacted policies to help schools “effectively prevent and suppress acts and activities that endanger or are detrimental to national security.

“Schools have the responsibility to play a good gatekeeper role and to enhance the sensitivity of teachers and students to national security.”

The bureau had enacted “clear guidelines” for schools that required them to “establish school-based mechanisms and formulate appropriate measures, according to their own circumstances and needs, to implement various tasks related to safeguarding national security and national security education”, it added.

The bureau did not answer questions about what laws would be broken by attending any Fourth of July event, or whether such warnings only applied to the US holiday.

The US Consulate in Hong Kong has been contacted for comment.

Edu Lancet and Yeung, who runs the page to voice concerns from those working with the education system and “expose the current problems”, have been criticised by the Hong Kong government in the past for their posts. The security secretary, Chris Tang, has accused Yeung of “making incitements” from his current home in the UK.

The purported directives fit in with tightening restrictions on Hong Kong’s education system, and a push to have the curriculum focus more on national security amid increased control of the city by the Chinese government. After pro-democracy protests rocked the city in 2019, the ruling Chinese Communist party imposed a national security law on Hong Kong that broadly outlawed acts of dissent and opposition as violations against the state.

In 2020, the then chief executive, Carrie Lam,blamed the education systemfor fuelling the protests, setting the tone for an overhaul that is ongoing.

The Hong Kong governmenthas since alteredtheschool curriculumto includeteachings on national securityin subjects such asEnglish language, music, maths and sport, and to focus more onpatriotic education. It has also banned texts it sees as endangering national security, including a picture book about sheep created by the city’s physiotherapists union,and prosecuted authors.

Teachers in Hong Kong have previouslytold the Guardianthey felt pressure to self-censor for fear of being reported for remarks seen as unpatriotic. Since the start of the 2023-24 school year, all new teachers in public sector schools, direct subsidy scheme schools and kindergartens must sit an exam on Hong Kong’s mini constitution, the Basic Law, and the national security law.

Hong Kong’s education minister, Christine Choi, hasrepeatedly warned of “soft resistance” in schools, and this month said educators had to be vigilant against the infiltration of “hostile forces” through events such as book fairs and extracurricular activities which “could include undesirable reading materials”.

Additional reporting by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu

Tropical Storm Dalila brings flooding to Acapulco, while Hurricane Erick causes disruption in Oaxaca state

While the western Atlantic has experienced a quiet start to the hurricane season, the eastern Pacific has recently become fairly active, producing a tropical storm and a category 4 hurricane within a few days.

The first and weaker of these systems, Tropical Storm Dalila, developed into a tropical storm late last week. Although this storm stayed off the coast ofMexicoand was relatively weak to other storms that have developed in this region, Dalila brought flooding and mudslides to the resort town of Acapulco, in western Mexico.

On Tuesday, Hurricane Erick formed in the eastern Pacific, marking the fifth named storm in the region. Erick rapidly strengthened off the west coast of Mexico into a category 2 hurricane on Wednesday, before transitioning into a category 4 hurricane on Thursday, with maximum sustained winds of about 140mph. Despite having been downgraded to category 3 by the time it made landfall over the state of Oaxaca, sustained wind speeds still reached almost 130mph, causing major disruption. Large waves were produced by Erick, with the popular surfing spot Puerto Escondido seeing waves breaking at over 20ft (about 6 metres).

Up to 400mm of rain is expected to fall through the course of the hurricane’s passing, bringing further flooding and landslides to areas that were already affected by Dalila late last week and earlier this week. Forecasts indicate the hurricanewill deintensify as it pushes north-westwards across mountainous terrain in Mexico.

The tropical eastern Pacific is expected to continue to be active through the rest of June, with potential development areas being watched by the National Hurricane Center. In contrast, the Atlantic is expected to remain quiet for a time, but is still forecast to produce an above-average number of storms and hurricanes.

Typhoon Wutip, which developed in the SouthChinaSea last week as the first typhoon of the season, moved north-eastwards through south-east China last Sunday and Monday, resulting in the death of seven people. Although the system weakened to a remnant low soon after making landfall with China, it continued to bring flooding, with 70,000 people evacuated as Huaiji county was placed on its highest level of flood alert.

Retired army officer Roberto Samcam was killed in San José by gunmen, the latest of several attacks on Ortega’s critics

A retiredNicaraguanarmy officer in exile turned fierce critic of the country’s authoritarian presidentDaniel Ortegahas been shot dead in neighboringCosta Rica.

Maj Roberto Samcam, 66, was shot at his apartment building in San José on Thursday, reportedly by men pretending to deliver a package.

“It was something we did not expect, we could not have imagined it,” said Samantha Jirón, Samcam’s adoptive daughter.

Nicaraguan rights groups and exiled dissidents immediately blamed the government of Ortega and his co-president wife, Rosario Murillo.

“Roberto was a powerful voice” who “directly denounced the dictatorship” of Ortega, Samcam’s wife, Claudia Vargas, told reporters in San José as she fought back tears.

His job, she said, was to “expose human rights violations” in his homeland.

The head of Costa Rica’s judicial police, Randall Zuñiga, said that the attackers took advantage of the fact that Samcam’s apartment building was unguarded in the mornings.

The gunman called out to Samcam, and “when he was within striking range, the individual began shooting at him and hit him at least eight times”, Zuñiga told reporters.

The Nicaraguan news site Confidencial reported that the killers fled the scene by motorbike.

The US state department’s bureau of western hemisphere affairs said on X that it was “shocked” by Samcam’s murder and offered Costa Rica help in “holding the assassins and those behind them accountable”.

Nicaragua’s former ambassador to the Organization of American States, Arturo McFields, who lives in exile in the United States, called the killing “an act of cowardice and criminal political revenge by the dictatorship of Nicaragua”.

“The manner of the crime indicates political motives. This is very serious,” the exiled Nicaraguan writer Gioconda Belli wrote on social media.

Neither Ortega nor his government commented on the case.

Samcam, who was a political analyst, had spoken out frequently against the government in Managua, which he fled in 2018 to live with his wife in Costa Rica.

That year, protests against Ortega’s government were violently repressed, resulting in more than 300 deaths, according to the UN.

In January last year, another Nicaraguan opposition activist living in Costa Rica, Joao Maldonado, was shot while driving with his girlfriend in San José. Both were seriously wounded.

Former Costa Rican president Luis Guillermo Solís called Samcam’s murder “for his frontal opposition to the Ortega and Murillo dictatorship” an “outrageous and extremely serious act”.

“I feel thatDaniel Ortegaand Rosario Murillo are initiating a ‘night of the long knives’ … due to the regime’s weakening,” Dora María Téllez, a former comrade of Ortega turned critic, said from Spain, where she too is in exile.

The Night of the Long Knives was a bloody purge of rivals ordered by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in 1934.

“They resort to the execution of a retired ex-military officer, who they believe has a voice that resonates within the ranks of the army,” Téllez told the Nicaraguan news outlet 100% Noticias.

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Ortega, now 79, first served as president from 1985 to 1990 as a former guerrilla hero who had helped oust a brutal US-backed regime.

Returning to power in 2007, he became ever more authoritarian, according to observers, jailing hundreds of opponents, real and perceived, in recent years.

Ortega’s government has shut down more than 5,000 non-governmental organizations since the 2018 mass protests that he considered a US-backed coup attempt.

Thousands of Nicaraguans have fled into exile, and the regime is under US and EU sanctions.

Most independent and opposition media operate from abroad.

Pro-government media in Nicaragua did not report on Samcam’s killing.

Bill prioritizes ‘nation-building’ pipelines and mines, causing concern that sped-up approvals will override constitutional rights

Canada’sLiberal government is poised to pass controversial legislation on Friday that aims to kick-start “nation building” infrastructure projects but has received widespread pushback from Indigenous communities over fears it tramples on their constitutional rights.

On its final day of sitting before breaking for summer, parliament is expected to vote on Bill C-5. The legislation promised byMark Carney, the prime minister, during the federal election, is meant to strengthen Canada’s economy amid a trade war launched byDonald Trump.

The bill removes interprovincial trade barriers and aims to prioritize infrastructure projects, such as energy pipelines and mines deemed to be in the national interest.

It is the latter portion of the bill that has caused concern among Indigenous communities over fears the government, granted broad powers, could speed up approvals for infrastructure and energy projects and override protest from Indigenous communities.

Ahead of the vote, Carney defended the legislation, which was amended earlier this week to ease concerns from Indigenous leadership.

“At the heart of this legislation is… not just respect for, but full embrace of, free, prior and informed consent. It has to be seen in parallel with very major measures that this government is taking to not just support those partnerships, but also to finance equity ownership in these nation-building projects forIndigenous peoples, Indigenous groups, Indigenous rights holders,” said Carney.

Under Canadian law, the crown has a “duty to consult” Indigenous communities on projects that could adversely affect them. “Consultation, co-operation, engagement, participation is at the heart of C-5 and that is how you build a nation. And that’s very much how we’ve designed it,” Carney said.

While the bill says the government must consult Indigenous communities in cases where their rights are affected by a fast-tracked project, it also allows the Liberal cabinet to overrule pre-existing laws to speed up permits for major projects.

The federal legislation comes as provinces also pass bills that speed up infrastructure projects. Ontario plans to create “special economic zones” that would bypass all provincial laws, amid tensions between the premier and First Nations chiefs in areas slated for mining.

Doug Ford, Ontario’s premier, provoked criticism earlier this week criticized for saying First Nations communities “keep coming hat in hand all the time to the government” for more money. He apologized the following day after meeting with chiefs from the Anishinabek Nation, which represents 39 of Ontario’s 133 First Nations chiefs.

“I get pretty passionate. And I just want to say, I sincerely apologize for my words, not only if it hurt all the chiefs in that room, but all First Nations,” said Ford. “I get passionate because I want prosperity for their communities.”

Both the federal and provincial legislation reflect the friction between speedy resource and infrastructure development and the need to consult with affected communities that have beenhistorically marginalized, both socially and economically.

Earlier this week Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, the Assembly of First Nations national chief, warned the federal bill was being “rammed through” parliament.

“First Nations are united,” she told CBC News. “They want prosperity, but they don’t want it at the expense of our rights.”

Woodhouse Nepinak says she and other leaders across the country want the government to pause the bill for more study. But Carney is eager to pass the bill, fulfilling a campaign promise that his government would eliminate internal trade barriers by 1 July. Indigenous leaders have warned a failure to fully consult on the bill could lead to widespread national protests, akin tothe Idle No More movementin 2012.