Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The number of confirmed deaths from coronavirus globally has topped 400,000, as the Chinese government released a report lauding its own response to the pandemic that emerged in the city of Wuhan six months ago.
As more countries prepared to continue easing their lockdowns from Monday, Singapore’s prime minister warned the city-state’s citizens that they were entering a tougher world of slowing demand and travel restrictions for the foreseeable future.
Podemos leader enlists Portugal and Italy to lobby for policy as depression looms for coronavirus-ravaged southern Europe
It’s been proposed, probed and pushed to the margins of the European Union for more than two decades. Now, as Europe reels from tens of thousands of coronavirus deaths and millions of lost jobs in the worst recession for generations, ministers from Spain, Italy and Portugal say the time has come to revive a radical idea: a pan-EU minimum income.
“This is the moment for debates about social protection,” Pablo Iglesias, Spain’s deputy prime minister for social rights and leader of Podemos, told the Guardian. “Anyone who finds themselves in a vulnerable situation should have access to protection mechanisms that allow them to fill their fridge and care for their family.”
Germany lifted its blanket European travel ban as coronavirus lockdowns across the EU continued to ease, with officials saying new cases in western Europe were now in steady decline.
Parisians reclaimed their cafe terraces and Berliners took back their bars as normal life inched closer to returning in many parts of the continent.
Her customers may be back and there are, miraculously, more of them. Spring is here; the sun is out. No one wants to dwell on what happened; everyone wants to pick up their lives again, same as before.
“But still,” says Sophie Fornairon, “things have changed.”
UK ministers have been accused of not taking seriously the threat posed to black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) Britons by Covid-19, after it was reported that the release of an official review of the issue had been delayed over fears of potential civil unrest.
According to Sky News, officials are concerned about the effect the publication could have amid global anger over the death of George Floyd, an African American man who pleaded for air as a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck.
Global coronavirus infections have passed the 6 million mark as Latin America hit the grim milestone of 50,000 deaths with Brazil alone accounting for half of those fatalities.
With at least 369,000 deaths confirmed worldwide since the pandemic began in China in January – and that number believed to be an underestimate – Brazil’s virus death toll of 28,834 has now surpassed that of France with the country reporting 33,274 new infections in the past 24 hours.
Some of Italy’s most famous cultural sites are coming back to life after being closed for more than three months as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopened on Saturday, the Colosseum and Vatican Museums will welcome visitors again from Monday and Florence’s Uffizi gallery from Tuesday.
Foreign ministry condemns Valletta for not abiding by international rules and ordering stricken boat to Sicily at gunpoint
The Italian government has confirmed that Malta’s armed forces turned a migrant boat away at gunpoint from Maltese waters, after giving them fuel and the GPS coordinates to reach Italy.
Police in Sicily are investigating and the prosecutor’s office may open an investigation against Malta in the next few days. Maltese officers risk being charged with aiding illegal immigration.
France, Italy and Belgium have all taken steps against the use of hydroxychloroquine in treating patients with Covid-19 as safety concerns over the drug, touted by Donald Trump and Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, continue to grow.
Paris on Wednesday revoked a decree allowing doctors to use the drug with severely ill coronavirus patients, while the Italian and Belgian medicine agencies either suspended or warned against its use except in clinical trials.
Pristine ‘archaeological treasure’ near Verona may date to 3rd century AD, say experts
A perfectly preserved ancient Roman mosaic floor has been discovered near the northern Italian city of Verona.
Archaeologists were astonished by the find as it came almost a century after the remains of a villa, believed to date to the 3rd century AD, were unearthed in a hilly area above the town of Negrar di Valpolicella.
Madrid and Barcelona to ease lockdown as Spain’s death toll stays under 100 again; 660,000 people forced to flee homes during crisis despite UN global ceasefire call
Peru has extended its state of emergency until the end of June with only a very partial lifting of its lockdown as infections continue to climb despite more than two months of confinement.
Peru is the second-worst affected Latin American country, with more than 111,000 cases and a death toll of 3,148, according to official figures.
It’s not just an extension ... there is a strategy to combat the virus. This disease will not beaten in a short time. It’s not a 100m sprint, it’s a marathon.
Over the course of the last 60 days we have made great efforts but we have to make another qualitative jump in the health sector.
France regrets a British decision to impose a quarantine on people arriving from mainland Europe and stands ready to impose reciprocal measures, the Agence France-Presse news agency has quoted the country’s interior ministry as saying.
Previously dismissed mob is characterised by ‘primitive’ forms of brutality, say investigators
On 1 April, just as Italy was at the peak of its coronavirus crisis, a man in a protective face mask approached a residential home for vulnerable old people in Foggia in the southern region of Puglia. He was not coming to help residents, however, but rather to blow the home’s doors off with an explosive device.
The incident, in which fortunately no one was injured, came as no surprise to the care home’s owner, Luca Vigilante. He had only recently completed repairs following a bomb attack on the premises in January.
Italy has started easing coronavirus lockdown restrictions and some shops, restaurants and museums have reopened for the first time in two months. Physical distancing remains but people in Rome were able to enjoy a drink or visit mass. In Venice, stores and restaurants reopened, though without the usual crowds of tourists around
For some, being able to frequent Italy’s bars and restaurants on Monday after more than two months of lockdown was akin to ending a strict dietary regime.
“I can taste the fullness of the flavour much more,” said Sandro Urbani as he drank a glass of white Sangiovanni wine outside Caffè Barrique in the Umbrian town of Orvieto. “It’s as if I’ve been on a diet over the past few months and all of a sudden I can eat a slice of salami.”
Armando al Pantheon, a lively, family-run trattoria in the heart of Rome, counts the architect Renzo Piano among its illustrious customers. And there is no way that owner and chef Claudio Gargioli, is going to offend his sensibilities – and those of other regulars – with plexiglass.
His father, who opened the restaurant a stone’s throw away from the majestic Pantheon in 1961, would turn in his grave at such a notion, he said. “It could work as a barrier at the till, but on the table it’s not only ugly, but an insult,” Gargioli told the Observer.
Europe took a step towards post-virus normality on Friday when restaurants in Germany and Austria reopened for the first time in two months, and other countries loosened travel restrictions and threw open borders.
Berlin’s restaurants, cafes and snack kiosks were allowed to serve customers again, so long as they obeyed social distancing. People from two separate households could share a table, but had to keep a distance of 1.5m from each other.
Boris Johnson has been heavily criticised for failing to show Britain a clear route out of lockdown. Easing a nation out of two months of confinement is a complicated business, and some degree of confusion is almost inevitable. Here, Guardian correspondents look at how other European leaders have managed the process.
Spain’s lockdown exit strategy – known formally as the Plan for the Transition Towards the New Normality – was outlined by the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, during a televised press conference on the evening of 28 April. Sánchez said the country’s four-phase de-escalation initiative would be “gradual and asymmetric”, adding that the first stage – dubbed phase 0 – would come into effect on 4 May.
Britain has the worst coronavirus death toll in Europe, official figures showed on Tuesday, prompting calls for an inquiry into the handling of the pandemic.
The government’s tally of fatalities across the UK reached 29,427 for those who tested positive for coronavirus, exceeding the 29,029 recorded in Italy – until now Europe’s worst-hit country. Italy’s total does not include suspected cases.
Italians were allowed out as the toughest quarantine measures were lifted throughout the country after almost two months on 4 May.
Around 4 million people returned to work as the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, appealed to the public in a Facebook post on Sunday night to 'act responsibly'.
Spain and Italy, two of the European countries hardest hit by coronavirus, are beginning to emerge from lengthy and strict lockdowns as Russia and Afghanistan reported their biggest one-day rises in new infections.