Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Pro-Beijing and pro-democracy lawmakers clash over who will control house committee
Hong Kong’s legislative council descended into extraordinary scenes on Friday, with opposing lawmakers throwing placards and scrambling over each other to take control of a house committee that has been unable to elect a new chairperson.
The scuffles began after an earlier meeting ended and legislators rushed to take the empty seat, more than an hour before the house committee session was due to start. The incumbent committee chair, Starry Lee, reached the seat first and was surrounded by security guards.
New Zealand’s cabinet will meet on Monday to decide the future of the country’s tough but effective lockdown – though Kiwis have been told not to visit their mums this Mother’s Day.
Next week, Ardern’s government will plot a path back to something close to normality, meeting to decide a timetable for the removal of social and business restrictions. The prime minister has already released what level two restrictions will look like, including the re-opening of restaurants, hairdressers, gyms, cinemas and public facilities like museums and libraries.
Social restrictions could end immediately, with provisions for schools, business and personal movement more likely to be phased in.
Any decision will come too late for Kiwi mums to enjoy visits from sons and daughters not already in their household bubbles. Ardern has banned socialising outside of existing households, with few exceptions, and told Kiwis this week to “stick to the plan” ahead of Monday’s review.
Two piglets for a pre-loved kayak, a taxi fare in exchange for fresh produce, hot cross buns for online tutoring, an old carpet for a professional photography session, vegetable seedlings for homemade pies, and offers to have backyards cleaned for prayers.
These are just a few examples of the hundreds of barter trades that are taking place across Fiji since a Facebook page “Barter for Better Fiji” was created a few weeks ago in response to sharp falls in employment due to coronavirus. The page now has more than 100,000 members, in a country of just under 900,000 people.
PM Jacinda Ardern outlines easing curbs to allow domestic travel and eating out; White House says US-China relationship one of ‘disappointment’; eurozone’s future threatened. Follow the latest updates
A gas leak at a chemical factory in southern India has killed at least nine people and led to hundreds being taken to hospital, amid warnings that the death toll could climb higher.
Styrene leaked from the Korean-owned LG Polymers plant during the early hours of Thursday morning when families in the surrounding villages were asleep, a local official in Andra Pradesh state said.
Donald Trump has again suggested the US may need to accept the reality of more deaths in order to start reopening the economy, as governments around the world continued to ease out of lockdown restrictions.
President says it’s time to reopen businesses as US deaths top 70,000; number of Russian cases rises by more than 10,000 for fourth consecutive day; Spain set to extend state of emergency for two more weeks
Pope Francis has urged employers to respect the dignity of workers, particularly migrants, in the face of economic difficulties brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking at the end of his general audience, held from the papal library instead of St Peter’s Square because of Italy’s lockdown, he said:
It’s true that the crisis is affecting everyone but the dignity of people must always be respected.”
Taiwan has been relatively successful at controlling the virus, with 439 cases to date and six deaths, and 100 active infections, thanks to early prevention and detection efforts. The island has never gone into total lockdown, though the government has promoted social distancing and face masks.
Beijing escalates rhetoric as it is accused of using coronavirus as cover to ‘turn screws’
Beijing’s top political office in Hong Kong has called protesters a “political virus” and said the semi-autonomous city will never be calm until “poisonous” and “violent” black-clad demonstrators are eliminated.
The warning on Wednesday by China’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO) said the central government in Beijing would not sit idly by with “this recklessly demented force” in place, referring to the protest movement which has shaken Hong Kong since last June and sometimes drawn millions to the street.
Vietnam didn’t just flatten its coronavirus curve, it crushed it. No deaths have been reported, official case numbers have plateaued at just 271, and no community transmissions of the virus have been reported in the last two weeks. On 23 April, the nation eased lockdowns in its major cities and life is gradually returning to normal. It is a stark contrast to many other nations including the US, where more Americans have died from Covid-19 than during the entire Vietnam war.
Kidong Park, the World Health Organisation’s representative to Vietnam, has praised the country’s response to the crisis.
More than 50% of voters must say yes to the proposed changes for parliament to consider the changes
New Zealanders will be asked at September’s national election whether they want to pass a bill that would legalise cannabis and regulate how it is used and sold. This will include producing and selling fresh and dried cannabis, including plants and seeds – for people over 20 years old. The change would impose more stringent restrictions than the rules around sales of alcohol and tobacco.
Austria says easing lockdown has not led to spike in infections; Macron says major foreign travel will be limited this summer; global deaths pass 250,000
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 19,138 new confirmed cases; taking the total to at least 1,171,510. The number of deaths has risen by 823 to 68,279, it added.
The figures do not necessarily reflect those reported by individual states.
A regional capital in Brazil has become the country’s first city to declare a total lockdown – in direct opposition to the president Jair Bolsonaro, who has railed against social isolation and dismissed a soaring death-toll.
The lockdown in São Luís, capital of the north-estern state of Maranhão, and three neighbouring towns, was ordered by a judge after intensive care beds in state government hospitals filled up. States such as Rio de Janeiro are watching closely. But the move came as looser social isolation measures introduced by state governors crumble across Brazil and cases soar.
The escalating row between Washington and Beijing over blame for the coronavirus pandemic is fast becoming a battle over the Chinese Communist party’s legitimacy, raising the stakes in an already fraught relationship.
In castigating Beijing for its failure to contain the outbreak, senior Trump administration officials have gone out of their way to portray the crisis as a deadly illustration of the threat that Communist party rule poses the Chinese people – and the world beyond.
Thae Yong-ho and Ji Seong-ho both said in South Korea that leader was gravely ill or dead
A former senior North Korean diplomat has apologised after saying Kim Jong-un was probably so ill he could not stand, days before he emerged on state media smoking and walking briskly at an event attended by hundreds of officials.
Kim disappeared from state media for three weeks, an unusually long time, leading to concerns over the nuclear-armed state in the event of an unexpected succession.
North and South Korea exchanged gunfire over the demilitarised zone between the two countries. South Korea confirmed it fired towards the North after it discovered four bullets in the wall of a guard post. The shots come after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un appeared in public for the the first time in 20 days following speculation over his health
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is taking the lead in pressing a hard line against Beijing over the coronavirus pandemic, AFP reports.
Pompeo, in an interview Sunday on ABC, said there was “enormous evidence” that the new coronavirus came out of a Wuhan lab - not a wet market, as most scientists suggest.
Hundreds more refugees still stranded on boats after being turned away by Malaysia
Rohingya refugees believed to have spent weeks stranded on cramped boats at sea have been sent to a remote, uninhabited island by Bangladesh, while hundreds more remain adrift.
Dozens of Rohingya landed on the coast of southern Bangladesh on Saturday, an official said, with some sent to Bhasan Char, a silt island in the estuary of Bangladesh’s Meghna river.
Joint chiefs of staff says no one was injured and that South responded with two shots and a warning broadcast
Multiple gunshots have been fired from North Korea towards a South Korean guard post in the demilitarised zone that separates the two countries, military chiefs in the South reported.
South Korea responded by firing two shots towards North Korea, the South’s joint chiefs of staff said on Sunday. No injuries were reported.
Seoul says military responded with shots after North Korean soldiers fired towards the South
North and South Korea exchanged gunfire over the demilitarised zone between the two nations, South Korean military officials have said.
The exchange began when North Korean soldiers shot at a South Korean guard post at 7.41 am local time on Sunday. The South Korean military shot back twice, Seoul’s joint chiefs of staff said in a statement.
As more and more state and local officials announce the release of thousands of at-risk inmates from the nations adult jails and prisons, parents along with children rights groups and criminal justice experts say vulnerable youths should be allowed to serve their time at home, AP reports.
But they say demands for large-scale releases have been largely ignored. Decisions are often not made at the state level, but instead carried out county by county, with individual judges reviewing juvenile cases one by one.
Such legal hurdles have resulted in some kids with symptoms being thrown into isolation for 23 hours a day, in what amounts to solitary confinement, according to relatives and youth advocates. They say many have been cut off from programs, counsellors and school. Some have not been issued masks, social distancing is nearly impossible and they have been given limited access to phone calls home.
The Bolshoi ballet held its first online classes only this week, more than a month after lockdown began, AFP reports.
In the middle of their bedroom, Bolshoi ballet dancers Margarita Shrainer and Igor Tsvirko have placed a linoleum mat and a barre. Since the start of the lockdown, the couple, both soloists in the legendary troupe, have largely used their own initiative to keep up their dance skills at home.
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Canberra’s call for an inquiry into the origins of Covid-19 sparked talk of boycotts from Beijing – but any such move could be harmful to both countries
The language of the diplomats and parliamentarians has been anything but diplomatic, and far from parliamentary. The robust conversations usually kept behind closed doors have tumbled into the public square, leaked to broadcasters and splashed in newsprint.
Malaysian authorities have rounded up and detained hundreds of undocumented migrants, including Rohingya refugees, as part of efforts to contain coronavirus, officials said.
Authorities said 586 undocumented migrants were arrested in a raid in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, on Friday. Armed police walked people through the city in a single file to a detention building, according to activists. The UN said the move could push vulnerable groups into hiding and prevent them from seeking treatment.