Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
As rumours persist that ruler is in poor health, satellite images emerge showing train parked at Wonsan’s ‘leadership station’
A special train possibly belonging to the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, has been spotted at a resort town, according to satellite images reviewed by a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, amid conflicting reports about Kim’s health and whereabouts.
The monitoring project, 38 North, said in its report on Saturday that the train was parked at the “leadership station” in Wonsan on 21 April and 23 April. The station is reserved for the use of the Kim family, it said.
The global toll from Covid-19 passed 200,000 on Saturday, with over 2.8 million people infected, as the WHO warned against issuing “immunity passports” because there is no evidence people who recovered from the disease are protected against a second infection.
It took more than three months after the coronavirus first emerged for deaths from the disease to pass 100,000, a grim milestone that was reached on 10 April. It took just over two weeks for that toll to double, and worldwide the number of confirmed infections is creeping towards 3 million.
Speculation continues about dictator’s condition after reports of heart surgery and absence from important events
China has sent a team to North Korea including medical experts to check on Kim Jong-un, according to three people familiar with the situation.
The trip by the Chinese doctors and officials comes amid conflicting reports about the health of the North Korean ruler. It was not immediately clear what the trip by the Chinese team signalled in terms of Kim’s health.
Belizean national Lee Henley Hu Xiang accused of ‘colluding with foreign anti-China forces’
China is prosecuting its first foreign national for involvement in the Hong Kong protests, which racked the city for much of last year.
State media said on Friday that Guangzhou city’s national security bureau had finished investigations into Lee Henley Hu Xiang, a Belizean national and Taiwan resident, and his case had been transferred to the Guangzhou people’s procuratorate for prosecution.
Party that switched recognition from Taiwan to China last year lost majority in elections this week over handling of the move
China’s diplomatic ambitions in the Pacific suffered a setback on Wednesday when the party that switched recognition from Taiwan to China last year lost its majority in parliament over its handling of the move.
In the second round of parliamentary elections, the governing party and allies won 22 seats out of 45, dealing a blow to President Taneti Maamau, who previously enjoyed a comfortable majority of 31.
The New Zealand intensive care nurse thanked by British prime minister Boris Johnson has revealed he was treated like “any other patient” – and originally thought his praise was a prank.
Jenny McGee said she had not been told of the public praise in advance. “My first reaction was that it was a joke. I thought my friends were playing a joke on me … it was totally out of the blue,” she told TVNZ.
The government must not ignore the “slave-like” conditions of migrant workers making rubber medical gloves in Malaysia in its rush to source protective equipment to keep frontline NHS staff safe from coronavirus, human rights groups say.
Malaysia is the world’s largest producer of rubber gloves, but the industry has been accused of grossly exploiting its workforce, mostly impoverished migrants from Bangladesh and Nepal.
Unemployment in US up by 4.4 million to a total of over 26 million; world has ‘a long way to go’, warns WHO chief; Iran reports lowest new daily infections for a month
Peru’s reported coronavirus cases have rapidly increased this week, reaching 20,914 on Thursday. The country has the second highest number of cases in South America after Brazil despite introducing tough lockdown measures.
The health ministry says it expects patient numbers to peak within the following week, as hospitals strain to deal with the sharp rise in infections. Reuters reports cases of bodies being kept in hallways, masks being reused, and protests from medical workers concerned about their safety.
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New Zealand climate minister says governments must not just return to the way things were, and instead plot a new course to ease climate change
James Shaw, New Zealand’s climate change minister, has asked the country’s independent climate change commission to check whether its emissions targets under the Paris agreement are enough to limit global heating to 1.5C. He explains why he’s prioritising the issue during a strict national lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19, which could send New Zealand’s unemployment rate soaring.
To say that we find ourselves in an unprecedented moment is so obvious and has been so often repeated it’s almost become white noise. What is less obvious, however, is where we go from here.
When Lauryn Miller was forced to stay at home during New Zealand’s stringent Covid-19 lockdown, which has barred everyone but essential workers from leaving their houses, she jumped at the chance “to do something for anyone”.
Miller, 34, who usually works as a librarian in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington – and lives in the quiet, beachfront suburb of Lyall Bay – has been helping, along with her friends, to deliver food parcels to people nearby who have been left vulnerable during the four-week national shutdown.
A Chinese citizen journalist who was missing for almost two months after posting videos from Wuhan during the coronavirus outbreak has re-appeared, claiming that he was detained by police and forcibly quarantined, Lily Kuo reports from Beijing.
Li Zehua was one of three Chinese journalists who had been reporting in Wuhan during some of the worst weeks of the epidemic. He was last seen on 26 February after posting a video in which he was chased by a white SUV and an hours-long livestream that ended when several agents entered his apartment.
Airlines in Europe have applied for €12.8bn (£11.3bn) in government support since the start of the coronavirus pandemic with no binding environmental conditions attached, according to an analysis of the sector’s bailout pleas, Sandra Laville reports.
By Tuesday this week, airlines including easyJet, Scandinavian Airlines and Tui had secured loans and other financial support amounting to €3.36bn. A further €9.47bn is being sought by other airlines, data tracking by Transport & Environment, Greenpeace and Carbon Watch reveals.
The UK’s Covid-19 crisis has reached the blame phase, with Boris Johnson, ministers, civil servants and scientists coming under criticism that they underestimated the threat, were slow to act and are bungling the country’s response amid a wave of deaths.
Wang Quanzhang has been barred from reuniting with his family after serving nearly five years in prison for ‘subversion’
The US has called for Chinese authorities to allow a prominent human rights lawyer to return home, after having spent almost five years in “unjust detention”.
Speculation about health builds after Kim misses key event honouring country’s founder, Kim Il-sung
Kim Jong-un underwent heart surgery earlier this month and is recovering at his private villa, according to a South Korean report, with US media citing officials as saying the North Korean leader was in “grave danger” after the procedure.
If accurate, the surgery claim, made by the Daily NK website, would explain Kim’s absence from an event to mark the anniversary of the birth of his grandfather – and the country’s founder – Kim Il-sung.
I’m hardly a nationalist, and as a leftist, my dominant mode is bitter defeat, expecting it in almost every circumstance. But as the country prepares to move from alert level four to alert level three – meaning from a major lockdown to a moderate lockdown – patriotism seems irresistible. In the prime minister, yes, in the public service, for sure, and in the essential-service workers stocking the supermarket shelves, staffing the ports and distribution centres, and caring for Covid-19 patients in hospitals and the community. It almost feels detaching, especially as countries like the US and UK hit their peaks, that life in these islands could resume as normal, as if the virus were only a four-week nightmare.
With more countries planning to loosen restrictions imposed due to coronavirus but the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, concerned about the potential for a resurgence or second wave, here is what we know from the rest of the world about the risk of Covid-19 coming back.
A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer barred from returning home after his prison release two weeks ago has been prohibited from reuniting with his family after a 14-day quarantine period.
Wang Quanzhang’s wife and rights groups fear authorities are using the coronavirus pandemic as a pretext to hold him indefinitely under de facto house arrest.
Australia has a road out of its coronavirus lockdown, long and winding though it may be.
Having warned repeatedly that this pandemic response was taking Australia into “uncharted territory”, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has leaned again on a navigational metaphor for our subsequent recovery.
Hong Kong police have arrested 15 high-profile democracy activists on charges of illegal assembly.
The arrests took place just hours after China’s top representative office in the semi-autonomous city declared it is not bound by Hong Kong’s constitutional restrictions that bar Chinese government from interfering in local affairs.