Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Surrounded by ancient rimu trees and the sound of chirping pīwakawaka, Tame Malcolm brings in his second rat of the day from the dense undergrowth of his Auckland backyard. That’s four pests for his tally today – with only a few hundred thousand or so to go.
“It’s the first time my whānau [family] have got to see me doing pest control. I’ve been teaching the whānau that we do this to protect the birds,” says Malcolm, director of Māori-oriented biosecurity business Puna Consultants.
International report claims Pyongyang has been transferring coal exports to Chinese barges
North Korea sharply stepped up trade in coal and oil products last year in defiance of UN sanctions through the apparent help of China’s shipping industry, a UN panel has said.
The annual report to the UN Security Council by sanctions experts went online on Friday and inexplicably disappeared later in the day, with the text itself noting China’s reservations about the findings.
Governments in Europe and the US can learn from Hong Kong, which has kept infections and deaths from Covid-19 low without resorting to the socially and economically damaging lockdown that the UK and other countries have imposed, scientists say.
Hong Kong, with a population of nearly 7.5 million, has had just 715 confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection, including 94 asymptomatic infections, and four deaths.
WHO’s daily briefing on the coronavirus outbreak has just begun. WHO director Tarik Jasarevic said the coronavirus solidarity fund has generated $150 million from more than 245,000 individuals, corporations, and foundations.
Deaths from the coronavirus epidemic in Italy rose by 575 on Friday, up from 525 the day before, while the number of new cases declined slightly to 3,493 from a previous 3,786.
The daily death toll is down considerably from peaks reached around the end of March, Reuters reports.
Oliver Milman, an environment reporter for Guardian in New York, has some analysis on the progression of the coronavirus pandemic in the US.
A model relied upon by the White House, from the University of Washington, estimates that the virus will “peter out” in May and then essentially grind to a halt by the summer. This is based on the experiences of China and Italy, previous coronavirus hotspots.
Ex-chair of DB Group Kim Jun-ki ‘forgot his responsibilities’, says Seoul court
The former head of a South Korean conglomerate who was convicted of raping his maid and sexually assaulting a secretary has been given a suspended sentence.
Kim Jun-ki, the 75-year-old former chair of DB Group, which has activities in finance and steel, repeatedly violated the two women, the Seoul central district court found.
South Korea’s ruling party has won a landslide victory in national assembly elections, in what is being seen as an endorsement of President Moon Jae-in’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Moon’s left-leaning Democratic party and its smaller affiliate won 180 seats in the 300-seat assembly – the biggest majority in the national assembly by any party since South Korea’s transition to democracy in 1987 – according to the Yonhap news agency. The conservative opposition United Future party and its smaller sister party won 103 seats.
Households across the UK are now taking to their gardens, doorsteps, balconies and windows to applaud for the frontline workers fighting the coronavirus.
It will be the fourth “clap for carers” event in the UK, becoming a staple for Thursday nights in lockdown.
Leaders of the G7 group of major industrialised nations have agreed the rapid development of a coronavirus vaccine is crucial in dealing with the outbreak.
First Secretary of State Dominic Raab deputised for the UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson at the virtual summit, which also discussed the particular risk coronavirus poses for developing countries.
US reports 25,000 new infections;WHO chief hopes US will remain a ‘friend’; almost 700 test positive on French aircraft carrier. Follow the latest updates
The New York Times is reporting that a pork factory in Smithfield, South Dakota is the new centre of the coronavirus pandemic in the US. This week, the paper reports:
The Smithfield plant became the nation’s largest single-source coronavirus hot spot. Its employees now make up about 44 percent of the diagnoses in South Dakota, and a team of researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has traveled there to assess how the outbreak spiraled out of control. Smithfield is the latest meat processing facility to close in the face of the coronavirus.
A Japanese MP has been expelled from his party after it was revealed he had visited a club in a Tokyo red light district, two days after the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, declared a state of emergency in an attempt to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
Takashi Takai, a 50-year-old lower house member for the Constitutional Democratic party of Japan, admitted he had visited Sexy Cabaret Club in Tokyo’s Kabukicho district on 9 April, media reports said, despite government requests that people refrain from visiting bars, restaurants and clubs as part of efforts to reduce personal contact by 70-80%.
Takai submitted a letter of resignation after media reported his visit to the club, but the party rejected it and expelled him instead, Kyodo news agency said.
Laura Daniel experimented with baking during the national lockdown, and regretted it
A tribute to the prime minister of New Zealand has gone horribly wrong, after a television presenter attempted to render Jacinda Ardern in cake form, and failed spectacularly.
Laura Daniel said the common wisdom was “don’t bake your heroes” but she wanted to try anyway as the coronavirus lockdown dragged on.
Tourism employs about 150,000 people in the Pacific nation, but travel restrictions mean the work and the money are drying up
On a typical evening Suva’s Holiday Inn is packed with guests from all over the world. But tonight, the dining room of the hotel, one of the most popular in Fiji’s capital, which normally buzzes with the dinner rush, stands empty,
Looking lost amid the empty tables is waiter Samuela Yavala.
In a small Pacific country, with close-knit communities and conservative attitudes, victims of this crime are punished
Crystal* remembers the day her life came crashing down.
Crystal, 23, a former student at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, had allowed her partner to take intimate pictures of her in 2014. It was a decision she would come to regret. Two years later, those pictures were published online in a public Dropbox folder, appearing alongside roughly 900 other images of young Fijian women.
Kandahar province went into full lockdown on Wednesday morning as Afghanistan reported its second biggest daily rise of new coronavirus cases in a week, triggered by a surge of infections in Kabul.
Afghanistan’s health ministry has reported 70 new positive cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, pushing the total number of infections to 784.
Most of the new cases were in Kabul, which has so far recorded 201 cases, 31 today.
Kabul went into full lockdown last week, as all roads to the city of six million were blocked and 1,600 police officers were appointed to monitor movement inside the city.
Of the new Covid-19 cases, 22 were confirmed in the western province of Herat, the worst affected area in Afghanistan so far with 313 cases.
The southern province of Kandahar went into full lockdown on Wednesday morning in a bid to contain the spread of coronavirus in one of Afghanistan’s most populated areas.
Germany’s government will extend restrictions on movement introduced last month to slow the spread of the coronavirus until at least 3 May, Handelsblatt business daily reported on Wednesday, citing the dpa news agency.
The chancellor, Angela Merkel, is holding a video conference on Wednesday, first with cabinet ministers and later with the leaders of Germany’s 16 states, who will try to agree on whether to ease the measures given some improvement in the situation.
The Slovak government will release a plan next Monday on when and how shops will reopen after forced closures due to the spread of the new coronavirus, Prime Minister Igor Matovic said on Tuesday.
Reuters reports him as saying that Slovakia aims to protect the 70% of the economy that is running from being affected by the spread of the virus and the reopening of retail will be cautious.
The European commission is urging EU states to coordinate as they begin to ease lockdown measures, warning that failure to do so could result in new spikes of the coronavirus epidemic.
Several EU states have announced plans or have already begun to relax restrictions imposed to contain the outbreak, as pressure grows to revive their battered economies.
It is time to develop a well-coordinated EU exit strategy. The exit strategy should be coordinated between the Member States, to avoid negative spillover effects.
Formation of the Women’s party comes after campaigns to end spy cam porn and rebellions against strict beauty standards in the conservative nation
Two years year after South Korea became the centre of Asia’s #MeToo movement, the country’s first feminist party is hoping to keep women’s issues on the political agenda by winning seats in Wednesday’s national assembly elections.
Some players have used the game to create politically sensitive images and slogans which they share on social media
The Nintendo Switch game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, has been removed from sale on websites in China, after it was used by Hong Kong activists to spread pro-democracy messages.
Spain records another drop in daily death toll; Singapore sees biggest daily jump in infections; China reports highest daily cases in over five weeks. This blog is now closed
Dr. Fauci opens by saying he does not claim to know anything about economics. “But the one thing we do know as health experts is... some people think it will be like a light switch on and off. But it won’t be.”
Each state is different, he says. There will be a “rolling re-entry,” says Dr. Fauci. “It’s not one size fits all.”
Kim Yo-jong reinstated to position she lost last year after collapse of US summit
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s powerful younger sister has been reinstated to a key decision-making body, state media have reported, marking her rise in the isolated nation.
Long one of her brother’s closest advisers, Kim Yo-jong was reappointed an alternate member of the political bureau of the central committee in a reshuffle of top officials on Saturday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
Australia urged to use its influence to push for the permanent cancellation of all debt due from vulnerable countries in 2020
Low-income countries need their debts for 2020 forgiven, alongside billions in emergency grants to survive the Covid-19 crisis, civil society groups around the world have said, arguing the viral pandemic will hit hardest the poorest people in the poorest countries.
More than 100 civil society organisations internationally have called on creditor nations to permanently cancel all debt repayments as the “fastest way to keep money in countries and free up resources to tackle the urgent health, social and economic crises resulting from the Covid-19 global pandemic”.
Last week the city of Wuhan celebrated the end of its nearly three-month lockdown. Flower beds and trees were planted in parks across from hospitals previously overwhelmed with panicked and sick patients. The streets have been scrubbed clean.
Before midnight last Wednesday, when restrictions barring people from leaving the city were officially lifted, state news outlets sent drones into the sky to film lit-up buildings and bridges. Cars lined up at motorway tollbooths, waiting to leave. Drivers described feeling finally “liberated”. Several housing developments had flags declaring them “virus free”. One said: “Decisive battle, decisive win.”