A summary of major developments in the coronavirus outbreak across Australia
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Key Australian developments in the global coronavirus outbreak on Thursday include:
Continue reading...New South Wales chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant addresses a misconception around paracetamol and the coronavirus crisis. With pharmacies and stores running low on supplies of the painkiller due to hoarding, Chant explained paracetamol only treats symptoms of Covid-19, not the virus itself
Actor and producer Jing Wang acquitted of sexually assaulting woman at the Shangri-La hotel in 2018
A Chinese movie star and producer have been found not guilty of raping a woman inside a Sydney hotel room, ending the near two-year legal saga.
Actor Yunxiang Gao and producer Jing Wang were on Thursday found not guilty of a raft of charges and cleared of sexually assaulting the woman inside the Shangri-La Hotel in the early hours of 27 March 2018.
Continue reading...Shops and cultural institutions are closing their doors, workers are being asked to stay at home, and self-employed and casual staff are losing their jobs across the country. Here’s what’s (not) happening in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane after Scott Morrison banned non-essential indoor gatherings of 100 or more people and declared a human biosecurity emergency
Continue reading...Thousands of travellers frantically trying to fly back to Australia after government warning over coronavirus pandemic
• Australia coronavirus live: NSW now has 307 confirmed cases, up 40 since yesterday
More than 170 Australians trapped in locked-down Peru have been advised by the government to find a commercial charter flight to get out of the country.
Some passengers have been able to get on chartered flights to the US, while others have been offered a dedicated charter flight from Lima to Sydney, but at a cost of more than $5,000.
Continue reading...Scheme will involve measures including counselling, funeral or memorial fund and redress payments
The Victorian government will put $10m into a stolen generations redress scheme that the premier, Daniel Andrews, says is a step to right history’s wrongs.
Announcing scheme with the premier, Victoria’s Aboriginal affairs minister, Gavin Jennings, said on Wednesday that Aboriginal families were historically “torn apart by parliaments like this one”.
Continue reading...Scott Morrison says massive step-up of the government’s response to the Covid-19 outbreak likely to be in place for at least six months
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has told Australians to “stop hoarding” as he announces sweeping new measures to try to slow the spread of coronavirus, including a ban on indoor gatherings of more than 100 people, a global do-not-travel order, and strict new rules for visiting aged care homes.
In a massive step-up of the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, Morrison announced that a national cabinet of state and federal leaders had agreed on Tuesday night to an indefinite new ban on indoor groups of 100 people or more, with exemptions for schools, public transport, universities, prisons, courts, supermarkets and worksites.
Continue reading...Belgium goes into lockdown; EU implements strictest travel ban in history; outbreak reaches every US state. Follow the latest updates
Breaking: Nicola Sturgeon announces schools and nurseries in Scotland will close to pupils at the end of the week.
The first minister said there will be further announcements to support low income students on free school meals as well as students who have exams.
A person has died from coronavirus in Burkina Faso, the first known death from the disease in sub-Saharan Africa, writes the Guardian’s international correspondent Michael Safi.
The country, where security has been deteriorating for months due to attacks by armed groups including some linked to Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, has emerged as a hotspot in Africa, with 27 confirmed cases and at least 200 more people suspected of having the disease.
Continue reading...England’s deputy chief medical officer does not rule out further curbs; Ohio primary polls ordered to close; France in lockdown; WHO urges widespread testing. Follow the latest updates
Iran has temporarily freed a total of 85,000 prisoners, including political prisoners, a spokesman for its judiciary said on Tuesday, adding that the prisons were responding to the threat of a coronavirus epidemic in jails.
“Some 50% of those released are security-related prisoners . Also in the jails we have taken precautionary measures to confront the outbreak,” the spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili.
The #Iranian government feels it is appropriate to release 80k+ prisoners due to #Covid_19 ,including murderers&drug dealers,but continuously refuse to release the innocent political prisoners,because they hold too much value as bargaining chips #freeanoosheh
On the island of Jamaica, political and social messages have long been spread through the dancehalls and music, and so it is with coronavirus.
Just days after the island’s first confirmed case, an educational single, New Hail, was released to teach listeners how to avoid spreading the virus.
Mi just ah think, we cyan a guh roun’ and touch touch people like we used to. Then me link wid one of my G dem - and you know da likkle supm deh weh we ah rub off big finga? Mi seh dah hail deh now, it haffi guh cut out. Because dis nuh good fi we health, right now. Right deh so now, di song pop inna mi head, like yow, we need fi hail wid we foot enuh.
It a affect yuh, and it nuh care ‘bout race, riches or gender. A nuh everything make fi gimmick and joke ‘bout. As an artiste, I’m all about the fun, but this is not a fun thing and me coulda never do a dance fi some people siddung and joke and laugh about. Yuh know how much street dance cancel over this thing, how many people livelihood affected? Yuh know how much a my show dem get cancel because no travelling nah gwaan?
Continue reading...New South Wales teachers union warns it is ‘impossible’ for schools to practise social distancing measures recommended by the government
Dozens of independent schools across Australia are going ahead with shutdowns as the New South Wales teachers union warns it is “impossible” for them to practise social distancing measures recommended by the government.
On Tuesday, Pymble Ladies College in Sydney joined dozens of private schools in Victoria when it announced it would move to online classes from Thursday.
Continue reading...Sharp losses recorded after US interest rate cut, as Bank of England hints at further support to combat turmoil
The FTSE 100 fell below 5,000 points on Monday and trading on Wall Street was suspended for the third time in a week as markets were gripped by mounting concerns over the threat of a global recession, despite a coordinated effort by central banks to protect growth and jobs.
In an escalation of the worst turmoil since the 2008 financial crisis, stock markets suffered further sharp losses on Monday despite dramatic action taken by the US central bank late on Sunday in an attempt to limit the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...Minister’s spokesperson says arrangements ‘consistent with other employment programs’ but few require group activities
Aboriginal people who work for the dole will have to show up for group activities as usual, despite the government telling service providers that there is a “high likelihood that larger scale community outbreaks [of Covid-19] will occur in the near future”.
The National Indigenous Australians agency (NIAA) wrote to CDP (community development program) providers on Monday to tell them “mutual obligations remain in place at this stage”, meaning that Aboriginal people will still be expected to turn up for work or risk losing their welfare payments.
Continue reading...Thousands in limbo around the world as vessels seek a port at which to dock
As countries scramble to close their borders in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of cruise ship passengers are stranded on the high seas while their vessels seek a port at which to dock.
The Norwegian Jewel, sailing under the flag of the Bahamas, has been refused permission to dock in French Polynesia, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, and is piloting to American Samoa to refuel.
Continue reading...A summary of the biggest developments in the global coronavirus outbreak
Key developments in the global coronavirus outbreak today include:
Continue reading...Trump tests negative while Spanish PM’s wife tests positive; France and Israel announce partial closure of country; scientists condemn UK ‘herd immunity’ strategy. Follow live news
The US city of Hoboken, across the Hudson River from New York City, has announced a night curfew starting 16 March and ordered bars and restaurants to conduct only delivery services amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
An Uzbek citizen has tested positive for coronavirus after returning from France, Uzbekistan’s Healthcare Ministry said on Sunday, marking the first infection from the virus in the Central Asian country of 34 million.
Number of UK deaths rises to 35 while other countries introduce stricter new measures
Here comes Donald Trump.
Speaking of which:
California governor Gavin Newsom announces that the state's bars, nightclubs, breweries and wineries be closed.
Continue reading...Strong wind warnings also in place for coastal regions across south-east Queensland and northern NSW
Tropical Cyclone Gretel is set to bypass Norfolk Island in the next 48 hours, although it will still create damaging winds.
Tropical Cyclone Gretel may not make landfall but was still expected to have an impact with damaging wind warnings of around 100km/h for coastal regions across south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales.
Continue reading...Concern over large gathering of potential jurors for empanelment sees chief justice announce drastic measure
Courts across the state of Victoria in Australia will immediately suspend all future jury trials in a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19. The drastic measure will apply to the county and supreme courts.
Supreme court chief justice Anne Ferguson said all new jury trials would be suspended but that trials in which a jury had already been empanelled would continue.
Continue reading...Discredited themes, including that men’s aggression is caused by partners who seek to deny access to their kids, have drawn most of the attention this week
l The only authorised video stream of this week’s federal parliamentary hearings into Australia’s family law system was broadcast on Pauline Hanson’s Facebook page. The camera was operated by Hanson’s aide James Ashby, the stream captioned like an official broadcast but published with hundreds of unfiltered live comments from apparently aggrieved fathers, who called witnesses and MPs “man-hater” and “dirty snake”.
In the shadow of the murders of Hannah Clarke and her three children, expert witnesses have told the inquiry that reform to family law is increasingly urgent to better protect mostly women and children, primarily from men who perpetrate acts of coercive control and domestic violence.
Continue reading...A nation supposedly forged in the hellfire of war almost crumbled in the face of a virulent threat at home
Newly federated Australia, with its population not yet 5 million, was still enduring shocking fatalities on the European western front when its authorities began paying attention to the virulent strain of pneumonic influenza sweeping Britain.
Early Australian awareness of the “Spanish influenza” – an epidemic in Britain by mid to late 1918 – came with an acknowledgment that the new states grown of old colonies would need to stick together should the virus reach this isolated continent.
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