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 pandemic is ravaging an already weakened economy. But Iranian activists across society are stepping up
On Monday evening, just five days ahead of Nowruz, the Persian new year holiday, police descended upon a small local market in west Tehran. They ordered local vendors to pack up their wares, their socks, colanders, and plastic flowers, telling them that by selling goods in public they were helping spread the coronavirus. On Tuesday evening, they returned, and found one tenacious seller hawking in the same place. “You, here again!” barked a security officer. “If I don’t sell, how am I going to pay my rent?” the woman asked plaintively.
It should not have come as a surprise. Life had already been upended in China. Iran and Italy have been reeling for a month. And yet it still felt sudden, this week, when walls were raised across the world, entire societies were quarantined and billions of people realised they had crossed a dividing line: from life before coronavirus to after.
After weeks of governments prevaricating over whether to ban mass gatherings, close businesses or seal borders, restrictions came in a flurry. “We are at war,” announced the French president, Emmanuel Macron. But without adequate weapons to fight the virus, let alone enough hospital beds or ventilators, this was the week the world beat a tactical retreat.
Experts fear swarms like those seen in Africa will become more common as tropical storms create favourable breeding conditions
The locust crisis that has now reached 10 countries could carry on to endanger millions more people, forecasters have said.
Climate change created unprecedented conditions for the locusts to breed in the usually barren desert of the Arabian gulf, according to experts, and the insects were then able to spread through Yemen, where civil war has devastated the ability to control locust populations.
Qatar’s largest labour camp for migrant workers has become a virtual prison and is in total lockdown after hundreds of construction workers became infected with Covid-19.
Police are guarding the perimeter of a huge zone within the “Industrial Area”, leaving thousands of workers trapped in squalid, over-crowded camps, where the virus can spread rapidly. No one can enter or leave, say workers who live in the area, many of whom had been working on Fifa World Cup 2022 infrastructure projects.
Competition laws will be temporarily relaxed to allow supermarkets to collaborate in feeding the UK.
Retailers will be able to pool staff, share data on stock levels, and share distribution depots and delivery vans as supermarkets face intense demand, the government confirmed.
Donald Trump sowed fresh confusion about the US government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic by claiming that a therapeutic drug will be available “almost immediately” – only to be contradicted by officials.
In a rambling performance at Thursday’s White House press conference, the president asserted that chloroquine, used to combat malaria, had been approved and would be made available by prescription.
They’re doing great with the vaccines but there’s still a long process, but the therapies are something we can move on much faster potentially. And the treatments that will be able to reduce the severity or duration of the symptoms – make people better.
Chloroquine, or hydroxychloroquine, this is a common malaria drug. It’s also a drug used for strong arthritis … It’s been around for a long time, so we know if things don’t go as planned it’s not going to kill anybody … It’s shown very, very encouraging early results, and we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately.
Pres. Trump touts chloroquine, an old malaria drug, that doctors say may help treat novel coronavirus, claims it will be available "almost immediately."
Researchers find people are being forced from their homes because poor water supplies are leaving families unable to sustain themselves through agriculture
• Photographs by Tom Peyre-Costa for the Norwegian Refugee Council
Family of women’s rights campaigner Loujain Hathloul pledge to fight on after her court hearing is cancelled
Loujain al-Hathloul first realised that speaking up could make a difference when she was five years old. Her father, a navy veteran who wanted his children to be strong swimmers, took her to the local pool where other visitors chastised him for bringing a girl in a pair of swimming trunks to the male-only area.
“He told them that if they were uncomfortable with what a five-year-old girl was wearing then that was their problem,” said Loujain’s sister, Lina. “After that, lots of fathers started taking their little girls along to swim.”
Analysis reveals devastating impact from warring parties on country’s hospitals and doctors
Hospitals and doctors in Yemen have been targeted at least 120 times by the conflict’s warring parties, according to a report that gives the most comprehensive analysis to date of the devastating effect of war on the country’s healthcare system.
There were 120 incidents across 20 of Yemen’s 22 governorates between March 2015 and December 2018, including airstrikes, ground attacks, military occupation, assaults on health workers and other violations such as looting and restrictions on humanitarian aid, according to analysis co-published by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Yemeni human rights group Mwatana on Wednesday.
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.
Legislation to stop ‘vexatious’ claims excludes alleged crimes by military personnel in Northern Ireland
A five-year time limit on bringing prosecutions against soldiers and veterans who have served abroad – except in “exceptional circumstances” – is to be imposed under legislation introduced by the government.
Clauses in the overseas operations (service personnel and veterans) bill would protect serving and former military personnel from what the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, claimed was a “vexatious” cycle of claims and re-investigations.
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?
Director-general of World Health Organization says ‘We cannot fight a fire blindfolded’ and urges governments to test public; US measures ramped up; Germany closes shops. Follow the latest news
Angela Merkel has announced a raft of further drastic measures to curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus in Germany, including the closure of places of worship, playgrounds and non-essential shops.
Speaking at a press conference in Berlin on Monday afternoon, the German chancellor issued new guidelines for restricting social gatherings, which the country’s federal state are expected to enforce in the coming days. She said:
These are measures that we have never had in our country, but they are necessary to reduce the number of illnesses and severe illnesses and avoid overwhelming our health services.
The more individuals stick to these rules, the quicker we will get through this phase. The benchmark [for these measures] isn’t what we want to do, but what scientists tell us is the right response”.
Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, says he will close his country’s border to foreigners. Only four Canadian airports will be allowed to accept international flights, he said.
The closure will not apply to commerce or trade, Trudeau said.
HAPPENING NOW: I’m speaking from Rideau Cottage about the rapidly evolving COVID-19 outbreak and announcing significant new measures we’re taking to protect your health and keep you safe. Watch live: https://t.co/ZWtPbeNPVk
RAF has launched no attacks in Syria or Iraq since September, but controversy continues over civilian casuality numbers
Britain’s five-year air war against Isis has quietly come to an end, with official figures revealing no bombs have been dropped since September – yet the MoD still acknowledges only one civilian casualty in the entire conflict.
Countries across Africa have imposed wide-ranging and stringent new measures as the coronavirus begins to spread more rapidly across the continent.
Though the continent is still far behind Europe and Asia in the total numbers of Covid-19 cases, the disease has now reached about half of its countries. Algeria has 48 confirmed cases, Egypt 110, while South Africa has 62, according to the World Health Organization and national governments on Monday. Other countries have fewer cases, mostly in single figures.
Latest figures show nine stadium worker deaths in 2019 alone, as human rights organisations criticise delay in implementing labour reform
Nine migrant labourers working on the stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar died in 2019, the “supreme committee” organising the event has announced, bringing the number of deaths on World Cup projects to 34, since construction began six years ago.
31 of the deaths, including the nine who died last year, are classified as “non-work related”, a term the supreme committee uses to describe deaths that largely occur off the worksite, most of which are attributed to sudden and unexplained cardiac or respiratory failure.
Independence movement lodges documents in high court arguing $45bn fund invests in illegally mined fertiliser
The Western Sahara liberation movement has taken New Zealand’s superannuation fund to the country’s highest court over its investments in farms that use phosphate illegally mined in the occupied territory.
New Zealand is one of the few remaining countries – and last western nation – that accepts imports from the contested territory in West Africa, forcibly occupied by Morocco since 1975. Morocco’s claims to the territory are largely unrecognised internationally.
Once Yemen’s capital of culture, the city is split between Houthi and government control – and a drive that used to take five minutes now takes five hours
In a conflict often called the “forgotten war”, one Yemeni city feels most forgotten of all.
“I want the whole world to know about Taiz,” declares Mohammed Saleh al-Qaisi. “I want them to see what Taiz was, and what’s happening now.” We’re sitting on a step on a street buzzing with motorcycles and the tinkle of bicycle bells. A few shops away, young men drinking hot sweet tea cradle rifles in their laps and wave at passersby. Above them, a billboard advertises books from Cambridge University Press and McGraw-Hill.
All major world religions are limiting large gatherings and physical contact to halt transmission of Covid-19
Events to mark important religious festivals could be cancelled or curtailed in the coming weeks because of the coronavirus crisis.
Next month, most of the world’s major religions have festivals involving large gatherings of people. Easter is on 12 April (a week later for Eastern Orthodox churches); Passover begins on 8 April; Rama Navami, an important Hindu festival, is on 2 April; while the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi is a few days later. The Islamic holy month of Ramadan begins around 23 April.
The World Health Organization has stepped up its calls for intensified action to fight the coronavirus pandemic, imploring countries “not to let this fire burn”, as Spain said it would declare a 15-day state of emergency from Saturday.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said Europe – where the virus is present in all 27 EU states and has infected 25,000 people – had become the centre of the epidemic, with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined apart from China.