Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Addressing 12 factors such as excessive drinking and air pollution exposure may have significant effect, experts say
Excessive drinking, exposure to air pollution and head injuries all increase dementia risk, experts say in a report revealing that up to 40% of dementia cases worldwide could be delayed or prevented by addressing 12 such lifestyle factors.
Around 50 million people around the world live with dementia, including about 850,000 people in the UK. By 2040, it has been estimated there will be more than 1.2 million people living with dementia in England and Wales. There is currently no cure.
Ambassador’s warning comes in response to UK’s special visa offer to Hong Kong citizens
China will not recognise the British national (overseas) passport as a legal travel document, raising the prospect that the 3 million Hong Kong citizens eligible for the passport will be banned from leaving Hong Kong by the Chinese government.
The warning was made at a press conference by the Chinese ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, in which he also warned that it was hard to imagine a global Britain that bypassed or excluded China. Decoupling from China would mean decoupling from growth and the future, he suggested.
Lawyers argue human rights of ‘extremely vulnerable’ woman were breached by Home Office access to personal and confidential details
A British victim of trafficking is bringing a case against the home secretary, Priti Patel, arguing that her department unlawfully accessed personal information including details of her intimate thoughts.
If the case succeeds it could have implications for tens of thousands of others who may also have had their personal information accessed by officials. Five other survivors of trafficking have threatened the minister and her office with legal proceedings on this issue.
Governments have the right to restrict protests on public health grounds, within reason, the UN Human Rights Committee said, as demonstrations clash with coronavirus outbreaks around the world.
The committee stepped in to formulate its legal interpretation having seen a gap in the international norms being tested before the pandemic started, since when the matter has become more pressing.
The protection of ‘public health’ ground may exceptionally permit restrictions to be imposed, for example where there is an outbreak of an infectious disease and gatherings are dangerous.
It’s understandable and acceptable that for health reasons there may be limits on your rights.
The Philippine government’s Covid-19 task force confirmed 3,954 new infections on Thursday, the country’s largest single-day increase in new cases.
The information on the surge in infections, which was a sharp increase from the record 2,539 cases confirmed on 8 July, was mentioned in a regular circular issued by the inter-agency task force.
Following the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK and across the world, the Guardian interviewed 50 young black Britons, many of whom have been at the heart of the recent anti-racism protests, to ask what changes they would like to see in their lifetime.
Three demands came up repeatedly: decolonising the curriculum; divesting funds away from police forces in favour of a public health-focused approach to crime; and better representation of black Britons across a wider section of society.
Energy giant hit by massive change in fortunes as Covid-19 crisis forces writedown in asset values
Royal Dutch Shell has reported a deep financial loss after a record writedown on the value of its oil and gas assets due to the collapse in global market prices triggered by coronavirus.
The Anglo-Dutch oil giant revealed a net loss of $18.3bn (£14.1bn) for the second quarter 2020, down sharply from a net profit of $3bn over the same period last year and $2.7bn in the first three months of 2020.
Britain's health secretary, Matt Hancock, has confirmed the government is looking at measures to prevent a second wave of Covid-19 from reaching the UK, as cases rise across Europe. Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer, is expected to announce an increase in the self-isolation period for those with symptoms.
'We can see a second wave of coronavirus that's starting to roll across Europe' Hancock said.'We want to do everything we possibly can to protect people from that wave reaching our shores'
UK and EU at odds over role of European court of justice in settling disputes
Boris Johnson is facing a major Brexit test with the future of Eurotunnel operations at stake, it has emerged.
The EU wants the UK to drop its opposition to a role for the European court of justice in British affairs to ensure trains keep running between France and the UK after Brexit is implemented on 1 January.
Grant Shapps returned to the UK on Wednesday after curtailing his holiday in Spain to deal with the fallout from the government's decision to impose quarantine restrictions on travellers arriving from the country. The transport secretary said he felt sorry for people whose holidays had been affected, but defended the government's decision, saying Spain's rate of new infections was now as high as it had been at the peak of the crisis
Four potential Covid-19 vaccines have been secured so far by the UK, which aims to buy up to 12 to ensure that the country has one or more that work as soon as possible. They are:
Here are the main points from Nicola Sturgeon’s press briefing earlier.
I want to give people hope. I think there’s a lot right now that should give all of us hope. It’s been painful, it’s been hard, but we’ve got this virus to really low levels.
But I don’t do my job, I don’t discharge my responsibilities and ultimately I don’t do anybody any favours if I give false hope, or if I get so desperate, as I am to get everybody back to normal, that I forget about the risks that we face, and then I’m standing here in a few weeks and we’re going backwards.
My biggest concern right now is that there are things that all of us can do to keep this under control that we’re all maybe getting a bit lax at doing.
Sometimes one person’s political issue is another person’s very legitimate issue, part and parcel of dealing with Covid. And the fiscal flexibility of the government to deal with the overall consequences of Covid [an issue raised by the reporter] I would put into the latter category.
The all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, which is chaired by the Lib Dem MP Layla Moran, is holding its own inquiry into the lessons to be learnt from coronavirus, and today it has holding its first oral evidence session. Niall Dickson, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS leaders, told the group that NHS managers were very worried about a second wave. He said:
I would say in relation to the second spike issue or something coming, the levels of concern among our members - the people who are leading NHS trusts, who are leading in primary care and all levels in the systems - is very high.
I mean, of course, there’s real concern about winter and the compounding factors there, but also about an earlier spike.
Both sides seeking deal to secure continuous trade once Brexit implemented on 1 January
The UK is close to sealing a “continuity” trade deal with Japan that will mirror that of the EU pact that Britain will no longer be part of next January.
But in order to strike an agreement in time for it to be ratified by the Japanese parliament, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has had to drop her ambitions for preferential treatment for British food exports.
Duchess of Sussex suing owner of Mail on Sunday and Mail Online in privacy battle
Lawyers for the Duchess of Sussex have claimed five female friends who spoke anonymously to a US magazine to defend her against British tabloid bullying are entitled to a “super-charged right of confidentiality” as she fought to protect their identities in her privacy battle against the Mail on Sunday.
Forcing her to make public their names was an “unacceptable price to pay” for pursuing her legal action over publication of extracts from a private letter she wrote to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, 75, the high court in London heard.
The death of George Floyd in the US sparked the UK’s biggest anti-racism protests in centuries. We spoke to 50 young people at the heart of these rallies
Oliver Dowden has dismissed the idea that coronavirus testing at airports could avoid the need for travel restrictions such as the two-week quarantine placed on people returning to the UK from Spain. 'It's not the case that you can simply test somebody and be sure they don't have the disease,' the culture secretary told BBC Breakfast. 'At this stage, it's just not the case that we can simply test at the border and give people that assurance.'
Plans mooted to pool strategic resources and lessen west’s dependency on China
The Five Eyes intelligence alliance could be expanded to include Japan and broadened into a strategic economic relationship that pools key strategic reserves such as critical minerals and medical supplies, according to centre-right MPs working internationally to decouple the west from China.
The coronavirus crisis has revealed the west’s key strategic dependencies on China, and plans will be announced shortly under Five Eyes auspices for a major increase in production of rare and semi-rare metals from Australia, Canada, and America in order to reduce dependency on Chinese stocks.
Trump blames US case surge on protestors; WHO warns pandemic is “one big wave”, not seasonal; Air travel not expected to recover until 2024. Follow the latest updates
Florida reported another record one-day rise in coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, and cases in Texas passed the 400,000 mark, fueling fear that the United States is still not taking control of the outbreak and adding pressure on Congress to pass another massive economic aid package.
Public health experts are becoming concerned about the levels of infection in states such as Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky, while the surge in Florida along with Texas, Arizona and California this month has strained many hospitals.
US officials say Russian intelligence services are using a trio of English-language websites to spread disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, seeking to exploit a crisis that America is struggling to contain ahead of the presidential election in November.
Two Russians who have held senior roles in Moscow’s military intelligence service known as the GRU have been identified as responsible for a disinformation effort reaching American and western audiences, US government officials said on Tuesday. They spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The US attorney general William Barr will be tested for Covid-19, after coming in close contact with Texas Republican congressman Louie Gohmert on Tuesday when Barr testified before the House Judiciary Committee, a Justice Department spokeswoman confirmed to Reuters.
Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec added that Barr already faces routine testing for Covid-19 at the White House.
Berlin’s Tegel airport began large-scale coronavirus testing on Wednesday, as airports across Germany prepared for the advent of free, compulsory testing for many passengers from next week.
Two rooms were set aside for tests, but an airport spokeswoman said a larger space was being prepared, indicating that authorities are preparing for testing to remain a fixture for a long time to come.