Category Archives: UK news

Coronavirus live news: Brazil surpasses one million cases

Posted on by

Country hits grisly milestone as WHO says pandemic is entering ‘new and dangerous phase’

In Australia, authorities are watching the rise in coronavirus cases in Victoria closely as the state prepares to further ease restrictions from Monday.

Gyms, cinemas, indoor sports centres and concert venues are scheduled to reopen on Monday while cafes, restaurants and pubs will increase capacity from 20 people to 50.

Brazil has passed a total of more than one million coronavirus cases, and nearly 50,000 deaths, according to its health ministry data, in a new low for the world’s second worst-hit country.

Brazil has recorded 1,032,913 confirmed cases, second only to the United States, with 1,206 new deaths reported on Friday to take the total official fatalities to 48,954, the ministry said.

Continue reading...

Only fraction of £600m pot to fix Grenfell-style cladding spent so far

Posted on by

MPs to launch investigation into delay, which has left 300 highrises yet to be remediated

The government has spent less than a quarter of what it promised to replace dangerous Grenfell-style cladding, leaving 300 highrise buildings still not fixed three years after the disaster.

Ministers pledged £400m in May 2018 to strip social housing towers of aluminium composite material (ACM) panels similar to those which spread the fire at Grenfell Tower in west London, killing 72 people in June 2017. But only £133m has been spent, a National Audit Office report found, leaving more than half of the 154 affected blocks still needing work.

Continue reading...

Dysfunctional ‘toxic culture’ led to Labour defeat, major report finds

Posted on by

Exclusive: party has mountain to climb to return to power, says Labour Together review

Labour has a “mountain to climb” if it is to get back into power, according to a major review of the 2019 general election defeat, which paints a picture of dysfunctionality, toxicity and drift inside the party’s election-fighting machine.

Negative perceptions of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, doubts about the manifesto and the party’s ambivalent Brexit stance reinforced each other in a “snowballing” effect to deliver December’s catastrophic result, the 150-page report by the party group Labour Together argues.

Continue reading...

UK abandons contact-tracing app for Apple and Google model

Posted on by

NHS to switch to alternative design by tech giants, says Matt Hancock in latest U-turn

The government has been forced to abandon a centralised coronavirus contact-tracing app after spending three months and millions of pounds on technology that experts had repeatedly warned would not work.

In an embarrassing U-turn, Matt Hancock said the NHS would switch to an alternative designed by the US tech companies Apple and Google, which is months away from being ready.

Continue reading...

Little point prolonging EU talks into autumn, Johnson tells Macron

Posted on by

French president holds talks with PM on UK visit to mark second world war anniversary

Boris Johnson has told Emmanuel Macron that he sees little point prolonging UK-EU talks on a future trading relationship into the autumn.

The French president was in London on Thursday for a largely ceremonial visit. No 10 said Johnson had welcomed a recent agreement to intensify talks on the issue in July. However, comments dismissing the idea of “prolonged negotiations” suggest that Johnson is increasingly prepared to end the talks without an agreement and thinks both sides would need time to prepare for this rather than make last-minute adjustments in December when the existing transition period expires.

Continue reading...

Piloted in May, ditched in June: the failure of England’s Covid-19 app

Posted on by

How the government came to scrap its contact-tracing app in favour of Apple and Google’s

Designed to be a key component of the test, track and trace programme to forge a way out of lockdown, the NHS Covid-19 app has been beset by problems from day one – despite repeated claims to the contrary.

After a trial on the Isle of Wight at the start of May, the contact-tracing app was meant to be rolled out to the rest of England by the middle of the month. That soon slipped to some time in June. Then on Wednesday it emerged that we would have to wait until the winter. Now – after much behind-the-scenes scrambling, and head-scratching in Westminster – officials have decided to ditch the app entirely in its current form.

Continue reading...

Government ‘backed both horses’ on contact-tracing app, says Matt Hancock – video

Posted on by

The health secretary has insisted the government 'backed both horses' in Covid-19 contact-tracing trials, after it abandoned development of its NHSX app. After the trial on the Isle of Wright revealed the app was highly inaccurate on iPhones, focus will turn instead to technology from Google and Apple

Continue reading...

Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds among UK banks that had links to slavery

Posted on by

Many bank directors received compensation after slavery was made illegal in 1833

The slave trade was abolished in the British Empire in 1807 but it was not until 1833 that the Slavery Abolition Act finally banned the ownership of other human beings. However, 46,000 slave owners continued to benefit financially as the subsequent Slave Compensation Act provided £20m in payments – a sum worth billions in 2020 terms. Despite the name of the act, the former slaves were not compensated.

University College London’s Legacies of British Slave Ownership project shows that 10% to 20% of Britain’s wealthy can be identified as having had significant links to slavery. The amount of money borrowed to pay off slave owners was so large that the government only repaid it fully in 2015. Companies with links to slavery in their past include:

Continue reading...

Raab betrays his ignorance of the origin and meaning of taking a knee

Posted on by

Linking to Game of Thrones disregards Colin Kaepernick’s protest and what it inspired

The foreign secretary Dominic Raab’s assertion that the act of taking a knee appears to be “a symbol of subjugation and subordination” that originates from the TV show Game of Thrones showed a startling level of ignorance of the genesis of the protest adopted by the Black Lives Matter movement.

When the then NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the US national anthem before a game on 1 September 2016 to highlight racism, it began a protest that would reverberate around the world.

Continue reading...

Imran Farooq: several convicted over murder of Pakistani exile in London

Posted on by

Pakistani court gives MQM party members life sentences for stabbing political rival in 2010

A Pakistani court has convicted several men over the murder of a prominent exiled politician in north London 10 years ago.

Dr Imran Farooq, 50, was repeatedly stabbed and bludgeoned with a house brick in Edgware as he returned home from work on 16 September 2010. The killing of Farooq, a founding member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), sparked rioting in his native city of Karachi.

Continue reading...

Coronavirus live news: New Zealand reports another new case as Brazil nears 1m infections

Posted on by

Deaths worldwide near 500,000; US health expert says country is ‘still in first wave’; Argentinian president enters voluntary isolation amid coronavirus surge. Follow the latest updates

The hospitalisation of Honduras president with Covid-19 and pneumonia Wednesday has drawn attention to another country struggling under the pandemics strain as cases rise sharply in the capital, AP reports.

President Juan Orlando Hernández announced late Tuesday that he and his wife had tested positive for the virus. Just hours later he was hospitalised after doctors determined he had pneumonia.

From March to 7 June, Honduras confirmed 6,327 coronavirus infections. In the 10 days since, it added 3,329 more, a surge that has come after the government began a gradual reactivation of the economy.

The full story on Australia’s unemployment rate now:

Australia lost a further 227,000 jobs between April and May, resulting in a total loss of 835,000 jobs in seasonally adjusted terms since March and a 0.7% jump in unemployment to 7.1%.

Related: Australia loses 227,000 more jobs, taking unemployment to 7.1%

Continue reading...

Macron expected to ask UK to review 14-day quarantine rule

Posted on by

The French president visits No 10 for talks on Thursday during trip to commemorate WWII alliance

The French president Emmanuel Macron is expected to call on the UK to revisit its decision of imposing a 14-day quarantine period on visitors from abroad during his trip to the UK on Thursday.

Macron, on his first visit abroad since the coronavirus outbreak, is in London to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Gen Charles de Gaulle’s broadcast announcing an alliance with Winston Churchill, “the leader of the British empire”, and the launching of the French resistance.

Continue reading...

Marcus Rashford ‘grateful’ for Johnson U-turn on free school meals – video

Posted on by

Marcus Rashford says he was 'shocked' at Boris Johnson's U-turn over providing food vouchers for some of England’s poorest families during the summer. Rashford told BBC Breakfast he was 'grateful' to the prime minister for the move, adding he would continue to fight for meals for children after the summer

Continue reading...

DfID is a world leader in tackling poverty. Our international standing is weakened without it

Posted on by

We risk development priorities becoming secondary to other foreign policy interests, at a time when they’re needed most

The merger of the Department for International Development (DfID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) runs the very real risk of putting an abrupt end to the UK’s “superpower” status in international development.

Gone will be DfID’s clear articulation of purpose — the reduction and eventual elimination of global poverty — which has been a powerful motivating, unifying, and guiding force.

Continue reading...

Coronavirus live news: New Zealand to trace 320 ‘close contacts’ of virus pair who stopped to meet friends

Posted on by

Beijing raises alert level and grounds hundreds of flights; India’s official death toll leaps by more than 2,000 to reach 11,903; Brazil suffers record case increase

Around 11,000 mink at a farm in Denmark will have to be culled after they were found to be infected with the coronavirus, the country’s authorities have said.

The outbreak is the first in Denmark, the world’s biggest producer of mink skins, but comes shortly after the virus was found at 13 mink farms in the Netherlands, where about 570,000 mink have been ordered culled.

If you’re planning to meet Vladimir Putin in the next few weeks, be warned: you will have to pass through a special disinfectant tunnel to get to the Russian president.

Putin’s official spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has confirmed a report by Russian state television that three airport-style tunnels have been built for the president: one at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, where he has reputedly being doing much of his work during the pandemic, and two at the Kremlin.

В резиденции Путина для защиты от коронавируса установили специальный туннель. Он предназначен для дезинфекцииhttps://t.co/jjwWbuZ2EX pic.twitter.com/h62KWARvsr

Continue reading...

Matt Hancock promises update on coronavirus shielding ‘very soon’

Posted on by

Charities had called for clarity after confusion about when scheme in England would end

An announcement on a possible end to the coronavirus shielding programme in England will come “very soon”, the UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, has said, after healthcare charities called for clarity on the government’s plans.

The scheme affects roughly 2.2 million “clinically extremely vulnerable” people, a category that includes those who have had transplants, are having certain cancer treatments, have severe lung conditions or have immune systems that are particularly vulnerable to infection.

Continue reading...

China hits back at Australia’s ‘rubbish’ accusations of spreading disinformation

Posted on by

Chinese embassy in Canberra accuses Australian media of ‘rumours, lies and malicious slanders against China’ that has been picked up by politicians

China has hit back at “baseless accusations” that are “completely rubbish” after Australia accused Beijing of spreading disinformation during the pandemic.

At a press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, the Chinese government spokesman Zhao Lijian accused Australian officials of undermining international efforts to combat the virus.

Continue reading...

‘Unrealistic’ appeals system fails prisoners who have been victims of abuse – report

Posted on by

One month window to challenge convictions in England and Wales means women who have experienced trauma are unfairly criminalised, campaigners say

Women who have been unfairly convicted or sentenced to jail are being denied the chance to redress miscarriages of justice because the appeals system in England and Wales is not fit for purpose, the law group Appeal has alleged.

In particular, those who have been victims of trauma or domestic abuse are unable to make a legal challenge due to the “unrealistic” 28-day window allowed to make an application to the criminal Court of Appeal, the report highlights.

Continue reading...

UK begins talks with Australia and New Zealand on free trade deal for post-Brexit era

Posted on by

Australian and New Zealand ministers say they are eager to do deals with the UK as their economies emerge from the coronavirus crisis

Australia and New Zealand are about to begin negotiations on a free trade agreement with the UK in what the Australian trade minister said was “a strong signal of our mutual support for free trade” in a post-Covid-19 world.

Simon Birmingham said Australia was “ready to help the UK find new beginnings post-Brexit and in doing so, open up new doors for our farmers, businesses and investors”.

Continue reading...

Pandemics result from destruction of nature, say UN and WHO

Posted on by

Experts call for legislation and trade deals worldwide to encourage green recovery

Pandemics such as coronavirus are the result of humanity’s destruction of nature, according to leaders at the UN, WHO and WWF International, and the world has been ignoring this stark reality for decades.

The illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade as well as the devastation of forests and other wild places were still the driving forces behind the increasing number of diseases leaping from wildlife to humans, the leaders told the Guardian.

Continue reading...