Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Leading Democrats tell UK foreign secretary that Northern Ireland peace deal cannot be casualty of Brexit
Joe Biden on Wednesday joined the clamour of Democrats warning Boris Johnson not to let the Northern Ireland Good Friday agreement become a casualty of his Brexit talks.
The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, is in Washington trying to repair relations with pro-Irish Democrats amid concerns that the UK’s attempt to leave the EU on its own terms will undermine the Good Friday peace agreement.
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said a vaccine against the deadly coronavirus could be three or four weeks away, underscoring predictions made by US public health officials and Pfizer Inc earlier this month, Reuters reports.
Trump, speaking at a town hall hosted by ABC News in Philadelphia, defended his handling of the coronavirus crisis, and said a vaccine could be ready for distribution soon.
“We’re very close to having a vaccine,” he said. “If you want to know the truth, the previous administration would have taken perhaps years to have a vaccine because of the FDA and all the approvals. And we’re within weeks of getting it you know could be three weeks, four weeks.”
The average age of people infected with Covid-19 is coming down, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) expert, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove. She has told a Q&A that incidences of hospitalisation among those aged 15 to 49 years are increasing.
She also said it was possible for the same person to be infected with influenza and Covid-19, adding that the WHO was looking into the prevalence of that.
Earlier, we posted that the Czech Republic had reported its highest daily count since the beginning of the pandemic. The country’s health minister, Adam Vojtěch, has told its parliament the government plans to ban stand-up indoor events as of Friday to help stabilise the situation.
Inevitably the numbers in the coming days will be very similar to the current increases.
We have to calculate with that, although we are hoping for a certain decline or at least stabilisation from the measures adopted.
The Caribbean island’s leader says its people want a ‘Barbadian head of state’ and aim to achieve the goal by November 2021
Barbados has announced its intention to remove the Queen as its head of state and become a republic by November 2021.
A speech written by its prime minister, Mia Mottley, quoted a warning by the Caribbean island nation’s first premier, Errol Barrow, against “loitering on colonial premises”.
Restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus in the UK has driven stress, anxiety and depression far above normal levels and may do again in coming months if widespread lockdowns are re-imposed, researchers say.
A major study into the mental health impact of the pandemic found that in the early stages of lockdown 57% of those who took part reported symptoms of anxiety, with 64% recording common signs of depression.
Almost nine in 10 pupils have attended schools in England since their full reopening this month, government figures show. Around 92% of state schools were fully open on Thursday September 10, and approximately 88% of students were back in class on the same day, the Department for Education analysis suggests.
There have been a further 110 cases of Covid-19 in Wales, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 19,681. Public Health Wales said no further deaths had been reported, with the total number of deaths since the beginning of the pandemic remaining at 1,597.
Around 400 people to be housed in Kent as UK deals with record levels of arrivals crossing Channel
Migrants who have crossed the Channel in small boats are to be housed in former military barracks while their asylum claims are processed, it has emerged.
Around 400 people including families are to be housed in temporary accommodation at Napier Barracks near Folkestone, Kent, from 21 September, MP Damian Collins said.
As cases continue to rise in the Netherlands, the Dutch government has said it will maintain heavy public spending in an effort to counter the losses from the pandemic despite its finances worsening.
In his annual speech outlining the government’s new budget on Tuesday, King Willem-Alexander said:
In these insecure times, the government chooses not to cut spending, but to invest, in job security, social safety nets and a stronger economy.”
New coronavirus cases in the Netherlands have hit a daily record of 1,379 in the past 24 hours, according to Dutch daily newspaper de Volkskrant.
On Monday, health authorities in the country recorded 1,300 new infections, it said.
The internal market bill will face opposition in the Lords and amendments from Tory backbenchers
The internal market bill, described by the government as a key element of Brexit legislation, has cleared its first Commons hurdle, with two Tory MPs voting against it and nearly 30 more abstaining. But why is the bill so significant?
Hilary Mantel will not win a third Booker prize with the final novel in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, after American writers made a near clean sweep of this year’s shortlist.
With four writers of colour among its six authors, the shortlist, announced on Tuesday, is the most diverse line-up in the prize’s history. Four debut novelists – Diane Cook, Avni Doshi, Douglas Stuart and Brandon Taylor – are up against the acclaimed Zimbabwean Tsitsi Dangarembga, and the Ethiopian-American Maaza Mengiste for the £50,000 award.
Covid has got experts thinking urgently about the risk of diseases passing from farmed animals to humans. We examine the major outbreaks of the past two centuries
UK updates travel advice and US urges citizens to ‘reconsider travel’ to Hong Kong
The US and the UK have warned of a risk of arbitrary arrest in China and Hong Kong in updates to their travel advice for citizens.
The US advice urged citizens to “reconsider travel” to Hong Kong, citing an environment in which the central Chinese government “unilaterally and arbitrarily exercises police and security power” in the semi-autonomous city.
Critics say advice should have been sought from lawyers without views on EU debate
The government is facing increasing scrutiny over its decision to use “committed Brexiteer” lawyers to provide advice on the legality of breaching the EU withdrawal agreement.
On Saturday, the attorney general, Suella Braverman QC, who chaired the annual general meeting of the Bar Council that represents barristers in England and Wales, faced repeated criticism over her role as the government’s chief legal adviser, according to those present.
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Heald also expressed his unhappiness at the UK government claiming precedent for breaking international law.
He said:
Can I just also say that I was surprised to see this justified by the precedent, allegedly, of the Finance Act 2013 General Anti-Abuse Rule by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
I was a law officer at the time, Dominic Grieve was attorney general. And one thing I can say about Dominic Grieve is that he was very correct and made sure that Government legislation did not offend the rule of law - he was extremely painstaking.
The Oxford-based Recovery trial which proved that steroids saved the lives of some Covid patients will now take on a promising but far more expensive new antibody combination treatment, it has been announced.
A cohort of patients joining the trial in most NHS acute hospitals will be randomly allocated to Regeneron’s experimental drug, called REGN-COV2. The drug is a combination of two human neutralising antibodies against the virus. The company previously developed a similar antibody drug against Ebola.
Grouse shooting and hunting with guns in England are among outdoor activities exempted from the government’s “rule of six” coronavirus regulations.
Confirmation that the latest health protection regulations permit groups of up to 30 to take part in any “sports gathering” was published only minutes before coming into force.
Phosphine, released by microbes in oxygen-starved environments, was present in quantities larger than expected
Traces of a pungent gas that waft through the clouds of Venus may be emanations from aerial organisms – microbial life, but not as we know it.
Astronomers detected phosphine 30 miles up in the planet’s atmosphere and have failed to identify a process other than life that could account for its presence.
Russian opposition leader taken off ventilator and can leave his bed, hospital reports
The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been taken off a ventilator and is able to leave his bed for short periods of time, German doctors who have been treating him for novichok poisoning have said.
In a significant update, the Charité hospital in Berlin said Navalny’s condition “continues to improve” and hinted that he was able to talk. It said latest news of his health was made public after consultation with Navalny and his wife.
Cybersecurity experts concerned by possible intent behind use of big data to compile lists featuring everyone from low-key individuals to the royal family
The personal details of millions of people around the world have been swept up in a database compiled by a Chinese tech company with reported links to the country’s military and intelligence networks, according to a trove of leaked data.
About 2.4 million people are included in the database, assembled mostly based on public open-source data such as social media profiles, analysts said. It was compiled by Zhenhua Data, based in the south-eastern Chinese city of Shenzhen.